I am currently reading (well, listening to) Claudia Gray’s The Murder of Mr. Wickham. I’ve read lots of Austen inspired stuff, but this book does something that I’ve never seen before – she comes up with a convincing way to put characters from all (or almost all, I’m admittedly not a Jane Austen expert) of Austen’s books in a single novel!
It seems like such an obviously cool move that I’m surprised there aren’t 100 books like this out there. It also reminds me of something I have frequently – concept envy. Concept envy is my name for the phenomenon when someone tells you their idea for a book, or what their current book is about and you think, “Wow, that’s a really cool idea, I wish I had thought of something like that.”
Maybe it’s because I feel like I haven’t quite mastered the whole idea of “high concept” books yet. But I frequently find myself with concept envy, and The Murder of Mr. Wickham is no exception.
Jenel Alan 