Adventure… Exotic… Romance… Danger…PassionInspired by Jane Austen’s most alluring romantic couple, this modern adventure stars adaptations of characters from Pride and Prejudice and her other novels.Fitzwilliam Darcy is steel, rock-n-roll, and Tennessee whiskey. Elizabeth Bennet is orchids, opera, and peaches with cream. Thrown together they are physically and emotionally charged TNT, … they are physically and emotionally charged TNT, ready to explode!
Elizabeth Bennet, a young woman hiding from living life to its fullest, finds herself willing to accept an untenable marriage arrangement solely for the sake of achieving her father’s selfish aspiration to save the family’s historic home. But even duty and obligation fail to hinder her inner conscience from spurring her to leave – to run – to escape before it’s too late. Prompted by a cataclysmic event and the arrival of an attractive, enigmatic man, Liz is thrust into a dangerous liaison where her spirit learns to fly amidst international intrigue.
Fitzwilliam Darcy was born into the wealth of Northern Virginia’s world of refinement and competitive polo. When a horrific family event rocks his world and shatters his trust in women, he leaves everything behind, determined to never look back. Running from his past and the man he once was, he enters a world of danger, first as a Navy SEAL, then as a government-sanctioned assassin. After thirteen years fortified by his hurt and anger, carrying a career moniker “The Iceman,” Darcy finds he still can’t avoid his own conscience – beckoning him home to Pemberley, its demons and the man he was meant to be. Fate steps in when a beautiful woman suddenly appears at the end of his deadly rifle scope and he chooses not to take his signature kill shot.
Experience adventure, lust, and danger as we burn rubber on the back of Darcy’s motorcycle through Washington, D.C. and Mount Vernon, Virginia. We’ll fly with our hero and heroine to play roulette in Monte Carlo and take the bullet train to Seville to tango in the moonlight. The island of Capri invites us to indulge before our final stop, Marrakech, Morocco where the exotic city of Arabian Nights brings us to our thrilling climax. Will this seemingly mismatched pair find the peace and the life they were both meant to live? Will “conscience” win out with Liz & Darcy finding happiness in one another’s arms? As Darcy would say, “Don’t be afraid. Get on… let’s ride.”
Authors Note: Jane Austen wrote such wonderful characters, I borrowed their names and some of their characteristics to tell my own tale of hard-won, contemporary love.
BE ADVISED: This story contains explicit sexual scenes.
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“It was my duty to shoot the enemy, and I don’t regret it. My regrets are for the people I couldn’t save: Marines, soldiers, buddies. I’m not naïve, and I don’t romanticize war. The worst moments of my life have come as a SEAL. But I can stand before God with a clear conscience about doing my job.” Chris Kyle
Warning/Caveat: Know going in this is not for the faint of heart. It is graphic, and explicit. We are dealing with a covert assassin group that works under the radar and deals with evil enemies of the state, country and world. Someone has to take out the trash and Obsidian is the group to call when it is garbage day.
Rating: PG-21: Mature Audience: explicit, expressive, sensual and graphic mind-blowing sex scenes, mild language, graphic violence, nothing is withheld. Have a fire extinguisher handy to put out the sparks flying from the page. Seriously! I-am-not-joking.
With all the fabulous reviews… let me just say one thing… Cat Gardiner is a genius. I’ll just state it up front. Right from the beginning Cat grabs the reader by the throat and does not let go. The villains will make your skin crawl and our Austen P&P [Pride and Prejudice] characters fit so well in this modern spy story. Descriptions of our hero will melt you like Hershey’s Chocolate left out in the sun. I am so in love with the Assassin’s Tango… just saying. Google it… and watch.
“Every human has four endowments – self-awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The power to choose, to respond, to change.” Stephen Covey
Mr. Bennet: What have you done? OMG! Our author has taken Austen’s indolent father figure and given his intelligence a new field of study… computer programming and the creation of a destructive virus specifically. Yeah, he has the power and knowledge to bring about a weapon of mass destruction that our enemy wants desperately. I really did not like him and his selfish ways. He would sacrifice anything, anyone in order to save Longbourn Plantation. I so resented him and his blind actions against his favorite daughter.
Additional P&P Characters:
Richard [Rick]: Darcy’s cousin, Charles Bingley, Caroline Bingley, Jane Bennet and Bill Collins, and other Austen characters that will make you smile when you run across their names. It was such a surprise. I simply loved running into them and seeing how they played a part in this fast-paced spy story.
Poor Elizabeth Bennet had no idea what was going on. It reminded me of the 1994 True Lies movie where Jamie Lee Curtis [a neglected wife] discovers her dull salesman husband [Arnold Schwarzenegger] is secretly a spy. Lizzy finds herself in a similar situation. She is caught up in an adventure of a lifetime with Darcy as they fight to rescue her father and save the world from his selfish and unwise decisions.
There is a mention of Wickham throughout the story who, like in canon, has committed heinous crimes against Darcy and Georgiana. We will not know until the end of the story what happens with him. It was good.
This book is followed by a novelette… ‘Guilty Conscience.’ Following it is the sequel to Denial… ‘Without a Conscience.’ I look forward to seeing what is happening with our Darcy and Lizzy.