Persuade Me

by Juliet Archer

[Leah]

Despite having never read a Jane Austen novel (please don’t lynch me), I do enjoy a good modern-day adaptation. I don’t entirely know why but it could have something to do with the fact that reading a modern version of a Jane Austen novel means I can get the gist of Jane’s books without having to read all the old-fashioned writing (now you can lynch me). So when I was asked if I wanted to read Juliet Archer’s second ‘Darcy and Friends’ novel I was dubious so I took a look at the excerpt available and that made my mind up that I did want to read it because it sounded fascinating. I’m quite pleased that I did as I very much enjoyed it.

Persuade Me, if you can’t already tell by the title, is a modern-day version of Jane Austen’s Persuasion (or so I’m told, since I haven’t read Persuasion). I can’t compare the two books, but they feature characters with the same names and a similar plot… So I’m going to go out on a limb here and say: They’re fairly similar. Juliet’s is obviously more modern and ‘now’ though. Although saying that, it was still relatively old-fashioned and posh. The Elliot family were rich, living in big houses in the country and Sir Walter was a Baronet, so it retained everything that was probably in Jane’s book. It was a very civilised book!

Despite not having a clue about Jane Austen, and Persuasion in particular, I thoroughly enjoyed Persuade Me. It was a very quick read and one I found difficult to put down. It was definitely more of a character-driven novel than a plot-driven novel, since there were numerous small plots rather than one massive plot that tied the book together. But that wasn’t necessarily a problem. I’d have perhaps liked a bit more of what went on when Anna and Rick were teenagers. The whole book revolves around the fact that when they were younger they were in love, but because of Sir Walter they broke up and Rick went to Australia whilst Anna became a Russian professor and it would have been good to flashback to the time when they broke up to give us the full story as to why exactly Anna allowed her father to do that as that’s never really touched upon during the novel.

I found the characters to be very fascinating and I daresay most of them will bear a resemblance to Jane Austen’s characters should I go back and read Persuasion. I’m sure they have the same characteristics and mannerisms – quite honestly, at times, it felt like Sir Walter had walked out of the 1800s. I found Anna to be a very fascinating character, I thought I would find her weak for allowing her father to overpower her when she was younger, but I didn’t. Instead, I felt sympathy for her that her dad had such a dominating effect over her life. I liked her as an adult and I found both her and Rick to be very fascinating characters and I enjoyed their interactions again as they met again after a decade apart. The whole will-they-won’t-they aspect was done very well indeed.

I really enjoyed reading Persuade Me. The novel isn’t just about Anna and Rick and I found the other characters – particularly the Mosgrove family, I found I really liked them, the same goes for Jenny and Tom, who Anna rents a room from. There were plenty of lovely characters to balance out the somewhat devious ones – Anna’s family were just terrible people, and there wasn’t one person in Anna’s family I liked. Juliet Archer has written a very enjoyable novel and I’ll definitely be going back to take a look at her first Jane Austen adaptation, The Importance of Being Emma. Jane Austen fans will really love Persuade Me, and I’ll be interested if any one can tell me how similar this novel is to Persuasion, just out of interest. I hugely recommend Persuade Me, I found myself sucked into the story and couldn’t wait to find out what was going to happen to Anna and Rick – and everyone else, for that matter!