Ten Of My Favorite Modern Pride and Prejudice Adaptions

Elizabeth Bennet, a young woman hiding from living life to its fullest, finds herself willing to accept an untenable marriage arrangement solely for the sake of achieving her father’s selfish aspiration to save the family’s historic home. But even duty and obligation fail to hinder her inner conscience from spurring her to leave – to run – to escape before it’s too late. Prompted by a cataclysmic event and the arrival of an attractive, enigmatic man, Liz is thrust into a dangerous liaison where her spirit learns to fly amidst international intrigue.

Fitzwilliam Darcy was born into the wealth of Northern Virginia’s world of refinement and competitive polo. When a horrific family event rocks his world and shatters his trust in women, he leaves everything behind, determined to never look back. Running from his past and the man he once was, he enters a world of danger, first as a Navy SEAL, then as a government-sanctioned assassin. After thirteen years fortified by his hurt and anger, carrying a career moniker “The Iceman,” Darcy finds he still can’t avoid his own conscience – beckoning him home to Pemberley, its demons and the man he was meant to be. Fate steps in when a beautiful woman suddenly appears at the end of his deadly rifle scope and he chooses not to take his signature kill shot.

Experience adventure, lust, and danger as we burn rubber on the back of Darcy’s motorcycle through Washington, D.C. and Mount Vernon, Virginia. We’ll fly with our hero and heroine to play roulette in Monte Carlo and take the bullet train to Seville to tango in the moonlight. The island of Capri invites us to indulge before our final stop, Marrakech, Morocco where the exotic city of Arabian Nights brings us to our thrilling climax. Will this seemingly mismatched pair find the peace and the life they were both meant to live? Will “conscience” win out with Liz & Darcy finding happiness in one another’s arms? As Darcy would say, “Don’t be afraid. Get on… let’s ride.”

Authors Note: Jane Austen wrote such wonderful characters, I borrowed their names and some of their characteristics to tell my own tale of hard-won, contemporary love.

“I don’t know why I ever thought we made sense.”

Smart, educated people are fools in love, especially when they’re mired in denial and misunderstanding. In this modern spin on Jane Austen’s classic tale, Elizabeth Bennet, a grad student with literary aspirations, has found her big career break—and broken up with yet another forgettable boyfriend. While grateful for the professional lifeline thrown by sports agent George Wickham, she is intrigued by the man she calls “Mr. Noir.”

Fitzwilliam Darcy, marked by tragedy, is a man accustomed to living his life in the spotlight even as his heart dwells on the dark side of loneliness. When he first meets Elizabeth, he thinks she looks like “a bloody pumpkin,” but he soon sees so much more. She, however, can’t even decide what to call him. Mr. Noir? Nurse Darcy? Sleazy British playboy? Ferdinand?

“So, it’s Fitzwilliam, right? That’s an amazing name, you know. Which came first—the name or the accent? He looked at her. “Oh, come on. It’s like the name of a subdivision or a sofa at Pottery Barn. ‘Please note the extra firm cushions on The Fitzwilliam.’”

Can an accidental encounter that leads to shocking intimacy change the course they’ve both set and bring them into love’s light? Or will they stay mired in cold words and angry misunderstandings, overshadowing the deep connection they each feel? Getting beyond their own mistakes to find each other again is one thing; they also have to heal the wounds of their pasts. Can they do that together?

For anyone obsessed with Pride & Prejudice, it’s Darcy and Elizabeth like you’ve never see them before

This modern take introduces us to the wealthy philanthropist Fitzwilliam Darcy, a handsome and brooding bachelor who yearns for love but doubts any woman could handle his obsessive tendencies. Meanwhile, Dr. Elizabeth Bennet has her own intimacy issues that ensure her terrible luck with men.

When the two meet up in the emergency room after Darcy’s best friend, Charles Bingley, gets into an accident, Elizabeth thinks the two men are a couple. As Darcy and Elizabeth unravel their misconceptions about each other, they have to decide just how far they’re willing to go to accept each other’s quirky ways…

Fast music, powerful beats, and wild reputations-on and off stage-have made virtuoso guitarist Fitzwilliam Darcy’s band into rock’s newest bad boys. But they’ve lost their latest opening act, and their red-hot summer tour is on the fast track to disaster. Now Darcy and bandmates Charles Bingley and Richard Fitzwilliam are about to meet their match…

“But she’s about to rock his world…”

Enter Elizabeth Bennet, fiercely independent star of girl-band Long Borne Suffering. Elizabeth, her sister Jane, and friend Charlotte Lucas have talent to spare and jump at the opening band slot. Elizabeth is sure she’s seen the worst the music industry has to offer. But as the days and nights heat up, it becomes clear that everyone is in for a summer to remember.

This version of the Bennet family—and Mr. Darcy—is one that you have and haven’t met before: Liz is a magazine writer in her late thirties who, like her yoga instructor older sister, Jane, lives in New York City. When their father has a health scare, they return to their childhood home in Cincinnati to help—and discover that the sprawling Tudor they grew up in is crumbling and the family is in disarray.

Youngest sisters Kitty and Lydia are too busy with their CrossFit workouts and Paleo diets to get jobs. Mary, the middle sister, is earning her third online master’s degree and barely leaves her room, except for those mysterious Tuesday-night outings she won’t discuss. And Mrs. Bennet has one thing on her mind: how to marry off her daughters, especially as Jane’s fortieth birthday fast approaches.

Enter Chip Bingley, a handsome new-in-town doctor who recently appeared on the juggernaut reality TV dating show Eligible. At a Fourth of July barbecue, Chip takes an immediate interest in Jane, but Chip’s friend neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy reveals himself to Liz to be much less charming. . . .

And yet, first impressions can be deceiving.

Sparks fly as fiery Casey Reddick and brooding Hollywood actor Tate Landers clash in the Virginia summer heat. A chef who puts her career first and her love life second, Casey doesn’t see what every girl in town is swooning over. She made up her mind the moment she met Tate—he’s gorgeous, but stuck-up, nothing like his ex-brother-in-law, Devlin who’s playing the Wickham to Tate’s Darcy in local production of Pride & Prejudice. Casey makes the perfect Elizabeth Bennett—how could she be star-struck when she’s heard Devlin’s damning stories about Tate? As they rehearse together, however, Casey finds herself attracted to Tate—he’s much more down-to-earth than she expected and any physical contact between the two of them literally gives her a tingling, electric shock. As opening night draws near, Casey has some difficult decisions to make. Whom should she believe? The seemingly sincere, slighted Devlin or Tate, whose rough, arrogant exterior may only be skin deep. She’s come to love that jolt she gets when they touch—but will she get burned?

Her theory of attraction is about to get a new angle…

Spring Honeycutt wants two things: to ace her sustainable living thesis and to save the environment. Both seem hopelessly unobtainable until her college professor suggests that with a new angle, her paper could be published. Spring swears she’ll do whatever it takes to ensure that happens.

“Whatever it takes,” however, means forming a partnership with the very hot, very privileged, very conceited Henry Knightly.

Henry is Spring’s only hope at publication, but he’s also the über-rich son of a land developer and cash-strapped Spring’s polar opposite. Too bad she can’t help being attracted to the way he pushes her buttons, both politically and physically. As they work on her thesis, Spring finds there’s more to Henry than his old money and argyle sweaters…but can she drop the loud-and-proud act long enough to let him in? Suddenly, choosing between what she wants and what she needs puts Spring at odds with everything she believes in.

Definitely, Maybe in Love is a modern take on Pride and Prejudice that proves true love is worth risking a little pride.