A Curious Statistical Anomaly

Persuasion: A Latter-day Tale by Rebecca H. Jamison. Trade Paperback. ISBN: 978-1599559476. 240 pages. Cedar Fort, Inc. (February 14, 2012). (Amazon: $9.89 / Kindle: $3.82)

This tale is aptly named as it is all about second chances. If you’ve read and loved Jane Austen’s Persuasion, you’ll know the basic story. Anne Elliot was too young when she fell in love with Neil Wentworth. He was ready to commit but she was unsure of her heart. She allowed her family to persuade her to break off with Wentworth. They went their separate ways but now at the start of the book, the two meet again. She’s just as in love with him as she was before but she has no idea what his feelings for her are now — afterall, she broke his heart.

The story opens when Anne is setting up the yard sale to sell the things her father and sister have agreed that they can live without. Her father needs to sell her childhood home and move into a smaller house along with Anne’s older sister, Liz. Mr. Elliot is overextended and has maxed out all his credit cards.

On the day of the yard sale, she learns that there is a buyer for the house — Jack Wentworth, Neil’s brother. Jack’s coming over to look the house over and he’s bringing a friend. Anne is worried and her worst nightmare comes true — the friend is Neil. Later she learns that Jack has decided to buy the house and Neil is now a police detective, which is what he planned to become when they were dating. Neil seems aloof and uninterested in Anne and she can barely blame him after the way she treated him. She’s praying that he still cares for her but is afraid to hope too much.

Jamison has done a wonderful job of updating the original story to fit in today’s society with its different mores and values. Since all the main characters in Persuasian: A Latter-Day Tale are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), many of the values that were looked for by Jane Austen’s characters are also the ones that these characters look for: integrity, honesty, truthfulness, and a strong commitment to their religion. In this case different religion but with many of the same core values as those held by Austen and thus her characters.

What that means to the reader is that there are no lustful sex scenes. Jamison has to tell her story with only the actions and feelings of the characters that Austen would put on the page. She also has to set the characters into this world and this century. Neil Wentworth is a police officer. Anne Elliot works at a brokerage firm helping people weather the economic crisis. Mr. Elliot is always looking for a way to get rich quick and appear to be more than he really is. Liz Elliot is much better in attitude and attributes than her Austen equivalent but that may be because she needs to work in this century.

There is some talk of Mormonism and church functions but, based on the publisher, members of the church are the expected audience. However, while in a few places I thought it went a little over the top — hitting us on the head with details (and I am a Mormon) — it doesn’t detract from the story too much. Jamison also does show that no matter what your religion, there are bad apples in every group — otherwise how could you have tension and demonstrate the naivety of believing that just because a person shares your religion that you should trust them with no other criteria considered.

Jamison has, in my opinion, managed to stay closer to the core story of the original Austen Persuasion than many other authors and tells a good story with people you come immediately to care about. Anne is resilient, strong, and has grown up enough to recognize her own wishes and desires and is now willing to admit to herself what she wants out of life. Since the story is set in modern times there are some surprising twists and turns on the way to reaching what we know will be the best of all possible endings for these characters.

So, if you loved Austen’s Persuasion and have been put off by the blatant sex in some of the more recent retellings, Persuasion: A Latter-Day Tale may be just what you’ve been looking for. Give it a try.

Please take the time to leave a comment if you’ve read the book, I’d like to know what you think. But then I’m always anxious to hear from my readers.

Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale. Trade Paperback. ISBN: 978-1608196258. 288 pages. Bloomsbury USA; 1 edition (January 31, 2012) (Amazon: $14.61 / Kindle: $9.99)

Charlotte Constance Kinder is nice. She’s been nice almost from birth. She did all the right things. She got married and had two children, Lu and Beckett. Once the children were in school, she got a bit bored and started her own online business. It was a great success and she sold it for a lot of money. Bored again she started another company which also was successful. Then Charlotte’s husband divorced her. Charlotte was blindsided by this and continually tried to figure out what she did wrong. By the time her ex married his mistress, Justice, Charlotte barely felt anything anymore. But she was still nice — it was habit by now.

On the suggestion of a friend, Charlotte read the novels of Jane Austen. Of course, we can guess what happened next. Charlotte felt emotions again — gentle, tiny flutterings, but emotions none the less. When the children go to stay with their dad and stepmom, what’s a mother to do? Book a vacation in Austenland, of course.

