Carrie Bebris Pride and Prescience

Pride and Prescience

Carrie Bebris

Forge, Feb 2004, $24.95, 320 pp.

ISBN 0765305089

It should have been a happy uncomplicated day when Miss Elizabeth Bennet married Fitzwilliam Darcy, and Jane Bennet wed Charles Bingley in a double wedding ceremony. Unfortunately, Bingley's sister Caroline chose to announce her engagement to Frederick Parrish, an America with a plantation in New Orleans. There is no love lost between Elizabeth and Caroline because the latter also wanted Darcy only to be turned away when he chose a woman of inferior social standing.

Elizabeth and Darcy, although anxious to go home to Pemberly, stay over in London to attend Caroline's nuptials as he is close friend of the third bride's brother. After the ceremony, Darcy and Elizabeth spot Caroline in a very bad section and return her to her husband. Everyone travels to Caroline's brother estate so that she can relax from the stress she has been under. As time passes her condition worsens to the point that her husband is thinking of institutionalizing her. Elizabeth, who believes outside forces are the fault of Caroline's condition starts investigating and almost falls prey to the same evil force that holds Caroline in their grip.

Carrie A. Bebris has written an utterly charming, historically accurate Regency romantic mystery with the protagonists coming straight out of the pages of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. This is a work that Jane Austen would be proud to call her own since its focus is on the ton and tragedies that can result from a person believing they are superior to another.

Harriet Klausner