I really enjoyed this modern retailing of Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice. Literally one of my favorite books!! The author kept the pace steady and the characters interesting. There were quite a few parts where I was laughing. Definitely give this book a try. You will be glad you did!!! Now I wanna read more!!

I had high hopes for this story as it sounded like a modern re-telling of Pride and Prejudice with a sports twist. While I think that basics of the story are here I think that the execution leaves much to be desired.

I liked few aspects of this story, like the idea of a sports writer finding her love with a basketball star, I liked the diversity in the story and characters, I liked the way the main character Hara was presented and detailed (with a few misunderstandings), and I liked the development of the romance as it felt fluid and true. Also for a sports story there is a severe lack of sports knowledge that went into the story, even just the basics like what a specific sport is called.

I didn’t like the way the character traded perspectives within the story without any clear delineation; it caused me to get confused at times with who was speaking. I didn’t like some of the choices the authors made in regards to furthering the plot; they simply did not make sense in a realistic way. I didn’t like the lack of respect for the other woman in the story. I didn’t like the way the authors seemed confused over their own characters and story ideas. For example: Hara is from a small town but gets first class tickets to fly, stays at high end hotels and the like all paid for by her boss, even thought there are only two employees (small business), the fact that Hara doesn’t know the origin of her name or cultural aspects of her linage. That didn’t jive for me.

This story read to me more like an outline and not at all a final version. I hope the authors take some time to revisit their story and fix a few of the issues to make the story smoother. It has great potential but was not one I enjoyed. This is not Pride and Prejudice, not even really a re-telling. I think the only thing in has in common is the use of the Darcy name. I received an ARC via Net Galley and I am leaving my honest review.

This was...not my cup of tea. I thought the premise was good and I enjoyed the basic storyline, but I did not enjoy the writing. A lot of religion and it didn’t flow for me. Very choppy?

I’m sorry to say that this book didn’t hold my attention. Partly the writing, partly the formatting, and lots of repetition means three stars from me. I imagine the authors know about basketball, but they need to work on their writing ability. For me, wring inthe first person is preferable, but not a deal breaker. The third person writing was awkward.

I liked the premise of the story, as it gave a different twist an many of Austen's characters from Pride and Prejudice. However, the writing didn't flow well and seemed blocky.

I thought I would give this author another chance since I had many issues with her other novel, The Perfect Date. Yet, I found myself unable to read this novel all the way through. It was choppy at best and just not anything that I would consider Austen inspired.

Great beach read! I love modern re-tellings of Jane Austen's classics and The Wrong Mr. Darcy told this story with a brand new angle of Pride & Prejudice where a journalist falls in love with an NBA star despite her desire to avoid him at all costs. This fun rom com is an easy entertaining quick read that you'll breeze through quickly. Fans of re-tellings of any of Jane Austen's work will enjoy comparing this take on the tale to the original and others like Eligible, etc.

I didn’t really see this as a Pride and Prejudice retelling. I had high hopes, but I don’t feel the book is as advertised. Other than some character names and chapter quotes I didn’t really see the Jane Austen novel. I love a good rom com but this was light on the comedy. Not something I would recommend.

This was pretty good! I liked the relationships and the story line! I would definitely like to try out more from this author!

The Wrong Mr. Darcy is a retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in the world of professional basketball’s reporters and wives and players. Player Derek Darcy represents the elite with both his pride and prejudice set against reporter Hara Isari. There’s even a dastardly Bingley sister! Other characters such as Hara’s mother and father are true to form while the sinister aspects of basketball and gambling are new. Written by an insider wife the book is clever, fun and suspenseful.

The write up (which is very brief) on this is very misleading. When you first read the description/ see the cover you think a modern day Pride and Prejudice with a basketball twist. Something light and fun. The story needs either a major overhaul to match said “charming multi-cultural P&P inspiration” or a new marketing campaign.

Trigger Warnings: Abortion, miscarriage, sexual harassment, attempted suicide, death by gunfire, near drowning, blackmail, cheating...there were more but that’s what I can presently recall.

