Pride and Premeditation plot summary
Lizzie Bennet is desperate to be a lawyer. If only she could convince her father, senior partner at Longbourne & Sons, to take a chance on her. And stop the odious Mr Collins from stealing her credit at every turn. An unexpected opportunity arises when Lizzie learns of a murder. The suspect, Mr Bingley, already has representation in the form of the terribly proud Mr Darcy, but if Lizzie can find the true murderer she knows people will sit up and take notice. But as the case grows more dangerous, Lizzie realises that more than her reputation is on the line. Is proving herself worth the risk? And can she solve the case before the perpetrator has her silenced?
Content warnings:
- Murder
- Sexism
- Racism
My thoughts on Pride and Premeditation
Pride and Premeditation is, as the title would suggest, a play on Pride and Prejudice. Tirzah Price reimagines the classic as a murder mystery, with Lizzie Bennet as an aspiring detective working with her father’s law firm. Darcy is an aloof junior lawyer from a rival firm. Bingley is accused of murder, but both Lizzie and Darcy are convinced he didn’t do it. Where they differ is in how to approach the situation. Darcy wants to trust to his friend’s good reputation to see him through the trial, whereas Lizzie is convinced the only way to truly clear his name is to find the real culprit.
What follows is an entertaining murder mystery, forcing the familiar characters of Pride and Prejudice into new and interesting circumstances.
The characters have made quite a departure from their original versions
Elizabeth Bennet isn’t sneaky. Her straightforwardness is actually kind of a core character trait! So it was a bit weird to see her sneaking around in Pride and Premeditation. While I understand the need to switch things up a bit for the sake of the plot, and I didn’t hate sneakyLizzie, it just felt strange.
I also wasn’t entirely sure about this version of Darcy. I felt like his character got diluted in Pride and Premeditation, which was more disappointing for me than the changes to Lizzie.
We didn’t get as much of the development of their relationship as in the original. Both in terms of the initial antagonism and the later thawing. That obviously makes sense since it was a murder mystery rather than a romance, but since their relationship was still a key plotline it might have been nice to see a more gradual change in the way they viewed each other.
One other interesting choice the author made was to have Charlotte, Lizzie’s best friend, be biracial. This obviously wasn’t the case in the original book, and while I appreciated the attempt to add some diversity to this retelling, I wasn’t entirely won over by how it was done. There were a couple of moments where it was pointed out that Charlotte faces different challenges to Lizzie due to her darker skin, but for the most part it went ignored within the story, and it ended up feeling like quite a token effort.
Ideally, it would have been nice to see Charlotte made a larger part of the story, and given a chance to more fully examine the challenges faced for people (particularly women) of colour in this time period.
The pacing in Pride and Premeditation was great, but there were weaknesses to the writing as well
The plot of Pride and Premeditation was really nicely paced out, zooming along from event to event without leaving me behind. It wasn’t an overcomplicated mystery, but there were some fun twists and turns along the way.
It was pretty predictable, which I think would be the case whether you’d read Pride and Prejudice or not. There were occasional reveals and character moments that I didn’t see coming! But the overall shape of the mystery didn’t surprise. That doesn’t bother me enormously, to be honest. On the other hand, if you want a mystery that’s going to really keep you guessing this may not be your best option!
For me, a larger issue was a lack of substantial character growth or development across the book. I think this largely frustrated me because the character growth in Pride and Prejudice is one of the things that keeps me coming back to that story over and over again. I didn’t feel like Lizzie learned any material lessons through this book. Darcy didn’t show much evidence of changing his perspective on the world.
The author’s note admits to taking some liberties with what would have been possible or proper in Regency-era England. I normally don’t mind that at all, but there was a lack of consistency around where allowances were made that pulled me out of the story at times. Similarly, the language mostly felt quite modern – which is fine! I have no issue whatsoever with books set in historical time periods making use of more modern patterns of speech. Except in Pride and Premeditation the author dropped in a few lines directly from the original. These felt enormously out of place surrounded by the more modern language use.
In conclusion…
Pride and Premeditation, despite its drawbacks, was genuinely good fun. There were a few issues that bugged me while reading, but nothing that stopped me in my tracks, and ultimately I had a good time with the book despite those issues. I thought it made interesting use of familiar characters and setting, even if it didn’t blow me away. While not especially memorable, I know I had a great time reading it, and might even revisit it sometime.
Do you enjoy retellings of classic books? What’s your favourite remix/retelling? Let me know in the comments!
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