I thank Christina Boyd, the editor and also one of the authors of the collection, for sending me an invite to participate on the launch blog tour and for the ARC copy of the volume, which I freely chose to review. I have read and reviewed some of the other anthologies The Quill Collective has published and loved them, so I was delighted to be asked and to be able to participate. I’ve decided to talk a bit about each one of them, because they are all quite different in style (some written in the first person, some in the third, some quite humorous, some more serious, some set in the same time period as the original and others not, some shorter and some longer) but somehow manage to live up to the spirit and the wit of one of Austen’s best loved characters. Each story/novella is introduced by a quote from the original, which highlights an aspect later explored in more detail in the text, and it is also signposted by an individual cover, all of them beautiful. Foreword: Tessa Dare Witty, clever, and a very fitting introduction to the subject matter and to the stories. Mark Twain gets a mention! Resolution: Amy D’Orazio Set within the period of the novel, this short story plays on the ‘what if’. What would have happened if somebody close to Darcy had decided to take things in their hands? How would that have influenced the outcome? And what if Liz had finally succumbed to life’s harsh realities and forgotten her prejudices? An interesting turn of events and an amusing (but romantic) short story, aimed at readers familiar with the details of P&P. Thank God for alcoholic beverages and meddling maids! The House Party: Jenetta James I have read short and long fiction by Jenetta James and she delivers, once more, in this short-story/vignette, that moves forward the events to early XX century, in the setting of the Suffragist movement, and rewrites a memorable party and visit to the Bingley’s home. Wickham is up to his old tricks! A great story that could be read without previous knowledge of Austen’s novel, although it will be greatly enjoyed by fans of the original. Atmospheric Disturbances: Christina Morland This is, in a way, a Much Ado About Nothing situation, at least on the surface of it, when readers get to eavesdrop (well, and also get inside Elizabeth’s head) on an argument between Elizabeth and Darcy, after their engagement. For those of us who love the witty interactions between the two and the pull and push of their relationship, any opportunity to see them, and hear them, when they are in each other’s company is a pleasure, and so it is here, in a vignette that explores the dynamics of their relationship and we get to see a more vulnerable, but still reserved and proud, Darcy, and an Elizabeth prone to making a fuss, worrying, determined to know her future husband, and oh, so headstrong! Love in Limelight: Beau North North here transports the action to Hollywood in 1934. Elizabeth has become Eliza Bennett (her stage name) and she and Jenny are actresses, now in Hollywood. Charles Bingley is a film director, Darcy is, of course, the head of the studio, Pembley, and Georgina is Gigi, who was a child star and now is trying to move on to adult acting roles. There are misunderstandings and confusions at every turn, Wickham’s incarnation works extremely well, and I loved the use of expressions and language of the period, the bright and bubbly setting, the headlines and snippets of gossip news included in the story, and, well, everything. The Uncommonly Busy Lane to Longbourn: Joanna Starnes This short-story/novella reads like one of those movie outtakes included as a bonus in the luxury edition of a Blu-ray disc, or an alternative ending, where it is difficult to decide which one you prefer. It is set in the same time period as the original; the characters behave pretty much as we would expect them to, down to the long walks, the witty conversations, Elizabeth’s poor opinion of Darcy and her strong support of Wickham, but Darcy is a bit more forceful in his attempt at warning Elizabeth against the rogue and this sets in motion a chain of events that slightly alter things but do not derail the overall story where it matters. It also has pretty funny moments. It felt as if this story could have pretty well replaced what actually happens at that point in the original (no, I won’t go into details), and it would have fitted perfectly well. This could well have happened in an alternative P&P universe. Resistive Currents: Karen M Cox I am a fan of Cox’s writing, both her Austenesque stories and novels and also those that stride away from the Austen universe, and this short-story/novella delivers again. This is