Longtime readers of this blog know that I’ve read far too many Jane Austen variations. Lizzy and Darcy can speak to dragons? Yes please! Lizzy and Darcy are mages? Tell me more! Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters? Awesome! Mr. Darcy, Vampire? I fell for reading that one, but it wasn’t very good. I myself am guilty of writing a steampunk Pride and Prejudice from Mr. Darcy’s POV. But you know what I don’t get to read enough of? Lizzy and Darcy variations without gimmicks or genre crossing.

Yesterday was a lovely surprise then, when I read Such Persuasions as These by Emilia Stratford. It is a charming mix of Pride and Prejudice with Persuasion with a few key decisions changed creating repercussions which echo down the story line. No dragons, mages or zombies were necessary to tell a truly gripping variation on both stories. The first departure point is that Lizzy and Wentworth were children together in Meryton. They were the best of friends, and for Wentworth also his first puppy love. Fast forward to the next departure point: Darcy and Wickham duel in Ramsgate directly after the aborted elopement.

I will not spoil how these two key differences snowball into a very different tale, but I will tell you I couldn’t put it down and bought another Emilia Stratford book immediately. Now it’s your turn.