I’m a huge fan of time period romance dramas. I can’t help it, there’s just something about a hot romance in an era where you couldn’t express it. In the same genre as “Pride and Prejudice” is “North and South” by Elizabeth Gaskell.
“North and South” reminds me a lot of “Pride and Prejudice” because the two main characters John Thornton and Margaret Hale keep judging each other through the entire book until they realize they are stupid for pushing each other away because they are crazy for each other.
That’s the thing with British heroines. In multiple time period books and movie adaptations of them, there’s always an independent British heroine who stands on her high horse judging men. When those hot, sexy British men go on to confess undying love and a proposal for marriage, they always turn them down. What? If that happened to me, there would definitely be no refusal. I could totally overlook the domineering pushiness because hello, he’d be a sexy British guy.
Margaret has to leave her beloved childhood home in the South of England, and has to move to an industrial town named Milton in the North. She’s not used to dirt and smoke, and thinks very highly of herself. She eventually starts to make friends with a family who is poor, and is a part of a strike that occurs in the book.
Margaret’s life post-move to Milton is full of tragedy and hardness. Eventually she ends up in London with her remaining family, where she finally comes to her senses and realizes she loves John.
The book was turned into a four part mini-series and is currently on Netflix. I liked the show better than I liked the book, which is rare. I think the book was drawn out and paid too much attention to details that didn’t matter. I liked the ending to the series much better than the book. I mean, Margaret and John are the ultimate endgame in each, but the way the series ended it was better than Gaskell wrote it.
If you like time pieces and love stories, and I would suggest reading the book, but to watch the series as well. Nothing beats looking at Richard Armitage (The Hobbit). I give it three and a half stars.
