Pride and Poetry

This book was originally a novella entitled Poet of Pemberley and the main characters were Darcy and Elizabeth of Pride and Prejudice fame—but the author, tired of hanging onto Jane Austen's bonnet strings, decided to rewrite it to stand on its own merits (or lack thereof!). The new title is still somewhat Jane Austen-ish, but she has no doubt that Darcy wasn't the only proud young man in the Regency period. Her proud young man is called Lacy, and Lilian Helliwell replaces Elizabeth Bennet. Lacy and Lilian's relationship is nothing like the perfect relationship portrayed in Pride and Prejudice (if such a thing can exist), which was a stumbling block to some readers of the original version as they couldn't accept that Darcy would stray. Changing Darcy for Lacy solved that problem. The change is appropriate, because the book was never much of a P&P sequel, but more of a book about poets and poetry with lots of Regency raunch thrown in. Lord Lacy, an aspiring poet, writes a love poem to an eligible young lady called Amelia, but she laughs at him and rejects him. Later, he falls in love with a penniless curate's daughter, but his pride offends her and his poetry puts her off even more. She tames his pride (though she can do nothing about his poetry) and agrees to marry him, only to find that "his mistress is his muse", and their marriage is wrecked—can Lacy win her back, and will he have to give up poetry to do so?