Toil and Trouble: A Pride and Prejudice Retelling

I thought that the idea of Pride and Prejudice but Lizzie and Mary being witches would be such a fun idea! Unfortunately I soon realised that you could literally take that away from them and... it would be the original story all over again. I did like it but it didn't really add anything past that little change. I don't mind when retellings change a bunch of the original story and I felt like Lackey could've really gone for it and played around. Added more witches, let them meet all those witches, just something different!

Another reason I would've like the witch addition to be more is because it was incredibly of a side plot. They come to their family's house with the intention of learning how to heal their witch mentor and it takes weeks before they even start to learn anything. It frustrated me because it kept showing that the witch addition could've easily been taken out and not changed anything. What's the point of reading a retelling if it's basically just the original?

Other than that, I mean the romance is standard, it's Darcy and Lizzie, and I love to see it. I think they've basically made enemies-to-lovers. Darcy being all “oh I love Lizzie, how do I tell her that and propose to her? Oh I know!” Darcy to Lizzie: “Hey, you suck, your family sucks, please marry me?” That's just classic stuff, if you ask me. Not entirely as good as knife to the throat trope, but still really good. I did like the change from Lydia as the youngest daughter to Claudius and him still having the relationship with Wickman. Mary's not interested in romance and prefers to work more on her magic skills and it was great to see how barely anyone bat an eyelash.