Oh ick! The first third of Pamela Aiden's faux Austen, Pride and Prejudice from Darcy's point of view, really wasn't that bad. She used the exact dialogue from Pride and Prejudice, and her made up non-canonical interactions between Elizabeth and Darcy read okay though it's ridiculous to invent such. I wondered, when I read the books' description, why the second book doesn't end with, say, the first proposal, because cramming the proposal, Derbyshire, and denouement into the third didn't make sense.
And now I know why. It wasn't faux Austen, bad enough, but faux Regency Gothic mystery crap with nothing to do with Pride and Prejudice at all. Since I knew it wouldn't be set in Kent, I thought that there would be Darcy and Bingley, Darcy and Caroline, Darcy and Georgiana. He has to delude himself sometime, because he leaves An Assembly Such as This knowing Elizabeth doesn't like him, so how he is going to propose to her "without a doubt of [his] reception," believing [her] to be wishing, expecting [his] addresses"?
It is a trainwreck, and I cannot look away.