Not what one would expect in a contemporary romance.

There is little connection to the classic novel save for the names of a handful of characters and a couple scenes, outside of the quote in the chapter header. The characters themselves are more like caricatures then believable people. Some of their speech patterns, thought processes, and behavior are generally too much or not enough.

The story itself, is not at all what was expected. The first couple chapters help a lot of promise. Hara as a journalist working the story, catching the eye of a pro athlete and going from there ok. It was the execution that did not work. They have a “hate/misunderstanding/annoyance to hop into bed to this is the one” relationship that transitions very quickly. Less then a week quickly. It really bothered me that she has the impression that this man shes getting into bed with has had hundreds of one-night stands but there is no talk of any kind of safe sex practices, none. In this day and age that’s just encouraging bad choices. That’s just one of several examples that left a bad taste in my mouth as a reader.
When it comes to the plot and over all feel of the story...again, not at all what was expected. This as a Romantic book doesn’t work. Steamy scenes aside. Your antagonists are so callous and intense that they do not belong in this kind of setting. The last 40% of the book where Hara is uncovering all the scandals (bet rigging, forced blackmail abortion, threatening of harm to persons or loved ones, deviant sports managers, etc) was a good concept. If you’re going to go this route, plug the story as suspense and tie it in more throughout the story. Not so much from Hara’s POV but from the other characters involved.

This was an advanced copy so it is possible this could be a completely different book by the time it is released. As it stands it is not a book I can recommend.

E-Arc kindly provided by St. Martin’s Press via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I received an uncorrected digital proof for review.
A unique concept - linking Pride and Prejudice with a sports romance. Derek Darcy, rising basketball star is the “other” Mr Darcy to Hara Isari, Pride and Prejudice fan and struggling newbie sports writer. While anticipating reading a sports romance there was a lot of suspense in this novel. I did not care for how there was no clear separation between the POV of the main characters which could easily be fixed with better formatting before publishing. While the storyline seemed just a tad fantastical at times with the authors throwing every sports cliche in here, overall, I enjoyed the read.

This book was described as a Pride and Prejudice inspired and with the name Mr. Darcy in the title I was expecting a modern retelling of one of my favorite novels. However, I was disappointed in this book from a retelling standpoint. There were some character names taken from the original story like Mr. Darcy, Charles, and even a passing mention of a character named Kitty but beyond a few name commonalities most of the characters didn’t have much in common with the originals. I kept finding myself trying to decide which characters here were inspired by which Pride and Prejudice characters and it distracted me from the story itself. If I hadn’t been making those comparisons I think I may have been able to get into this book a bit more. I also had some issues with the pacing and the romance felt rushed at times. Sadly, it just wasn’t what I expected.

I love Pride and Prejudice retelling. Unfortunately I didn’t think this one had many parallels to the original story at all. I was hoping for more of a clever connection. I love the cover! If you like “bad boy” romances, this book might be for you.

This was marketed as hilarious, but I didn’t find it very funny. I don’t think I laughed out loud at all a single time.

The writing wasn’t bad and the story was entertaining, but I just didn’t find it funny. Things are fairly fast paced and keeps you reading.

Grab this book if you want a romance with a hidden twist.

This book made my head hurt.....I will say ive never read this author before and the description sound like a great lite rom com but it was a disaster.....

The premise had potential to be a nice modern Pride & Prejudice but it fell short on so many levels. Contains spoilers.

There’s race/ ethnicity involved, but none of the characters claim their background. Various characters have P&P names but they don’t really follow their characters’ name same personality. The two male MC’s are supposed to be bff’s but one of them proves he was a fake friend. Darcy’s side of the family never makes an appearance. There’s a bad guy straight out of left field, which is hard to fit into the story. I liked the connection the two MC’s feel, it felt real enough, but it still left me wanting more. Being a Bostonian myself, I hated how the authors wrote out the ghetto dialogue for Charles, his on-and-off-again girlfriend/ fiancée, his side lover and some of the WAGS. Most people don’t really speak that way. Yes. Even minorities go through basic schooling and learn proper grammar. I felt like the authors just used that to showcase these characters were black or latina. So overall, I was really disappointed with this story.

