An Unequal Marriage: Or Pride and Prejudice Twenty Years Later [Hardcover]

In her second engaging sequel to Pride and Prejudice, Tennant (Pemberley) enmeshes beautiful Elizabeth Bennet Darcy in a nicely snarled web of predicaments. Elizabeth and Darcy, still blissful after 19 wedded years, have a winsome daughter, Miranda, and an unruly son, Edward, rumored to be wenching in London and dicing away his estates. Elizabeth's guilt as a failed mother is compounded when, during a woodland ramble, she lets an admirerer embrace her and upbraids herself as an "unfaithful wife." Elsewhere, her mother, the giddy Mrs. Bennet, causes alarm by traipsing about London with the shady Lady Harcourt. Domestic drama simmers, but even so Elizabeth must hostess a nuptial party for her ex-beau, Col. Fitzwilliam, and the strident young Sophia Farquar, who chatters chiefly of lambing and livestock. When Darcy tries to control the family mess with his usual cold censorious pride, Elizabeth senses her marriage crumbling. No longer able to tolerate so lordly a spouse, she flees her mansion like Jane Eyre running from ruthless Mr. Rochester. (The novel also borrows a note from Middlemarch with its talk of "Reform" and its heroine's concern for the cottagers.) Austen's cast of minor familiars-spiteful friends and kin-gets a delicious comic workout, and Tennant does a creditable imitation of period diction, though her tone is more sly and playful than that of her model, while her descriptions surpass Austen's in visual effects of art, decor and gardens. Austenites-and Tennantites-should love the whole package, including the wrap-up, which leaves enough loose ends to promise further sequels.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

At the end of Pemberley (LJ 11/1/93), Tennant's sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813), Elizabeth and Darcy are expecting their first child. In this sequel-to-the-sequel, they experience the mixed blessings children can bring. At 17, Miranda is lovely, competent, and her father's pride and joy, but heir-apparent Edward, a student at Eton, has long been a problem. As guests gather for the wedding of close friend Colonel Fitzwilliam, reports come that Edward has fallen under bad influences in London and gambled away part of the family estate. Cold disciplinarian Darcy acts, while compassionate chatelaine Elizabeth is distraught and susceptible to the admiring glances of handsome Mr. Gresham. As in Pemberley, Tennant ties ends together quickly, dangling possibilities for another sequel. A pale version of Austen perhaps, but essential for Pemberley fans and readers of historical romance.
--Michele Leber, Fairfax Cty. P.L., Va.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Those who desperately wish that Jane Austen had written just one more book will satisfy their craving with An Unequal Marriage, for her spirit infuses the novel. Tennant, like Austen, provides brilliant comic bits, some wordy bits, light moral lessons, and a satisfying conclusion. Tennant's successful Pemberley continued the Pride and Prejudice story one year after the marriage of Darcy and Elizabeth. Here they have been married 19 years, and Mr. and Mrs. Darcy are still madly in love. But as they are wont to do, their two teenage children disrupt the peace of Pemberley. Elizabeth is as appealing as ever while she sorts out an unwelcome marriage proposal to her daughter as well as her son's misadventures, which threaten the Darcy marriage and the family fortune. Darcy himself is, as always, dashing. Modern readers might need to adjust to the meandering syntax that gives this faux nineteenth-century narrative such charm. Deanna Larson-Whiterod

Tennant's wretched second sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (after Pemberley, 1993) has none of the beloved original's wit, brilliance, or biting satire. Nearly 20 years after Elizabeth and Darcy first met, the couple is as much in love as ever--and as young as ever, to hear Tennant describe them. Elizabeth is flirtatious and spry, and she and her 17-year-old daughter, Miranda, are like sisters. Elizabeth's actual sister Jane is still sweet and still around as much as before, despite the responsibilities of her own household and large brood of children. All Austen's other characters are present as well (except for poor Mr. Bennett, who was killed off by the author before her last sequel), plus a few that Tennant introduced in Pemberley. When they're not sitting around quoting themselves from the previous two books, the characters engage in excruciatingly dull conversations meant to further an inane plot that focuses on the Darcys' only son, Edward, whom the reader never meets. Based on hearsay, however, we learn that he is a budding young Wickham who has dropped out of Eton and gambled away the Welsh estate. (He probably thought it wouldn't be missed.) They all knew Edward would come to no good when he was little and insisted on pretending to be a Napoleonic soldier fighting against the British. To top it all off, he's short. Darcy goes to London to clear up the Welsh mess and disinherits Edward, much to Elizabeth's chagrin. There is the standard Elizabeth/Darcy misunderstanding, another entailment crisis, and of course the reconciliation, which is executed so abruptly that the book is over a page later. But at least it's over--for good this time, one hopes. Once was bad enough; twice is unforgivable. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In the author's second sequel, successor to the well-received Pemberley, young Master Edward Darcy makes trouble for the Darcy fortune and marriage by his determination to fight for Napoleon and his huge gambling debts.