I’d read Austenland when it first came out so it’s been a while. I still loved meeting some of the characters that I’d first been introduced to then. Charlotte was more than ready to enjoy Austenland, after all she was nice and appreciated the little niceties of civilized behavior that Austen portrayed in her books. Readers who’d first visited Austenland in the previous book will note right away that Austenland has fallen on hard times of late. Of course that could be due to the war with the French — provided you stay in character. For those of us, in this time period, we see the signs of marital strife over assets coupled with an economic downturn.

Never the less, Charlotte’s vacation is going well, until she finds a body. No one believes her and she must decide what to do, how to find out who was killed, and who is to blame. This is a vacation that will change Charlotte’s perceptions of herself and her previous life. Once her vacation in Austenland is over, Charlotte will never be the same.

Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale is much darker than the Austenland. The previous book was basically a romance and this one is a murder mystery with romance. The characters are interesting and as quirky, witty, charming, and annoying as you’d be likely to meet during a Regency country house stay. The story is also told from Charlotte’s point of view, with flash backs to previous periods in her life. Charlotte makes a great point of view characters as she has a habit of arguing with herself — some of which made me laugh out loud.

If you enjoyed Austenland, you’re sure to enjoy Midnight in Austenland. However, you don’t need to read the first book in order to enjoy this one. Pick up the book, settle down with your beverage of choice and slip away with Charlotte to Austenland.

Compulsively Mr. Darcy by Nina Benneton. Sourcebooks Landmark (February 1, 2012). ISBN: 978-1402262494. 359 Pages. (Amazon: $9.89 / Kindle: $9.99).

It’s all the rage to adopt a child in a foreign country — and engenders more social status if the child is dissimilar to the adopting couple in ethnicity. So, Mr. and Mrs. Hurst have decided to adopt a child. Charles Bingley decided they needed someone responsible to come along so he invited William Darcy — that it would also get Darcy out of the office was a plus. So, Bingley, Darcy, the Hursts, and Caroline are in Da Nang, Vietnam, to meet with the managing director of Gracechurch Orphange, Jane Bennet, and hopefully pick up their child.

On the way to their hotel, they end up in a traffic jam. Charles can’t stand sitting still so he hops out and asks a man riding a bicycle carrying a load of live chickens if he can try riding it. Of course he falls, scattering chickens and managing to gash his leg badly enough to require stitches. Darcy swings into action and learns of a local hospital with an American doctor, and hires a bicycle taxi to take them there. Darcy can’t bring himself to enter the hospital due to his fear of germs and painful associations, so he opts to wait outside.

When the waiting becomes intolerably longer than it should be, in Darcy’s opinion, he seeks out Bingley only to find him still waiting for treatment. Darcy is outraged and demands to see the doctor while lifting the towel over Bingley’s leg. A glimpse of the blood on Bingley’s leg causes Darcy to faint. A clog prodding his face trying to bring him to consciousness is his first introduction to Dr. Elizabeth Bennet. Neither comes out of this encounter proud of their actions.

Thus begins, Compulsively Mr. Darcy by Nina Benneton. This modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice contains many of Austen’s beloved characters: The Bennets, Darcy and Georgiana, Fitzwilliam, Anne and Catherine de Bourgh, Wickham, Mrs. Reynolds, and a couple of surprises from another Austen novel. However, Benneton has updated them by examining their characteristics and matching them to current medical labels. For example, Mr. Darcy, who we know wants to protect those he cares about and takes all his commitments to others including his tenants and servants very seriously, suffers from, as title of the book implies, OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). Charles Bingley, on the other hand, has recently been diagnosed with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). You can see that Pride and Prejudice makes this seem a very logical character choice from this quote:

“Oh!” cried Miss Bingley, “Charles writes in the most careless way imaginable. He leaves out half his words, and blots the rest.”

“My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them — by which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents.”

Being a modern retelling of the story, not only were the characters updated, but the story was revamped to fit into our current society. Darcy is, of course, rich. He’s CEO of DDF (Darcy, Darcy, and Fitzwilliam). Fitzwilliam, his cousin, is a vice president. Bingley also works there. Meanwhile, Jane Bennet, as you’d expect from her patient and loving nature, is a social worker now running an orphanage founded by Aunt Mai and Uncle Gardner while recovering from an abusive relationship. Elizabeth is an doctor specializing in infectious diseases. She moved to Vietnam with Jane to keep her company. The relative social status is maintained as Mr. Bennet is a college professor. The Bennets are middle class and, while not hurting for money, do not spend it wildly either.