Already posted on Goodreads.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

CW/TW: parent in jail, sexual harassment, cheating, miscarriage, attempted suicide by a side character (happens off page, but mc walks in after), talk of abortion, death by shooting of a side character.

*I’m going to start off by saying that I listed what I could remember for the content/trigger warnings. Some of these things will be mentioned in passing in this review. This book is marketed as light and fluffy, but a lot of things happen that some people may find triggering and I want them to be aware. *

I am disappointed to say that this book was actually really bad. I thought it would be a fun, cute P&P retelling involving basketball. What I got was a story lacking in a clear plot with pacing issues and some scenes that left a bad taste in my mouth. There were some things said in the story that felt racist, ableist, and just gross. There were a few flippant comments about eating disorders peppered in too. As well as, a suicide attempt by a side-character that wasn’t handled with any kind of care or nuance. There was also a hyper-focus on the main character being African American and Japanese American with light blue eyes and “caramel skin” and, though I do not have heritage from either of those races, the way it was constantly brought up felt very uncomfortable and kinda ew.
The way that difficult topics and scenarios were just used as plot devices was abhorrent to me. There was no nuance in dealing with abortion, miscarriage, and attempted suicide, and definitely not any related to other topics like sexual harassment in the workplace. I feel like the author was trying to cram in a ton of hot topics but never took the time to do it with care and people stumbling onto this book thinking that it would be a cute rom-com based on the cover could end up being triggered and hurt by this.

As for being a Pride & Prejudice retelling, it barely stuck to the original storyline. The author took some names and a couple lines from the original. This premise was so great: a hot shot b-ball player and an up-and-coming reporter disliking each other at first and then coming to realize their prejudices were unfounded and then falling in love? I wish that was what we got here. The idea was solid, but the execution was severely lacking and with all of the issues noted above I doubt there was a sensitivity reader within a hundred feet of this manuscript. Needless to say, I did not like this book.

I would love to hear what others have to say about this, but, truthfully, I wouldn’t recommend that anyone read this book.

So, a few disclaimers. I'd never read anything by this author prior to picking up this e-ARC. I had no idea who she was. I just saw a super cute rom-com cover with a title that suggested that the book would take inspiration from one of my favorite books of all time.

I am a multi-faceted nerd. I enjoy many hobbies including sports. Mostly football and baseball, but I also have a passing knowledge of other popular sports and athletes. As I was reading this book, which is about a sportswriter trying to catch her big break by interviewing a hot-shot basketball star, I just kept thinking to myself, "This feels like it was written by someone who has never actually been to a sporting event. I found out this is not the case, which made the scenes depicting professional sports and the way they work even more disappointing.

I understand that as an ARC, there are potentially still rounds of edits to go before publication. I hope that's the case, because there were so many technical issues with this book that I never felt able to fully settle in and enjoy this story for what it was trying to be: a racially diverse Pride & Prejudice retelling with some basketball thrown in.

The protagonist's name is Hara Isari. We are told she is African American and Japanese American. In Chapter 14, she tells our Mr. Darcy that her name is Japanese and she didn't realize that she wasn't named after the Greek Goddess Hera until she was in middle school. But that doesn't make sense. The names Hera and Hara wouldn't be pronounced the same if Hara was being pronounced as a Japanese name. Also, being the curious person I am, I looked up the name Hara to see what it means in Japanese. 'Hara' is the Japanese word for 'belly' or 'stomach' (think harakiri, which refers to ritual Japanese suicide). I find it strange that her dad would want to name her 'Belly'. Then, going a step further, I looked up the last name, Isari. In Japanese, 'Isari' means 'fishing' or 'searching'. So her name is 'Belly Fishing'. I have to wonder how much research was done into Japanese names before this was chosen for the protagonist.

