Toil and Trouble: A Pride and Prejudice Retelling

by Jamie Lackey

Lizzie and Mary Bennet were raised by a witch after their mother traded them away to ensure that her youngest child would be a boy. They've spent almost twenty happy years living simply, learning ritual magic, and honing their unique witch-gifts. But when their witch mentor is bitten by a venomous snake and frozen in stone to save her life, they must return to Longbourn and weather polite society while they struggle to find a way to heal her.

Toil and A Pride and Prejudice Retelling is a 110,000 word LGBTQA+ fantasy retelling of Jane Austin’s classic novel.

Genres: Fantasy

421 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 10, 2024

About the author

Jamie Lackey lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and their cat. She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford in 2006 with a degree in Creative Writing. She studied under James Gunn at the Center for the Study of Science Fiction's Writer's Workshop in 2010 and has taken various workshops with Cat Rambo. She primarily writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror short stories.

She has over 200 short fiction credits, and has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and the Stoker Award-winning After Death.... Her fiction has appeared on the Best Horror of the Year Honorable Mention and Tangent Online Recommended Reading Lists, and she's a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Her flash fiction collection, One Revolution, and her zombie novella, Moving Forward: A Novella of Life After Zombies, are available on Amazon.com. Her debut novel, Left Hand Gods, is available from Hadley Rille Books. She also has two short story collections available from Air and Nothingness Press.

She read submissions for the Hugo-winning Clarkesworld Magazine for five years and was an assistant editor for the Hugo-winning Electric Velocipede from 2012-2013. She served as editor for Triangulation: Lost Voices in 2015 and Triangulation: Beneath the Surface in 2016.

She enjoys reading, writing, tabletop role playing games, video games, baking, and hiking. Learn more about her at her website, www.jamielackey.com

Reviews

[Lillie Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any retelling of Pride and Prejudice has an extreme amount of expectation placed on it as a retelling of one of the most beloved novels to exist, and one of the best romance novels ever written. Any novel striving for the goal of an engaging, well done, insightful retelling that both adds to the plot while not reducing any of the beloved elements of the initial novel has set an extremely high bar for itself right out of the gate. I often find these retellings to be in one of two camps the first being badly done and lackluster, the second being engaging and having brought something new to the story. I was glad to find this novel to be in the second camp.

When I first picked this novel up, I found the setup of the first two/three chapters to be a touch of a drag and the world building to be more than a bit in my face with establishing this as the same world as the initial novel but with magic being tolerated and real. However, I found that very quickly after the set up in about chapter three or four the story went into the engaging and delightful area with it quickly becoming a read, I was unwilling to put down. The author did a wonderous job of taking the plot points of the novel and breathing new life into them, from making the youngest sister a man and giving the romance there new life, to making Kitty and Mrs. Bennet feel like more complex women with goals of their own.

Overall I would recommend this novel to you if you enjoy:
- Witches and well done magic systems
- Pride and Prejudice retellings
- Regency Romances
- LGBT novels
- Multiple POVS
- Complex FMC's

I received an advance review copy of this book, and I am leaving this review voluntarily and all thoughts and opinions are wholly my own and unbiased.

[Kaa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wish I had enjoyed this more, because I'm very fond of the original and loved the idea of a retelling with witches.

I did think this was a pretty good book from a technical standpoint, especially for self-pub. The portions Lackey actually wrote herself are well-written and generally fit well with Austen's original text. And I really appreciated getting to know Mary better - her character was by far the best part of the book.

However, I became frustrated by how much of the text (exposition as well as dialogue) was copied verbatim from Austen's novel with only minor changes. This was especially true in Lizzie's sections, as Lizzie's storyline differs very little from the original. For me, it would have been better either to make more significant changes to Lizzie's storyline or to skip/summarize the parts that were the same as the original, so that much more of the writing was Lackey's own work.

I would have also liked to have seen more broad impact on the story and characters from the major changes made to the setting (witches, acceptance of same-sex relationships). Mary's storyline was the only place where I felt that this was done effectively. Several other major alterations to characters did not feel very connected to the differences in the world, which I found baffling when so much else was kept the same.

I also wanted a lot more witch content, as I didn't get a good sense of what being a witch was really about or how magic functioned in this world. The fact that Mary and (especially) Lizzie were witches often felt like an afterthought, which was unfortunate since this was one of the main things that interested me about this retelling.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for providing an eARC.

