The verdict is in for "Two Shall Become One"

I really wanted to like "Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy: Two Shall Become One."

The first few months of matrimony for our beloved Elizabeth and Darcy have been the subject of many a daydream of mine. It must be hard, I thought, for two such strong-minded, stubborn people to meet in the middle, no matter how much they love each other.

Well, author Sharon Lathan squelched those musings.

In Lathan's daydream, Darcy and Elizabeth spend most of their time having sex on every available surface of the dignified Pemberley estate. Between said rendezvous, the couple chat about how happy they are and how much they adore each other and how much they adore Pemberley and how much they adore sex.

Not that I mind a decent sex scene, mind you. I was satisfied with the honest description of the Darcy's wedding night, their anticipation and anxiety - the bridal suite and the foods they ate.

But the problem, even beyond the truly gratuitous sex descriptions and the somewhat ludicrous idea that Darcy and Elizabeth share "anatomy" and "sex" texts with each other to further heighten their experience, is the painful dialogue.

Somehow Lathan - who was handed the two strongest characters in all of literature - reduced our dashing Mr. Darcy to a blithering, bumbling, poetically disinclined Mr. Collins. Lizzie, known for her struggles to hold her tongue, often sits by simpering away, thinking of nothing but Darcy and his insincere, mostly ridiculous twitterings.

If I had a nickel for every time the words "beloved, precious, and lovely" crossed Darcy's lips in this book, I would be able to travel to Pemberley myself and smack some sense into him.

The one truly bright spot in the text comes in chapter 18, where Darcy - outraged at a neighbor's amorous and vicious attack on Lizzie that leaves her semi-comatose - challenges the Lord Orman to a sword fight.

This is where Lathan shines. Her gift for non-romantic description is smart and pointed. This is the Darcy we know and love! Calm, collected and determined, our hero uses his brains, focus and skill to press his opponent and gain victory and revenge for his wife.

Unencumbered by the overused words "my beloved," the dialogue is quick and easy to fall into. Plus it isn't annoying, which helps a lot.

As for the story itself, Lathan falls short again. By page 240 nothing happened but too many clumsily-written sexcapades. The rise of the already shallow plot doesn't do anything for the story. The plot is just unworthy of the Darcy's and the book could be about any other couple at any other place in any other time. It fails - miserably - to be as special as Jane Austen prescribes it to be.

I must mention Lathan's Forward to the book, because I think it provides clues as to where Lathan and her story derail.

Here, Lathan describes herself as a person who had never read Pride and Prejudice and had no interest in it until she saw the 2005 movie adaptation. She goes on to say she then read the book and fell in love with the story and felt compelled to continue Austen's work.

There are several instances in the book that are clearly from the movie, including the Darcy's fabled sculpture gallery at Pemberley, which does not exist in Austen's book and was manufactured by the same Hollywood producers who spelled Austen's name "Austin" on the movie poster.

Lathan clearly wrote this novel as a sequel to a movie she saw and not a book she read.

So this novel will sit on my bookshelf as part of a collection of companion novels until I find the time to donate it somewhere, though it pains me to keep it or to put it back out into the world.

So I answer these questions:
Would Jane Austen approve? NO.
Are the characters true to Austen's work? NO.
Would I recommend this book to my best friend? NO.
Would I read this book again? NO.
VERDICT: One and a half out of five stars.