I'm actually curious why the author chose this ethnic background for her heroine, when the author herself is Puerto Rican. I just wonder if the character would've felt a little more authentic if the author had drawn on her own background to create her. To be clear, I'm not saying that the author isn't allowed to write characters with a different ethnic background from hers, and as a white woman I don't have any place to say whether the representation was good, but I feel like it possibly would've helped.

There is another character, Kitty. Those who know the story of Pride and Prejudice know that Kitty is one of the younger Bennett sisters. In this book, she's in two scenes and serves solely as a plot device to get our heroine into a room where she needs to be for the story to move along. She is supposed to be Italian, which I only realized in the second scene (Chapter 11) she was in because when she's leaving she says, "Ciao" to Hara. Earlier in that scene she throws a couple other non-English words into conversation randomly. The only problem is, one isn't an Italian word and the other wasn't the correct word. Kitty is calling someone a whore and uses the word 'punta', which is Italian (and Spanish) for 'point'. A couple paragraphs later she says something about her 'familia', which is the Spanish word for 'family.' The Italian word is 'famiglia'. Then Kitty disappears never to be seen, heard from, or talked about again, so it doesn't really matter I suppose, but then why is she even in the story to begin with? She's a complete throwaway character.

There's another scene (Chapter 16) where Hara is reading a letter and the letter uses the word 'abeyance'. They use it as a synonym or relation to the word 'obedience'. In reality, this means almost the opposite of what the author intends. The definition of abeyance is: a state of temporary disuse or suspension. So instead of the letter saying 'we would like you to honor (obey to) our agreement', they are instead saying, 'we would like you to suspend our agreement'.

I can't actually point out a character or scene that I enjoyed in this. The romance was too little, too late.. The dialogue was awkward, even cringeworthy at times. There's no fun banter between the characters, which is something I look for in my adult contemporary romances. The passages from Derek Darcy's POV feel totally pointless. This whole story could've been written without them. Hara is one of the most annoying heroines I've read about in a long while. There's a scene (chapter 9) when she gets angry after being insulted and lashes out at another reporter when the reporter wasn't the one who insulted her in the first place. Then we're supposed to side with her and think this guy is a jerk as well because he responds to her outburst in a way any normal person would. None of the side characters feel developed past caricatures that are stereotypes at best, and possibly offensive at worst. There's even a moustache-twirling villain who we're told has an obsession with phallic symbols and it's equated to being depraved and evil and characters are disgusted by it.

The story itself is just bad. It bums me out so much. There is a glimmer, just the faintest glimmer of an interesting story. This could've been a fun updated version of P&P with a racially diverse cast that people today could connect with. But aside from a few inserts of quotes from the source material, vague plot generalities, and a few character names, this has almost nothing to do with Pride & Prejudice. Then the end gets so utterly ridiculous and melodramatic that I don't even know how this whole book isn't one elaborate prank. At one point, our hero ponders whether or not he's stuck in a bad movie, and I couldn't help thinking that even the characters know the situation is absurd.

A couple more head-scratching moments:

1. We're told several times throughout the course of this book that Hara works for a small-town newspaper in a podunk town and that she is the ONLY full-time employee working at the paper along with her boss. Even so, her boss bought multiple plane tickets for her, ordered her a limousine, and put her up in a super swanky boutique hotel. He also bought her fancy clothes for the trip. Yeah...that sounds like real life in a podunk town.

2. There's a lot of girl-hate in this book. The word 'ho' is thrown around liberally and girls literally fight over awful men. Even the girl she befriends is made out to be a naive idiot. It feels like it's done in an attempt to bolster the not-like-other-girls-ness of our protagonist.

I am so thankful to be given the opportunity to read this book before its release, and I wish I had enjoyed it more.

Thanks Netgalley for an arc of this book! I absolutely loved this book.!!! The story immediately pulled me in. I loved Hara’s determination. A little romance, a little mystery, sports, tears and laughs. This book had it all!

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8UHZbkAT1U/?igshid=15oz8tyc05au7