by Lília
I love Jane Austen’s novels, and my favorite of them all is Persuasion, with Pride and Prejudice a close second. All the angst of a lost love, second chances, and the uncertainty of love and redemption are elements of many wonderful stories if well-written. There are many retellings of Jane Austen’s novels, and it’s almost impossible to list them all. But there are a few really nice ones floating around in the ether and while reading one, I decided it was a great idea to bring together some of the retellings I’ve read and enjoyed.
The first one I read was Susan Kaye’s Frederick Wentworth, Captain duology, a fanfiction that ended up being independently published, and unfortunately only available second-hand at the moment: None But You and For You Alone, which tells the story from his point of view. Really lovely.
Again the Magic by Lisa Kleypas was a surprise. I actually chose this title because it was a prequel to her Wallflowers series, that starts with Secrets of a Summer Night, and since I enjoy Lisa Kleypas’s stories from time to time, I decided to read it as well. And I really loved it! Published in 2004, it is out of stock but available second-hand.
Anne of Avenue A by Audrey Bellezza and Emily Harding is a nice re-imagining, but I would have preferred they’d used different names instead of literally the same names. The reasons given for Anne to be as she is in this rendition, and how she changes back to her feisty personality, are well done. This is actually the 3rd novel in the For the Love of Austen series, written by the duo.
I just finished reading A Duke in the Rough by Trisha Messmer and I enjoyed it. It has the same vibe the original offered, while bringing up some modern ways of telling a story. It’s also fun and interesting when the main characters start citing Persuasion, signaling that in the story, the original had already been published.
If you’d like to check some other titles, take a look at last year’s post about Jane Austen Retellings.
Have you read any retellings, and were they any good?
