The Earl’s Granddaughter
by Ola Wegner
Genres: Romance, Regency, Pride & Prejudice Variation
Release Date: June 7, 2021
Pages: 147
Purchase from: Amazon
My Rating: ★★★☆☆
Pride and Prejudice variation.
What- if scenario of the most beloved novel. Elizabeth, an orphan raised at Longbourn, is not the daughter of Mr. Bennet but his niece. Shortly after Hunsford proposal Elizabeth learns that her late mother was the daughter of the earl. With her life circumstances suddenly changed Elizabeth has to learn how to handle herself as a wealthy young woman with noble connections.
Review
The Earl’s Granddaughter (TEG) was OK. It’s perfectly forgettable. There was nothing particularly bad, but, by the same token, there was nothing particularly good.
Those things that did stand out to me were oddities more than problems. I’ll do my best to cover them in the order they first came to my attention while reading.
- While TEG was an Elizabeth and Darcy story through and through, there were hardly any other characters that got more than a brief mention. It made the story feel insulated and a bit one-dimensional.
- Elizabeth’s change in status — from poor gentleman’s niece to granddaughter of an earl — didn’t really make any difference to the story. I would think that a book titled after her new status would focus on it more. However, there wasn’t much information about how her change in status changed her life and prospects. Elizabeth could have just as easily been a friend of the Countess as her granddaughter, without any changes to the story.
- There were a lot of events and behaviors in TEG that were unbelievable for the Regency era. the Countess left Elizabeth and Darcy alone rather frequently. At the time, young ladies must always have a chaperone among men outside their immediate family to preserve their reputations. Darcy pushed Elizabeth into intimate and compromising situations. A proper gentleman would never even consider doing such a thing with their fiancee, much less a lady they weren’t engaged to. And Elizabeth found nothing wrong with these actions! She has four “sisters” to consider, because if her reputation were ruined, theirs would be as well.
- Elizabeth’s feelings for Darcy seem to change almost instantly. One page she still isn’t super fond of him — or, at best, is still conflicted. Seemingly a page or two later, she’s in love with him and lamenting his absence. If she’s meant to have been lying to herself, it would be useful to include her realization of that.
- Darcy was so eager for a short engagement that he came up with several excuses against a standard length, despite the potential harm to Elizabeth’s reputation. However, when circumstances changed, and his accepted excuse was no longer valid, he didn’t push to keep the short engagement. Instead, he just said OK to waiting 5ish months to marry.
- And finally, the epilogue came out of nowhere. For me, it left more loose ends than the main story. I had far more questions after it than before.
I’ll reiterate that I don’t consider these to be true “problems.” They didn’t ruin enjoyment of the story, for example. But they did stand out to me and I felt they were worth mentioning.
About the Author
My name’s Ola Wegner and I’ve been writing stories for the last couple of years. I am the author of Jane Austen fanfiction, as well as original romance novels. I have lived in Poland, Europe, all my life.
Author links: Goodreads | Amazon Author Page
NOTE: This review is based on an eBook I borrowed from Amazon on May 19, 2022 as part of the Kindle Unlimited program.
