Mr. Darcy's Great Escape: A Tale of the Darcys & the Bingleys

Enjoyed this book immensely, as I did the two earlier novels in the series, smart continuations of the Darcy and Bingley madcap adventures, replete with new children, swordfights and all manner of mayhem. My wife, God love her, also has read all Ms. Altman's books and has had the same level of enjoyment. I'm looking forward to her next novel(s)!

3 in a series (1) The Darcys & the Bingleys: A Tale of Two Gentlemen's Marriages to Two Most Devoted Sisters (2) The Plight of the Darcy Brothers: A tale of the Darcys & the Bingleys (3) Mr. Darcy's Great Esacape: A Tale of The Darcys & The Bingleys. Easy read, nice series. Lady Catherine finally invites Darcys to Rosings after 8 years, but then asks Darcy to help Fitzwilliam get a mistress since Anne can't conceive, and Catherine insists they have an heir. Darcy & Bingley go to the continent together-- Maddox to go visit his brother Brian who is newly married into Transylvania royalty and happy, Darcy to go find 1/2 brother Gregoire since worried about the Napolean war and not being safe. Maddix and Darcy end up getting imprisoned Transylvania for many months by the royal family since Brian ran off with wife and took 1/2 their fortune. Fitzwilliam, Caroline, and Elizabeth end up rescuing them and also find Gregoire. Darcy takes a long time to recover. Elizabeth has 2 more kids. Ann & Fitzwilliam end up having a natural son.

Many previous reviewers have stated that Altman's style is out of keeping with Austen's style, and furthermore, that is all far-fetched and unbelievable. To them, I can say only this: Marsha Altman is more than just a novelist; she is a historian and a damn good one. She is perhaps the first Austen-enthusiast to remove her characters from the drawing room and place them in an historical context. It is a thing Austen herself could only have dreamed of doing, limited as she was by societal norms. Austen had no choice but to limit herself to the domestic sphere, and it has been argued by many feminist critics (Gilbert and Gubar among them) that Austen was not altogether happy with this arrangement. Altman has no reason to censor herself in this way, and so she does what Austen could not: she explores the truths of Napoleonic Europe--both ugly and wonderful--that lady novelists of the era were not allowed to discuss. War, infidelity, bastard children--all these were quite present in Austen's time but were considered unsuitable reading material for ladies. So what if it is not Austen's style to discuss such things? She hardly had a say in the matter. She could not write about such things, but we can. True, even allowing for all this, some of Altman's plot twists are a bit unbelievable. It is not likely that Darcy would find himself trapped in a prison in the wilds of Austria. But this is territory that is never explored within fan fiction, and we must allow Altman some space to develop these ideas. At the very least we can say that she does not feed us the same fluffy nonsense that other fan fiction writers do. I personally found her depiction of wartime Europe very intriguing, and it inspired me to do some research of my own. It is not often that fan fiction does that, so let's take advantage of it while we can.

Ms. Altman has done it again! She keeps creating this fascinating world that just draws me in. She manages to take these wonderful characters that Ms. Austen created and take them on a journey beyond the imagination. In this story Lady Catherine has summoned Darcy and Elizabeth to Rosings. Once they arrive to Rosings Lady C proves she's still the meddling aunt she's always been. Only this time the stress on her causes her health to suffer. Darcy feels guilty and stays to help with Rosings while Lady C is recuperating. Dr Daniel Maddox, a new character created by Ms Altman who fits in wonderfully with the original cast, receives word from a strange Count in Austria that his brother Brian has been sentenced to death. Darcy, who is also concerned about his newfound brother Gregoire (a monk in a war-torn Europe and hasn't been heard from in a while), decides to travel with Dr. Maddox to a very unstable Europe to retrieve their brothers. Along the way they are abducted by the strange Count and held captive. Through a very cryptic ransom note, word is sent to the wives who enlist the help of the ex Colonel Fitzwilliam to rescue their husbands. This story delves a bit into the psyche of Darcy and helps us understand his strange reticence that we saw more of in Pride and Prejudice. We learn more about his family history and see how much he struggles to recover from his ordeal of being held captive. The confrontation between Elizabeth and Darcy, after Darcy seems to fall into a deep depression from his ordeal, is such a heart-wrenching scene but it shows Elizabeth's determination to fight for Darcy even when it seems he's lost the will to fight. We have seen bits and pieces of Brian Maddox, the brother that caused all of this havoc, in the past and we all love to hate him. But this story goes a bit deeper and we learn more about his struggles with becoming a surrogate father to his brother Dr. Maddox and his newfound wife that he is being threatened with death if she is not with child soon. This tale takes us on the undiscovered world of 19th century Asia and we meet some funny new characters along the way. Ms. Altman has her hands full with this cast she is setting up, but the one thing I love is how this continuation isn't just rainbows and kittens. Life is full of ups and downs and we see how this family struggles with day to day issues, but the underlying theme is that this family, no matter how extended, sticks together in times of need and is truly a family in every sense of the word. A wonderful addition to my Altman collection.

In general, I prefer J.A. sequels that do not stray too far from where Ms. Austen left off, however, I enjoyed this book as I did the two previous in the series (the first being my favorite). Ms. Altman certainly has a gift for "spinning a yarn." While the tale is far removed from the treasured P & P, the story line is not so farfetched that you cannot imagine it; the author remains true to the characters so you can easily place them in her story; and it is engaging from beginning to end with action, romance, wit, and history. I don't like to give spoilers so until someone else comes along who does I hope it suffices to say I read this book in less than two days. Kudos Marsha Altman