one of the stories in the collection that I think can be enjoyed by readers who have no particular knowledge of P&P, although Austen’s readers will get a kick out of it. Cox offers us two stories, of two women in the same family, separated by several generations (one a teacher in rural Colorado at the beginning of the XX century, the other her great-granddaughter, in the 1980s, a girl studying engineering at university, a profession still dominated by men) and how their own prejudice towards men whom they think don’t value them or see their worth because they are women causes them to misunderstand and misjudge them. I would have been happy to read a whole novel about these headstrong girls and their beaus, and I’m sure I won’t be alone in this. Something Like Regret: Elizabeth Adams The author explores in detail an episode that is a favourite of many of us who are fans of the BBC series. Yes, I am talking about Lizzy’s visit to Pembury with her aunt and uncle, and her surprise meeting with Darcy (Sorry, no wet shirt here). Adams allows us a peep into Elizabeth’s mind, and we follow her train of thought, her doubts, her regrets, and get to experience first-hand her gradual change of heart. Although this story would not work for those who don’t know P&P, it would easily fit into the novel, down to the direct addresses to her “reader”, and I am sure Austen would have approved. The Last Blind Date: Leigh Dreyer Elizabeth and Darcy are here transported to modern day Oklahoma. Elizabeth is a hardworking student who also waits tables, and Jane and Charlotte are her friends (although we only get snippets of it, their relationship is the stuff or chick lit and they are great together), and Darcy is a heir to a big oil company who has spent much of his life studying abroad. Neither of them are what the other expect at their blind date, and the reasons behind their behaviours are soon evident. One of the shorter stories that could be read independently from the original, particularly recommended to football fans. The Age of Nescience: J. Marie Croft This short-story/novella would again fit into what I’ve referred to as the outtakes of a Blu-ray, or an anniversary luxury edition of P&P with added materials. Here, we get an insight into Elizabeth’s past, her life and experiences before we meet her in P&P, from her first attendance at a ball (at the tender age of fifteen), to her visit to Pemberley, and this allows us to enjoy more of her family life, learn about her dreams as a young girl, her disappointments in love, her interactions with her mother, sisters, and especially her father (we experience both his wit but also his lack of backbone and his unwillingness to challenge his wife and daughters, all in the name of a quiet life), and like her, we gain a greater insight and understanding of how she came to be how she is and why this visit is so momentous for her. Again, a beautifully observed and written story (such attention to language!), and one Austen would have approved of, including the reference to the similarities of the characters and situations to those of Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield. A Mate for Life: Christina Boyd In this short-story/summary, we have an elderly Elizabeth talking to her granddaughter —who shares more than a few characteristics with her granny (she’s headstrong and obstinate as well)—and telling her about her love story with Fitzwilliam Darcy. Her granddaughter has found her own Mr Darcy (he’s proud and handsome as well), and the story seems to repeat itself, although thankfully it runs a bit smoother this time. The narration works beautifully as a summary and introduction to the original for those who might not have read it (I’d encourage them to consider reading this story first, perhaps), and although, but its own nature there’s a fair amount of telling, the interaction of Elizabeth with a woman of the new generation, Darcy’s imagined commentary, and the setting and freshness of the scene make this a delightful and perfect story to end the book with. I recommend the collection especially to lovers of Pride and Prejudice, although it is not necessary to be an expert in it (and some of the stories can be read independently from the original), and to those readers who enjoy thinking of what else could have happened or wonder what went on behind the scenes. The writing is superb and I am sure all the fans of the many writers taking part will enjoy the stories and will be happy to discover new writers with similar tastes and interests. I congratulate The Quill Collective and hope they’ll keep coming up with new ways to keep Austen and her characters alive.

