Whist, Blood Pudding, and Pride & Prejudice

A lot has happened in the past month, causing me to neglect the dear blog. In the past four weeks, I had a nasty cold that held on for at least two of those weeks, both parents came to visit, I worked on no less than five editing projects, and a number of books that I worked on were published. In particular, I copyedited a novella collection that will come out from Sourcebooks this winter, which gave me the opportunity to not only work with two authors I’ve sincerely enjoyed working with before, but also gave me the chance to work on a novella for the first time (pretty much the same as other fiction, only, you know, shorter) and work with a debut author on her Pride & Prejudice re-imagining (which is also a kind of A Christmas Carol re-imaging—very cool). All this to say, I have worked on a number of Pride & Prejudice spin-offs, sequels, re-imaginings, etc., and they run the gamut from picking up where P&P left off,  showing what would have happened should Elizabeth and Darcy have made different decisions during the happenings of P&P, to even focusing on side characters or family members we didn’t hear about in P&P.

Earlier this year, I copyedited Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy: The Last Man in the World (see cover above), and I highly recommend the amazing Abigail Reynolds’s books. She’s well-known for her Pride & Prejudice variations, diverting the original tale in interesting ways. Purists are often upset, feeling that some of the characters’ actions in this series are inappropriate. Well, I say, “I believe that’s the point.” Reynolds is still true to the characters in the ways that matter, simply taking one pivotal point in the story to show what would happen had the characters made one decision different. I highly recommend Reynolds’s works, and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, as Publisher’s Weekly so aptly put it contains “characteristic trepidations, setbacks, and miscommunications stick close to the spirit of Austen.”

Darcy Cousins by Monica Fairview just hit shelves last month and is what I would describe as a continuation of P&P, taking on the tale of Darcy’s American cousin, Clarissa, and her effect on the proper Georgiana Darcy and the put upon Anne de Bourgh. This tale is actually a sequel to Monica Fairview’s first P&P sequel, The Other Mr. Darcy, which introduces us to Robert Darcy, Clarissa’s brother, and his relationship with Caroline Bingley.

I must admit, the two above novels have lovely and lively stories in very different ways, and if you aren’t too stuffily attached to the original, you’ll enjoy these books. I’ve copyedited a number of these novels, which I got into due to my British English and in particular Regency Era knowledge. Also, it probably doesn’t hurt that I know how many people can play a hand of whist and what a peer of the realm actually is. To be honest, these are some of my favorite books to work on, so I even know what playing the gooseberry means, how to make black pudding, and how you would wear a pelisse (because seriously, most of us know it’s clothing, but do we all know how one wears it?). All that to say, I have some strange knowledge that means I can fact check  historical fiction as well as make sure the grammar and punctuation is accurate with the best of ‘em and I love doing it. (Any authors out there who need an editor for their work, I don’t just work with publishers!) Stay tuned for news featuring Cecelia Holland’s Hera Series as well as Malcolm Macdonald’s Stevenson saga (both historical fiction series from Sourcebooks).