Elizabeth had once believed she would rather know a fact, even if it were unwelcome, rather than just speculate, but she wondered now if false hope was not better than no hope at all.

(from Consequences, page 98)

Consequences is a thought-provoking retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, with two novellas joined together into a novel about the consequences of missed opportunities and how doing just one thing differently can turn everything around. The first part imagines how Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy’s lives would have played out had she rejected his proposal at Hunsford and then missed running into him later on when she tours Pemberley with her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner. The second part has Elizabeth, with the help of her best friend, Charlotte, taking a more practical approach to Mr. Darcy’s first proposal, accepting it as a means of saving her family in the event of her father’s death despite her fears of being trapped in an unhappy marriage.

I will not divulge any more of the plot because this is a novel that should be experienced the way I experienced it, not knowing how either journey would play out and going through a roller-coaster of emotions. I even teared up at one point and had to explain to my husband why I was so sad. I couldn’t believe an Austen-inspired novel made me cry, but that’s what I loved so much about it.

Continue to read the 5 star review at Review: Consequences by C.P. Odom | Diary of an Eccentric.