My only reservation about the characters is that the Elizabeth Bennet of the original was a great student of character until she allowed her first impressions to cause her to assign to Mr. Darcy characteristics he didn’t actually deserve, after which she became more careful of her judgements. This Elizabeth is impulsive and quick to judge others with minimal data. She makes life changing decisions without consulting those involved in her decisions and without input from those close to her who might be effected. Being a doctor who also does research in her field, this particular implementation of her character seemed too much of a contradiction. How could she possibly maintain her position as one of the top infectious disease specialist and be so incredibly flakey? Other readers may not have as much difficulty with this aspect of her character, but I wanted to make sure she met a very large clue stick. In other areas, it was incredible how these two very different people turned out to be just right for each other — and that takes clever writing when trying to be true to well-loved characters in a new environment and the changes that requires.

While Compulsively Mr. Darcy maintains the fractious nature of the original character’s relationship as they grow towards understanding and love, the details have changed radically since society and social mores are now very different from those of Austen’s time. As with many romances, there are sex scenes. For some traditionalists, this may be off-putting. However, the sex is steamy, fairly graphic (including phone sex), but easily skipped over if you like dislike such scenes. There are also several subplots that deal with today’s problems of inappropriate sexual contact.

Well written, witty, comedic and serious by turns, Compulsively Mr. Darcy has it all — quirky characters, evil villains, surprises, disappointments, and a great love story.

NOTE: Remember, I love to hear from my readers so if you’ve read the book or plan to let me know what you think.

Dreaming of Mr. Darcy by Victoria Connelly. Sourcebooks Landmark (January 1, 2012). ISBN: 978-1402251351. Pages 370. (Amazon: $10.19 / Kindle: $9.99)

Kay Ashton’s mother was a patient at The Pines, which is where Kay became friends with Peggy Sullivan. When Kay’s mother died, she continued to visit with Peggy and read to her from Jane Austen’s works. Peggy had lost her sight and she enjoyed having Kay visit and share some of her favorite books. Somehow the age difference between them didn’t make any difference to their wide ranging discussions and shared interests. When Peggy died, she left Kay her entire estate with the hope that Kay would do something amazing.

Reading Persuasion had always made Kay wish that she could live by the sea. With the money Peggy left her, Kay decided to move to Lyme Regis and try to put her art degree to use by putting together her drawings for publication. For years she’d been working on illustrating the works of Jane Austen but had never sent her work out or tried to be published.

Visiting Lyme Regis to see what cottages were available, Kay found nothing she liked in her price range until she happened to see the ad for Wentworth House. It was large enough to be a Bed and Breakfast and thus, even though expensive, would allow Kay to make a living within sight of the Cobb and the sea.

Kay hadn’t even opened her B&B when a burst pipe in a local hotel led to a search for lodging for the director and four of the principle actors of Persuasion. Yes. Kay’s favorite book was being filmed in Lyme Regis. This was indeed a dream come true.

Once all the people are in place, Dreaming of Mr. Darcy is a delightful romantic comedy. Kay, an only child from a broken home, has always lived more in her fantasies than in reality. She can take the wink and smile of a handsome actor and in her mind be picking out their china pattern, children’s names, and where they’ll spend their next several vacations. She doesn’t stop with planning her life around the deeper meanings of kind gestures but tries to match others into happy couples with no actual information on how those people feel about each other — much as Emma Woodhouse tries to match Miss Smith with the vicar, and with about as much luck.

Kay’s flights of fancy are embarrassing as the reader can’t do anything about the train wreck she’s about to make of her life. We can only hope that things work out for the best. After all, Austen managed to pull her main characters together for a wedding at the end and a hopefully happy-ever-after.

This is not about Mr. Darcy or Pride and Prejudice. Dreaming Mr. Darcy is closer to Persuasion since it takes place in Lyme Regis and a movie of the book is the catalyst for much of the action. The story, at heart, is all about second chances and missed opportunities.

While Kay is the main character in the beginning, once the actors appear on the page, the point of view shifts between Kay, Adam Craig (the writer and producer of the film), and Gemma Reilly, who plays Anne in the movie. We don’t have just one romance developing we have several and they all come to a head in Lyme.

Dreaming Mr. Darcy is filled with interesting characters, wonderful descriptions of Lyme Regis and the surrounding countryside, and enough miscommunication and misunderstanding to keep any reader turning its pages.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

This bill, which is on the fast track to passing in Congress, is so bad for free speech, the freedom of the internet, and the people who use it, that I’m baffled that Congress would even consider passage. But then I remember that Congress thinks pulling Americans off the streets and imprisoning then indefinitely, without knowing what they are accused of or by who was a wonderful enough idea to pass. Does this sound like America to you — well we’re swiftly becoming one of those countries who violate human rights and repress their people.

