One Night with Mr. Darcy

a Pride and Prejudice variation

By: Valerie Lennox

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

The secret baby JAFF you didn’t know you wanted!

The night of the Netherfield Ball, Fitzwilliam Darcy watches Elizabeth Bennet dance twice with Mr. William Collins and knows what the man intends. When Mr. Darcy’s own dance with the lady in question goes disastrously, he despairs of ever wooing her from the man who duty demands she wed.

He takes solace in absinthe, as one does.

Elizabeth is not the least bit pleased at the prospect of marrying Mr. Collins and begins drinking heavily, too. When a very inebriated Mr. Darcy appears and takes her off to his room, she doesn’t resist.

She doesn’t resist anything at all.

Morning dawns, and all his drunken promises of marriage have evaporated. He doesn’t remember bedding her.

She has no choice but to marry Mr. Collins.

Especially when she realizes that Mr. Darcy’s seed has taken root in her, and she will now bear his child.

Passing another man’s child off as her husband’s is an ignominious future Elizabeth had not wished for herself, but nothing matters now except survival. Hers and her unborn child’s.

It’s only unfortunate, of course, that she’s going to settle so near to Mr. Darcy’s close relation Lady Catherine. Elizabeth would like nothing more than to never see Mr. Darcy again. But he will visit Rosings. He will see her. And he will see his son.

Dear reader, this is a bit of angsty fluff that should hurt in all the best ways. Do watch out for a very dastardly Wickham, who is portrayed here as a clear predator and rapist—it’s dark. Obviously, if Lizzy and Darcy are having a drunken interlude at Netherfield, I’m narrating every single scandalous second of it. Steam alert! You have been warned.

Major Trigger Warnings ⚠️

If you are looking for a normal JAFF, pass on this story. If you like alternatives then proceed with caution.
If you are a survivor of abuse and manipulation be forwarned and have your therapist or a trusted friend on stand-by.
This story includes characters from PnP, but they do not act as one is accustomed. That is part of the pull to variations -at least for me.
No one can convince me that the situations portrayed did not happen in the 1800s. They did, just were not spoken of. This has happened throughout history.
I recommend you adjust the speed to .90 to make the flatness of the AI more bearable. AI sucks, but I have heard paid human narrators who are no better.
If you are fascinated with psychology this may pull you in. Try to get past the ridiculous AI narration and the story becomes quite interesting.

No one acts like cannon.

Weird and unbelievable. The narration did not help. This is my last virtual narration. It is just too weird.

The AI narrator made the story worse

I tried but AI narrators are not the way for me to listen. It distracted me from the story and I just couldn’t finish it. On the story side it is not one that I would read or listen to again and that’s how I rate things. So much of the story was so far fetched that I couldn’t relate to the characters or story. I have liked some of this author’s other works but this was a miss and the AI sank it for me.

Muddled and implausible

Okay, 75% of the story was good, although a human narrator may have improved it as it was unemotional for such Ann emotional beginning.

Then, Elizabeth comes up with a scheme that makes no sense. It was as if the author dug a hole in the plot and couldn’t quite figure out how to resolve the problem.

Deserved a much better ending in order for me to even consider recommending, even if it’s free.