The English language...is not so easily ruled and regulated. It developed without codification, sucking up new constructions and vocabulary every time some foreigner set foot on the British Isles—to say nothing of the mischief we Americans have wreaked on it these last few centuries-and continues to evolve anarchically. It has, to my great dismay, no enforceable laws, much less someone to enforce the laws it doesn’t have.

Benjamin Dreyer isn't the enforcer he wishes existed, but he's close to one—especially for Random House. This book isn't a book of those laws, rules or regulations—it's about what one copy editor thinks that would-be editors, authors, and everyone else should know about grammar, sentence construction, punctuation, and. . . you know what? The official blurb does a more concise job of describing the book than I could. Let's cheat a little and use it:

We all write, all the time: books, blogs, emails. Lots and lots of emails. And we all want to write better. Benjamin Dreyer is here to help.

As Random House’s copy chief, Dreyer has upheld the standards of the legendary publisher for more than two decades. He is beloved by authors and editors alike—not to mention his followers on social media—for deconstructing the English language with playful erudition. Now he distills everything he has learned from the myriad books he has copyedited and overseen into a useful guide not just for writers but for everyone who wants to put their best prose foot forward.

As authoritative as it is amusing, Dreyer’s English offers lessons on punctuation, from the underloved semicolon to the enigmatic en dash; the rules and nonrules of grammar, including why it’s OK to begin a sentence with “And” or “But” and to confidently split an infinitive; and why it’s best to avoid the doldrums of the Wan Intensifiers and Throat Clearers, including “very,” “rather,” “of course,” and the dreaded “actually.” Dreyer will let you know whether “alright” is all right (sometimes) and even help you brush up on your spelling—though, as he notes, “The problem with mnemonic devices is that I can never remember them.”

And yes: “Only godless savages eschew the series comma.”

Chockful of advice, insider wisdom, and fun facts, this book will prove to be invaluable to everyone who wants to shore up their writing skills, mandatory for people who spend their time editing and shaping other people’s prose, and—perhaps best of all—an utter treat for anyone who simply revels in language.

As one who enjoys a good language-revel, I fell in love with this book almost instantly. I had to force myself to stop jotting down notes because I'd be reading this thing until March if I wrote down everything I wanted to (I have a list of page numbers, though, to go back and glance at while I write this and/or want to do a quick revisit of the book). I'm glad that I'm bone tired and don't have a lot of time here, because I could easily spend a few thousand words on this book if I let myself. But circumstance prevents me from that and protects you from enduring it (we'll pretend you'd endure it to preserve my ego, you'd likely just decide it was too long and go to the next link on your list). I think this is coherent enough to post. I'll let you decide.

Dreyer clearly had fun writing this—there's a joie de mot/langue* that permeates this book and its infectious. Each page is filled with humor as well as semi-/quasi-/actually technical discussions about writing/reading, making this a book that will appeal to both your mind and funny bone.

* There's a good chance that l'Académie française is going to hire someone to assassinate me for those neologisms. Whoops.

I'm not going to try to encapsulate the book (hence the use of the blurb), but I want to highlight a few things that stood out to me.

Over the last two years, I'd estimate I've read about 50 pages on the interrobang. That number didn't increase at all with this book. In the chapter discussing punctuation he eventually gets to the interrobang and states, "Neither will we discuss the interrobang, because we're all civilized adults here." Reader, I laughed hard at that.

There's so much of this book that authors need to read—were I richer, I'd require any author who asks me to read this book to evaluate it by these standards. For example, I can't agree more with his oft-voiced complaint about italics that go on for more than a sentence ("For one thing, italics weary the eye; for another, multiple paragraphs of text set in italics suggest a dream sequence, and readers are always keen to skip dream sequences." or "tend to convey Lengthy Interior Monologue or Something Else I Probably Don't Want to Read."). Do you know how many authors I want to send that to? (I'm including books I loved there, but most books I didn't)

That reminds me, another thing I'd like to send to many, many authors I've read over the last five years:

...I swear to you, a well-constructed sentence sounds better. Literally sounds better. One of the best ways to determine whether your prose is well-constructed is to read it aloud. A sentence that can’t be readily voiced is a sentence that likely needs to be rewritten.

A good sentence, I find myself saying frequently, is one that the reader can follow from beginning to end, no matter how long it is, without having to double back in confusion because the writer misused or omitted a key piece of punctuation, chose a vague or misleading pronoun, or in some other way engaged in inadvertent misdirection. (If you want to puzzle your reader, that’s your own business.)

My life would be easier (and this blog much more chipper) if more authors were concerned about that.

A number of times, he'll deliberately place an error in the text so he can call it out a paragraph or two (or pages) later to demonstrate how easy it is to make that faux pas and how hard it may be to catch. I loved every one of these and thought it was a brilliant idea.

He has lists of commonly misspelled words, notes on the way to get around Proper Nouns (or things that look like them, but aren't), as well as bullet-point rants about pet peeves and actual problems that should prove to be an invaluable resource for students and writers of any level. I'm probably going to grab an e-copy of this so I can have it on my phone for easy reference.

The book is so fun, it's spawned a game! How many books can say that?

While he is laughing at language, how it's used/abused, and so on—Dreyer never discourages anyone from writing. He also mocks himself/his book a lot. It's hard not to like a smart guy making wisecracks about himself.

With apologies to Dave Barry, Kevin Hearne and Delilah S. Dawson, this was probably the funniest thing I read in '19 (and I cracked up a lot at those three). I laughed, I chuckled, I grinned, I think I might have even guffawed at this book (maybe even chortled). I can't stop quoting it.

[People are] not, I’ve discovered, apt to be dissuaded from their prejudices by the evidence of centuries of literate literary usage or recitations from the bracingly peeve-dismantling Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage. And they’re certainly not likely to be moved by the suggestion that English is in a constant state of evolution and that if our great-grandmothers ever caught us using the noun “store” when what we should have said was “shop” or using “host” as a verb, they’d wash our mouths out with soap. Well, I concede with a shrug, if the English language itself is notoriously irregular and irrational, why shouldn’t its practitioners be too?