I’ve already signed petitions and written to my representatives begging them not to pass this legislation. Please join the fight for freedom in America and ask your representatives to vote NO on these two pieces of legislation.

Maybe it’s all the rain or the high 50’s temps but I’m finding it difficult to get in the spirit of Christmas. Of course, putting in some longer hours working (husband) and trying to breathe (me) hasn’t made it any easier. No tree this year and just one of my Santa models and some Christmas cards around the door and a holly ball is the limit of my decorations this year.

Anyway, we got the gifts mailed to our mothers and our son. But the holiday spirit just seems to come and go — usually dashed by reading the news. So tonight I thought I’d check and see if there were any specially interesting synchronized Christmas lights this year. Well, I found this video where an entire neighborhood was lit up and synchronized to the same music. This takes dedication and planning and programming.

While searching for these lights, I noticed that Google had a special logo tonight (Dec 23rd) that plays a holiday song when you click on each of the lights. Give it a try.

Maybe you’re in the spirit of the holidays but if not maybe the video and the Google logo will help you get in the spirit.

Result is: I will never, ever rent a car from Avis again.

First, you need to know that Avis has been our preferred car rental place for years. They have nice clean cars, good service, and they’re efficient and fast at the counter. We’ve been using them whenever we needed to have a car when traveling or when needing something a bit more reliable when heading to a convention within driving distance as our car got older (14+ years at the present time). I’ve always been the second driver if my husband initiates the rental and he’s the second driver when I initiate the rental, and they’ve never blinked at having the spouse as a second driver at no extra charge — usually just show that your license is valid.

Monday, November 21st, 2011, we made an online reservation to pick up a compact car on Tuesday late in the afternoon. As usual no problem with this step.

We arrived at the rental office in Waldorf, MD and waited for our turn. Hubby had turned in the reservation so he was doing the paperwork. There was a pause while they checked on the car and hubby got an emergency call from work so he was handling that when the Avis person came back to the counter. So, I stepped up and answered the questions she still had. Then I said that I would be the second driver and asked if she needed my license. She said sure and I handed it over as she said, “There’s no charge for a spouse if you live at the same address and have the same last name.”

I replied that I lived at the same address but, when I got married, I kept my last name — so it was different from my husband’s.

She then said that would be an additional $13.00 per day for the rental. I asked why and was told because my last name was different. I was flabbergasted. I said that there is no law that requires a woman to change her name when getting married so why were spouses with different last names being singled out for an extra charge. They fell back on the “it’s corporate policy” response.

I asked when that policy went into effect and was told that it had always been that way. I responded that we’d never run into this policy in the 5 to 6 times we’d rented from them in just the last two years. They replied that it should have come up because they’ve always had this policy.

We cancelled the car. Stopped at another rental place up the street and rented a car there. We had to wait a bit because we hadn’t put in a reservation, but we got the car, added me as a second driver — spouse — with no extra charge even with a different last name.

Avis has lost us as customers. We’ll never again do business with a company that discriminates against women who choose not to change their name when they marry. I don’t know if this has really been their policy all along and no one ever enforced it (because they knew it was wrong) or whether it’s new.

If you’ve run into this problem yourself, I’d really like to hear about it. Tell me your story — what happened? Did they lose you as a customer? Or, did you just pay the extra fee?

I’ve waited nearly a week before writing this post, but I’m still ticked off by this blatant discrimination against women. I didn’t change my name when I got married because my husband is secure enough to deal with it (he sort of likes being Mr. wife’s-last-name half the time) and because I had education, professional training, and job experience that would all have to be contacted and asked to note the new name in case a new employer wanted to check me out. There’s enough crap to do in life without dealing with that issue. Most of our married friends have different last names, probably 50 / 50 same and different, so this must be netting Avis a lot of additional money if it’s being enforce that’s why I’m curious if others have had the same problem.

The script that marked this post as censored on Nov. 22 has expired. I’d put up the script to direct readers to sign a petition that would be delivered to congress to express dismay (use stronger language if you wish) that they intended to pass a law that would have taken websites off-line if any one page on the site had a link or info that was considered in violation of copyright no matter whether that link or info was in comments or written by the site owner. To make it even more appalling is would be similar to the take downs currently in place for music and video — no real checks to make sure it was a valid request for removal and very little info on how to get the site restored if the take down was deemed in error. It’s a bad law all around that only works for corporations not for the 99%.

The petition got a lot of attention and now the supporters of the bill are calling it a jobs bill rather than what it is — a censorship bill.