"Cowboy Pride" by Lacy Williams

I'm nostalgic about stories with a western setting and I love everything Jane Austen, so I jumped at the chance to read this Pride and Prejudice/Old West mashup. Doesn't Darcy as a cowboy sound fun?!

Given that it's a retelling, there were not a lot of surprises in the plot of the story. The characters, however, sometimes veered wildly away from Austen's originals—and not necessarily in a good way. For example, Georgiana Darcy is a very masculine character who wears breeches and is a marshal. Mr. Collins enters the story already married and is actually something of a good guy. I didn't understand the need to change Mr. Bingley's first name, especially considering the author isn't opposed to the name Charles, as you could see with side characters named Charlie and Chas.

I found some aspects of the story were overdone, such as an elaborate backstory for the Bennet family which was used too much as a plot device. Other aspects, like George Wickham's story, were underdone to the point that if I hadn't been intimately familiar with Austen's original I wouldn't have known the significance of it. 

I would recommend this book for those who enjoy Pride and Prejudice and western stories. It's a light read, and if differences from the original don't bother you, you may like to see how the author crafted the story to fit the setting. The original is always better, but sometimes a different look can be fun too.