Julie Cooper Audiobooks

Only One Choice: Austen's Mr Darcy reimagined across a full-length romance

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.4/5 average

283 listener ratings

Who is Julie Cooper?

A series called The Gentleman Mr Darcy declares its inheritance in four words. Julie Cooper writes inside the Austen variation tradition, that busy and surprisingly demanding corner of romance where a novelist borrows the most scrutinised characters in English fiction and then has to earn the loan.

It is harder than it looks. Readers of variations know the source intimately and will forgive a great deal except a Darcy who does not sound like Darcy. Only One Choice runs to nearly nine hours, which is novel length proper: room for consequence, for the slow work of a decision and everything it costs, rather than a quick reworking of a favourite scene.

The title alone tells you where the pressure sits. A choice narrowed to a single option is barely a choice at all, and that is usually where the interesting fiction begins.

Julie Cooper in audiobooks

Elizabeth Grace reads, and period-flavoured romance lives or dies on that delivery: the dryness has to be audible, or the whole thing tips into costume drama. Nearly nine hours allows a register to settle rather than announce itself.

Several hundred listeners have rated it, landing comfortably above four stars, which in a readership this protective of its source material counts as a warm reception. Arrive with nothing more than a general memory of Pride and Prejudice and you will keep up easily. Arrive as a seasoned reader of variations and you will be judging the Darcy within a chapter, as is your right. Explore what is gathered below.