As a practitioner, you might want to be less irregular and more rational. If so, Benjamin Dreyer has given you an excellent guide to find your way out of that. I loved it, if you're even a little bit of a language geek, you will, too.

Discovering the Duke by Madeline Martin - Julia was so sweet and William was so adorable that I did not want to stop reading this story. I loved how he went out of his way to win his wife's love. Together, these two found that love conquers fear when with the right person.

Love Letters From a Duke by Gina Conkle - Charlotte and Nathaniel were such a wonderful, steamy couple. I kept turning pages as they tried to avoid what was in front of them. With his determination to have what he truly wanted, Nathaniel ignored convention and the age difference, and went for what he wanted most in life, Charlotte. His mother was an interesting touch to the story.

I have yet to finish all the stories and I look forward to adding to this review. If the others are like these two, this is a good collection. I received a copy as a gift, and this is my unsolicited review.

I read this years ago, long before my vow to write something about every book I read; likely just after joining GoodReads back in the halcyon days when the site was actually fun, but I was still too nervous to write anything.  I loved it, as is evident by the 5 star rating I gave it back then (and I'm keeping for posterity's sake).  Sunday I was feeling slumpy and needed something easy, and since I've always wanted to go back and write something about all the early books, a re-read of this accomplished two goals.

3 sisters with powerful magic, hiding from the Aunt that killed their parents while stealing their powers.  A fabulously evil Aunt determined to get the sisters to surrender their powers to her, who attempts to bribe them all by sending them their soul mates; or in one case, a reasonable facsimile thereof.  A showdown in a small town whose residents are obviously deaf, dumb and blind in the extreme.  Heaps of humor, sass, girl power and HEA's.  An absolutely awesome, awesome cat name Pywackt.  

I didn't expect it to stand up very well over time.  I love a few of Crusie's non-paranormal titles to death, but she's not a consistent writer, her paranormal stuff tends to be over the top, and I remembered this being more romance than chick-lit (fine line, I know).  But it did stand up rather well.  It's not one of Crusie's best by a long shot - although it's really one 1/3 hers anyway, as she co-wrote it with 2 other authors: Eileen Dreyer and Anne Stuart, neither of whom I know anything about - but it's fun without being flaky or formulaic.  The humor stands up, and there are a few sex scenes which I'd forgotten about that are far steamier than Crusie's other works (making me think that perhaps those scenes represent some of Dreyer and Stuart's contributions).

All in all still a great read when you're in the mood for a literary rom-com.

In the early 15^th century, the coastal states of Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean were the subjects of a remarkable event, as they received repeated visitations by a large fleet of Chinese ships.  Dispatched by the order of the Ming emperor Yongle, they consisted of thousands of men on board the largest wooden ships ever built.  The expeditions were all commanded by Zheng He, a eunuch with a long history of service to the emperor.  Yet in spite of the dramatic novelty of the voyages, they and their commander received only the scantiest attention in the Chinese historical sources, with many of their exploits becoming as much myth as reality.  In this book, Edward Dreyer attempts to uncover the man behind the myths, assessing his goals and achievements by evaluating them in the context of his times.

To do this, Dreyer reconstructs Zheng’s life as completely as possible from the available contemporary and near-contemporary sources.  This provides at best only a sketchy outline, which the author then fills in with a broader analysis of the voyage, the ships and men involved, and the broader background of events.  He argues that, contrary to later writers, Zheng’s expeditions were not voyages of exploration or assertions of naval hegemony but an effort to extend the Chinese tributary system to that part of the world.  Though far less inspiring a motivation than the others, it is one that helps to explain the subsequent abandonment of the effort after a final voyage in 1431-33, as the returns were far outweighed by the considerable expense of the effort – a factor that became critical during a time of enormous expenditure on military expeditions to Mongolia and construction of a new imperial capital in Beijing.

Though thin in some areas and repetitive of its major points, Dreyer has succeeded in writing a clear and accessible study of a legendary figure.  Though it, readers can better understand both the scope of his achievement and why it was not followed up by Yongle’s successors.  For anyone seeking to understand the early Ming dynasty or why a tantalizing opportunity was never fully exploited, Dreyer’s clear, thoroughly researched, and well-argued study is an excellent place to begin.