A review by chrissie57
Dangerous to Know: Jane Austen's Rakes & Gentlemen Rogues by Amy D'Orazio, Katie Oliver, Karen M. Cox

1.0

I read this some time ago but have been debating my review. This is a collection of stories which purports to tell the stories of Austen's bad boys; the stories are uniformly well written although I am a little perplexed by the inclusion of Tom Bertram, who seems headstrong rather than villainous and Colonel Fitzwilliam, who isn't a villain at all (I note that another reviewer says the reason for his inclusion is clear in the story but I am not inclined to find out, sorry) but apart from one very disturbing fact I think this could have been a 4, or even 5, star read for me - I love bad boys which is why I picked this up in the first place.

What completely turned me off this book was that about three quarters of the stories place the blame for the way the men behave on a woman, generally a woman of somewhat easy morals but at least once (Henry Crawford) an actual prostitute (although to be fair the Admiral plays a large part but Crawford is not meant to be stupid). . I was absolutely horrified - what century are we supposed to be living in? Basically the majority of the bad boys are granted absolution because some naughty, naughty girl was nasty to them in their youth. Words.Fail.Me

I will not elucidate further because spoilers but reading these stories all together left me feeling physically rather ill.