Prelim review: Honestly speaking I enjoyed the first two stories the most (Almost Persuaded and Northanger Castle), was amused by the third (Blood and Prejudice) and not very interested in the last (Little to Hex Her). I don't think that its a coincidence that the last story is based around my least favorite Jane Austen novel, Emma, however. ( )

2.5 stars
This collection has four novellas that take the plot of a Jane Austen novel and give it a paranormal twist. I’m always up for this kind of thing, and it was fun to get a glimpse at each author’s thoughts on their contributions. Each one wrote a letter to the reader, which was a nice touch. Susan Krinard, the one who put the collection together and contributed Blood and Prejudice, wrote a nice intro to the collection, and the fact that she’s such an Austen fan is why I rounded up my rating.
Here are my individual ratings:
Almost Persuaded
3 stars
This was my favorite of the collection, and Mary Balogh is the author I’m most likely to try again. I liked the idea of Persuasion with a reincarnation angle, and it worked pretty well. The plot felt rushed, especially at the end, but I liked Balogh’s writing, and I’m interested to see what she can do when she’s in her element (paranormal romance isn’t her usual thing).
Northanger Castle
2 stars
Caroline’s runaway imagination felt really overdone, and Isobel was over-the-top annoying. I admit it’s been over 20 years since I read the book it’s based on, but I don’t remember being irritated so much by the characters. And I don’t understand the point of changing the names.
Blood and Prejudice
3 stars
Not the first Darcy as vampire twist I’ve read, but I thought the author did some cool things with the idea. It allowed her to preserve his Regency era manners within a modern setting, which I thought was a neat trick. I don’t think she pulled it off as well with the Bennets as modern characters. Sometimes their motivations felt a little inconsistent with the contemporary setting. I still liked how she shuffled things around and updated here and there to hit all the high points in the space she had.
Little to Hex Her
2 stars
The only thing I really liked about this one was the big secret about Missy Bates. The idea of Emma running a dating service was great, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d hoped. The supernatural elements felt like clutter rather than glitter. ( )

I wanted to like this, but it just didn't work for me. I think, partly, because only one of the stories really reimagined the storyline -- the others were very very true to the original. If that's what you're looking for, go with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies -- which is a surprisingly great read. ( )

An Anthology of Paranormal Romances inspired by Jane Austen's work. All were fun, but I think I liked Mary Balogh's reincarnation story the best. ( )

This book was really neat. I am a big Austen fan, so it was neat to see these stories redone. I gave the book 4 stars because I was a little disappointed in the second story, Northanger Castle. The story development seemed fine, until it came time for the last few pages. Then it felt extremely rushed. The hero and the heroine only spoke a few times, and about 5 pages or so after the last time they spoke before seeing each other at the castle, they were madly in love and engaged to be married. It was a shame, because I really enjoyed the characters. I feel like they would have benefited from a book of their own, instead of a story in an anthology.

My favorite story out of the four was Blood and Prejudice. Pride & Prejudice is my absolute favorite book, so I was glad that this version made use of the wonderful characters in the original and kept them close to their roots in terms of personality and characteristics. I think that this one was the best in the whole book, followed closely by Little to Hex Her, a redo of Emma. I enjoyed this Emma Woodhouse much more than the original Emma. This story was very fast-paced as well, but it didn't seem rushed. This was mainly due to the fact that this story opened part-way through the original story.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a collection of good paranormal stories based on Jane Austen's works. ( )