[Leslie Gornstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

I often find myself thinking about my favorite books, and wondering, what would that giant of an author do if she could completely buckwild? What if she had just read such-and-such a horror story from the mid-2000s, or had seen the latest episode of that crazy horror TV show on Shudder? What would, say, Austen write if she were exposed to today's best genre authors? I feel like that's what Lackey has done for us here. At some points, I feel like Lackey even out-Austens Austen in her observations of character and setting of scene, all while giving genre readers something really fresh and unforgettable.

Lackey plays with the genre beautifully, particularly in choosing a certain sister to become a boy, spooling out what that might mean in ways that I found equally surprising and addictive. A lesser author might be tempted to fall back into stereotypes of, say, the witch character, making her cacklingly evil or one-note in some other way. But nope. A lot of Austen homages out there are lazy as hell, but this story is the opposite. After a while, I even forgot I was reading a riff on a wildly popular author. That's how fresh the story is. It just works on its own.

When Lackey does choose to pull language directly from Austen, it's to flip the genre on its head and show the reader a different facet of a classic. It takes a lot of skill to pull that off; it's also a trademark of Lackey's, something she's done in other homages to literary giants.

For Austen fans or fans of folk genre fiction, this is a must-read; for everyone else, it's a strong recommend, too.

[John R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's two things to get out of the way at the start: 1. I have not read Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and 2. I am acquainted with the author of this book and contributed to her Kickstarter.

I found this story, as familiar in its tropes as it is, utterly delightful. There's a part of me that wants to read the OG P&P just to compare the wit and charm Lackey has provided in these pages, but with some of the additions/modifications, I feel many of which must be her own invention.

I will say I was just the ever slightest underwhelmed with the inclusion of the conceit in this retelling -- namely two of the Bennett daughters being witches. I think Mary's journey is utterly spectacular and I wish there were just some more focus on her. Even if that meant a little more back-seating the tried and true romantic parts of the original. (Except the romantic parts that would scandalize so many audiences that there dare be queer characters in classic literature.)

Overall, very fun. Having done my own dive into 18th/early 19th century literature, I think Lackey captures the voice pretty well, while adding in some modern twists and nods that really made it feel contemporary.

[DB (DB's Guide to the Galaxy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought that the idea of Pride and Prejudice but Lizzie and Mary being witches would be such a fun idea! Unfortunately I soon realised that you could literally take that away from them and… it would be the original story all over again. I did like it but it didn’t really add anything past that little change. I don’t mind when retellings change a bunch of the original story and I felt like Lackey could’ve really gone for it and played around. Added more witches, let them meet all those witches, just something different!

Another reason I would’ve like the witch addition to be more is because it was incredibly of a side plot. They come to their family’s house with the intention of learning how to heal their witch mentor and it takes weeks before they even start to learn anything. It frustrated me because it kept showing that the witch addition could’ve easily been taken out and not changed anything. What’s the point of reading a retelling if it’s basically just the original?

Other than that, I mean the romance is standard, it’s Darcy and Lizzie, and I love to see it. I think they’ve basically made enemies-to-lovers. Darcy being all “oh I love Lizzie, how do I tell her that and propose to her? Oh I know!” Darcy to Lizzie: “Hey, you suck, your family sucks, please marry me?” That’s just classic stuff, if you ask me. Not entirely as good as knife to the throat trope, but still really good. I did like the change from Lydia as the youngest daughter to Claudius and him still having the relationship with Wickman. Mary’s not interested in romance and prefers to work more on her magic skills and it was great to see how barely anyone bat an eyelash.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore Pride and Prejudice. The book, the 2005 movie, and the 1995 miniseries, I adore them all. And I love magic and witches, so when I had the idea of "what if Pride and Prejudice, but with witches?" I knew that I had to write it.

I am very proud of this novel. It was a lot of fun to write, and I think it's a pretty fun read. My version of Mary is one of my favorites of the characters I've ever written, and I'm excited to share the book with the world!

[Libby · Rating 1 out of 5]

*Thank you Netgalley for the ARC*

This had so much more potential!!! Between one of the most iconic Austen novels and a witch retelling! I think it had good bones to it, but the meat was lacking and that really held it back for me. I think at some parts it felt like not a Pride and Prejudice retelling but more.....just a copy and paste with no significant insight or substance. This pains me to write.

[Dana Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher!
The lengths I will go to, to read anything in the Jane Austen universe, should be studied. Not as gripping as “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” but better than “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters”.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pride and prejudice with witches. Interesting premise. Written in the spirit of the language and the times. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.