APP REVIEW: Stride and Prejudice by No Crusts Interactive

Now I’m back in Sydney and making the most of the wifi, I thought I’d take a look at some of the games cropping up to play. I found this one. It’s called ‘Stride and Prejudice’ and it’s the simplest, but most addictive, thing in the world – and just $0.99(US) from No Crusts Interactive. Described as an ‘endless runner based on Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen’ it’s essentially a mix between your typical ‘jump onto each platform as the screen moves’ and enforced reading of classics. It works on the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

You are a pixellated, gowned-up Regency female with gold heels and gloves and a shock of brown curled hair (perhaps Lizzy), and you have to run across the screen jumping from sentence to partial sentence in the book by tapping the screen.

BOOK REVIEW: The Pursuit of Mary Bennet: A Pride and Prejudice Novel

“The day of the ball allowed no tranquility, no peace of mind. What I had hoped would be a time of sweet anticipation turned rapidly into a nightmare,” – Page 102, Chapter 11

I was honestly blown away by how much I liked this book. The first Austen-inspired book to come from Pamela Mingle (who wrote Kissing Shakespeare), and potentially one of my favourite Mary Bennet remakes out, The Pursuit of Mary Bennet is how I like my Austen fiction written. It may even surpass most other Mary Bennet versions just due to how inkeeping it is with what is expected from Mary, and the multiple pursuits happening within the book – emotional/love pursuits, actual chasing pursuits of scandalous characters and a deeper more personal pursuit for a place and meaning in life.

Book Review: Death Comes to Pemberley, P.D. James

“They wanted dancing and merriment… They got murder” – Back cover

I have been tweeted and recommended this book by many people since (and before) it came out in December last year.  However, I was put off, expecting darkness to seep in, and “guilt and misery and such odious subjects” (as Austen herself said about her pen not dwelling on such) to become the focus. However, now I have read it, devoured it perhaps, I can safely say that this sequel is believable, faithful to Pride and Prejudice and an exciting, easy read.

Book Review: Being Elizabeth Bennet by Emma Campbell Webster

This book managed to irritate and entertain in different parts.  Perhaps it was the lack of choices, rather heavy reliance on a point system and the often awkward inclusion of characters, but it left a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth.  If you’ve read a “Create your own Adventure” novel before, you will know what this book has in store when it subtitles itself “Create your own Jane Austen Adventure”.  For the others, I will explain in full.  Disjointed storylines are symptomatic of this book genre, a genre of which I am admittedly not a fan, and Webster did have a better attempt at it than most.

So, will you die a horrible death?  Marry Mr. Darcy?  Become a writer?…

Jane Austen for Twitter #A4T

If you follow many Janeites and Austen authors on Twitter you may have been wondering what this #A4T thing is that is being thrown onto the end of narrative tweets.  It means “Austen for Twitter” and is a fantastic Austen Project where fans write a Jane Austen story using Twitter, and using any of the characters and scenarios.  This is social media collaboration at its finest.