Review of PR from a South Scranton Native

I am particularly pleased with this review from Marybeth VanWinkle, the Editor of "The Searcher," the newsletter of the Northeast PA Genealogical Society, and a resident of South Scranton.

Pemberley Remembered is a precious jewel of a novel. Like a carefully cut stone, it can be read from many angles, each presenting a different perspective, yet no single one detracts from the cohesive beauty of the whole. It is a love story, a mystery, and a glimpse into two separate historical time periods in which the protagonists are struggling against traditions and mores of the past while attempting to live their lives according to an emerging set of values.The main character, Maggie Joyce, is typical of many young people who are anxious to try their wings in the great world outside of their hometowns. Given the opportunity to work for the government after World War II in Europe, she believes that she is leaving behind the predictability and inevitability of what her life would have been had she stayed in her little village of Minooka, PA, a depressed mining town, where anthracite coal was once king. Most of the residents are of Irish descent, as well as strictly observant Catholics. There was no need for police or constables because the parish priest wielded all the power, both temporal and spiritual. Maggie’s memories are both nostalgic and painful: her hardworking mother, hard-drinking father and their large brood of children. Maggie doesn’t want to be defined by the parameters of Minooka. She chooses to go, first to Germany and then to England, to work in a post-war administrative office.Maggie is, at heart, a romantic. From childhood, she had read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice enough times to have memorized most of it. By coincidence, she meets the Crowells, who seem to have amazing first-hand knowledge of the book, as well as the real people about whom the book was written. As Maggie gets to know the Crowells, she is introduced to yet another new world, one of gracious and elegant living of the years before World War I, as well as the horrors of the war itself.While the Crowells slowly feed Maggie the story of Elizabeth Garrison and William Lacey, Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, she acquires a boyfriend, Rob McAllister, a hero with a degree of status having been a navigator on a B-17 bomber in World War II. After months of courtship, Maggie learns that Rob has not mentioned their relationship to his family because she is a Catholic and his people are Lutherans. Long before the advent of ecumenism, this would have ended any prospect of marriage. Yet Darcy overcame the differences in society that separated him from Elizabeth. Can Rob overcome the differences between Maggie and him?Pemberley Remembered is absorbing, amusing and very cleverly written. The different styles of writing in the book lend an air of realism to the plot. There are letters, both contemporary and historical, and old diary entries. It combines three time periods successfully without causing confusion for the reader. It has a strong love story and page-turning mystery. For readers who are not sure which genre they wish to read, there is mystery, romance and history enough to go around for everyone