Book Review - Pride, Prejudice, and Cheese Grits

Pride, Prejudice, and Cheese Grits (Jane Austen Takes the South) 

By: Mary Jane Hathaway
Publisher: Howard Books
Publication Date: June 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-7750-4
Reviewed by: Diane Lunsford
Review Date: July 5, 2014

Mary Jane Hathaway puts a 21st century spin on Jane Austen and Mr. Darcy in her latest novel, Pride, Prejudice, and Cheese Grits.
 
Shelby Roswell is a Civil War historian and professor. She is on direct course toward her coveted tenure in her small town college near Oxford, Mississippi. All indicators deliver signs of positive outcome for her to achieve such an accomplishment until one handsome, self-assured Ivy Leaguer, Ransom Field, arrives. Not only was it insulting to learn she will share space with Fielding after his scathing review of her book—a book she spent countless and painstaking hours of fact checking and research to write, but the greatest insult is when she learns she has to ‘play nice’ with this pedigreed pontificator under the same roof in ‘her’ halls of continued education. The day of reckoning arrives and while Shelby tries to maintain her focus on business as usual, nothing could have prepared her for the potential career ending maneuver she would orchestrate.

When she witnesses what she believes to be a blatant bully maneuver by Ransom to one of his students, she decides to call him out in front of his packed lecture auditorium. After provoking an embarrassing situation, the consequences of her actions placed Shelby’s reality of tenure on a potentially permanent back burner.
Everyone deserves a second chance in life and maybe this applies to Ransom Fielding as well. Shelby ponders their relationship too much as she analyses the auditorium debacle with her trusted roommate, Rebecca. With renewed hope, Shelby agrees to tolerate his presence and disallow the crumby review he gave her book to stand in the way of her tenure. More than fate seems to keep depositing the two in each others’ paths, however. When Shelby agrees to attend a high society fundraiser with Fielding at the stunning Bellepointe Mansion, her instincts are conflicted and she is back to thinking perhaps Ransom Fielding is not the man her intuitions keep fighting to convince her he is.

Mary Jane Hathaway has done outstanding justice to the resurrection of the sparky antics between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy through her creation of modern day characters: Shelby Roswell and Ransom Fielding in her latest novel, Pride, Prejudice and Cheese Grits. There is fantastic ebb and flow between their many situations of conflict and (sometimes) resolve throughout. It is abundantly clear Ms. Hathaway’s inspiration for her story is a direct result of her love for the original (and iconic), Pride and Prejudice. While I truly believe many of the classic works written long ago earned their place in infamy because of their astute and brilliant word placement, I have to give Ms. Hathaway props for her obvious ability to put a modern-day spin on an iconic story and make it stick to one’s ribs! It is sassy in all the right places as much as it is entertaining throughout. Given this is an advance proof copy, the only caution I would note is for Ms. Hathaway to address some minor areas of misspelled and misused wording. Congratulations Ms. Hathaway. I am a fan and look forward to your next book.

Quill Says: Pride, Prejudice and Cheese Grits is a wonderfully written novel that demonstrates an accomplished portrayal of two iconic 19th Century characters who have been reinvented and placed into an engaging 21st Century read.

Books in for Review

Here's a sneak peak at some of the books that have just arrived for review!  Reviews will be posted in a few weeks.



Tenebrae Manor by P. S. Clinen Within uncharted forest, where ancient magic keeps the night sky ever-present, stands Tenebrae Manor. Within its dusky walls dwell beings of macabre whimsy, headed by the pedant demon, Bordeaux, and the hedonistic gorgon, Lady Libra. These apparitions are content to live out their eternity in the half-lit gloom; that is until the arrival of a certain uninvited guest – a live human being – imperils the concealment of Tenebrae Manor and the livelihood of its residents. And in the forest surrounding a new threat emerges – a threat that is rattling the once still trees, and dooming the manor towards irreparable decay. But the characters are unmoored. While some seem desperate to maintain ascendancy over their ruinous home, others adopt a façade of mischievous indifference that could undo them all. And is Tenebrae Manor even worth saving? After all, eternity is a frightfully long time to spend alone...  

Pride, Prejudice and Cheese Grits (Jane Austen Takes the South) by Mary Jane Hathaway Shelby Roswell, a Civil War historian and professor, is on the fast track to tenure—that is, until her new book is roasted by the famous historian Ransom Fielding in a national review. With her career stalled by a man she’s never met, Shelby struggles to maintain her composure when she discovers that Fielding has taken a visiting professorship at her small Southern college. Ransom Fielding is still struggling with his role in his wife’s accidental death six years ago and is hoping that a year at Shelby’s small college near his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi, will be a respite from the pressures of Ivy League academia. He never bargained for falling in love with the one woman whose career—and pride—he injured, and who would do anything to make him leave. When these two hot-headed southerners find themselves fighting over the centuries-old history of local battles and antebellum mansions, their small college is about to become a battlefield of Civil War proportions.  

Freud's Mistress by Karen Mack In fin-de-siècle Vienna, it was not easy for a woman to find fulfillment both intellectually and sexually. But many believe that Minna Bernays was able to find both with one man—her brother-in-law, Sigmund Freud. At once a portrait of two sisters—the rebellious, independent Minna and her inhibited sister, Martha—and of the compelling and controversial doctor who would be revered as one of the twentieth century’s greatest thinkers, Freud’s Mistress is a novel rich with passion and historical detail.

Recognition by O.H. Bennett Dana, a single-mother, is driving home one rainy evening when, as she passes a homeless panhandler, she recognizes the features of her long-absent husband. Warren Reynolds disappeared from Dana's life a decade earlier — his body mysteriously missing after a terrible auto accident from which a pregnant Dana was rescued. After glimpsing the man she believes might be her husband, Dana begins surreptitiously searching for him, and is plunged back into memories of the difficulties they were grappling with at the time of Warren's disappearance. She struggles with whether she can reveal her belief that her husband might be alive to her friends, her in-laws, and, most importantly, her son.