Recent Reads {A Darcy Christmas}

A Darcy Christmas - A Holiday Tribute to Jane Austen - by Amanda Grange, Sharon Lathan, and Carolyn Eberhart - This was a quick read, and although I don't think it would win any literary awards, I appreciate that it doesn't try to be something that it's not.   It is just a light, seasonal set of stories, not deep and without any mysteries to unravel.  It's a collection of three brief novellas based on Austen's beloved characters within a Christmas season setting.  The first places Darcy in a similar position to Scrooge - he meets with three spirits on the Christmas Eve after his first disastrous proposal to Elizabeth, and is encouraged to learn from her criticisms and try again to win her rather than give up.  An interesting premise, although I didn't necessarily agree with all the characterizations.  The second story in the collection is basically a narrative of a Christmas in which the Darcys are expecting their first child and spend the holiday with the Bingleys.  Not much in the way of a storyline, but I had no complaints either.  And the third is sort of a collection of their Christmas memories over the long years of their marriage.  None of the three vignettes were offensive, but none were particularly memorable or wonderful either.  But as it is clearly intended to be light seasonal reading, I wasn't entirely disappointed that it didn't contain anything that stood out as particularly valuable or worthy of comment.