Maria Grace

This is the second book in the Darcys' Christmas Series and the first Christmastide Darcy and Elizabeth spend together at Pemberley. There is much drama due to some unexpected visitors. Most of the romantic scenes are fairly chaste, or at least nothing too racy.

I picked this short novel through Kindle Unlimited because I needed a holiday romance book for a bingo prompt. Otherwise, I rarely seek out romance novels to read unless the romance is secondary to a historical fiction plot.

Two aspects of the books that could be improved is the overuse of some words or phrasing. Also, I didn't care for the ebook cover art. Lizzy looks a bit saucy and not like I'd imagine her to be, or Mr. Darcy for that matter.

If you like Austen fanfiction or need a short romance novel for a reading challenge, this one might be a good choice to try.… (mere)

This is one of those books that merely uses Jane Austen's name to generate more interest. There is nothing at all about Jane Austen in the work, apart from the fact that it is concerned with regency traditions. This did not bother me at all, though, because it is a very interesting book and I enjoyed listening to most of it. It presents a large array of Christmas and New Year traditions in Great Britain, the interesting aspect being that it deals with the festivities as they were before Queen Victoria and the ideas of a more contemplative Christmas gained influenced and changed these traditions forever. I was surprised to hear about the wild parties the gentry had, especially on Twelfth Night, and it was interesting to learn that these often provided a disguise to be able to talk to members of the other sex more freely or even perform small acts that would otherwise be totally scandalous. Another example is the fact that Christmas was foremost not considered a holiday for children, who were often left behind when visiting relatives or acquaintances. There are many fascinating pieces of information like that in the book - of course they might not be as interesting to readers who are more knowledgeable about British Christmas traditions than I am on the whole.

Unfortunately, the last third of the book is solely made up of recipes that are read out aloud. If I had had a paper book, I would have browsed them to see if there was anything interesting, but listening to them for such a long time was simply not something I was prepared to do, so I fast forwarded to the end. Thus, this book might be much better suited to be a paper book than an audiobook, even more so because most of the traditions are listed in short chapters without a lot of context, making it a bit strenuous to listen to it for a longer period of time.… (mere)