Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Release Date: Available Now
240 Pages
Synopsis: Darcy Fitzwilliam is 29, beautiful, successful, and brilliant. She dates hedge funders and basketball stars and is never without her three cellphones—one for work, one for play, and one to throw at her assistant(just kidding). Darcy’s never fallen in love, never has time for anyone else’s drama, and never goes home for Christmas if she can help it. But when her mother falls ill, she comes home to Pemberley, Ohio, to spend the season with her dad and little brother.
Her parents throw their annual Christmas bash, where she meets one Luke Bennett, the smart, sardonic slacker son of their neighbor. Luke is 32 and has never left home. He’s a carpenter and makes beautiful furniture, and is content with his simple life. He comes from a family of five brothers, each one less ambitious than the other. When Darcy and Luke fall into bed after one too many eggnogs, Darcy thinks it’s just another one night stand. But why can’t she stop thinking about Luke? What is it about him? And can she fall in love, or will her pride and his prejudice against big-city girls stand in their way?
Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe takes the original classic and gives it a contemporary setting with a few extra twists like switching the genders of the two main characters. It’s a fun, fluffy read that’s perfect for this time of year.
I’ve read a few retellings of Pride and Prejudice over the years but this is the first one where the two main characters had their genders swapped. In the beginning, Darcy is pretty unlikable, and that’s okay in the beginning because she’s supposed to be. Although she’s a brilliant and successful business woman, she’s a bit immature and totally self-involved. Several times throughout the story she defends herself by explaining she’s just very confident and ambitious. I wasn’t able to buy into this “I’m misunderstood” defense though. I did like her a little more near the end, but I wish her character had been developed more.
I loved Luke, but he’s not as much a part of the story, which was a little disappointing. The premise describes him as a slacker but he isn’t at all. He’s not ambitious in the business sense like Darcy, but he’s hardworking and loves what he does. There’s actually very little time spent setting up the relationship between Darcy and Luke, and I thought the romance was a bit rushed. But in the latter half of the book they are together more often, which I loved because they’re such a likable couple.
I think the few issues I had with Pride Prejudice and Mistletoe, would have been addressed if the book had been a little longer. But honestly, even with them, I still thoroughly enjoyed this and read it in one sitting. This is the first adult fiction book I’ve read by Melissa de la Cruz, but she makes the transition from YA fiction to adult quite successfully. I recommend this to anyone who’s interested in a light contemporary romance set at Christmas.
Jillian Quinn was born and raised in Philadelphia and currently lives in Cape Coral, Florida where she still pretends it’s okay to drink hot chocolate and curl up on the couch with a good book, even when it’s ninety degrees outside. From an early age, writing and storytelling have been her passion. In her spare time she loves creating fictional worlds and living inside the minds of her characters, as well as reading, blogging, and watching basketball and hockey. 
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