Pride and Protest
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A Phenomenal Book Club pick for November 2022!
A woman goes head-to-head with the CEO of a corporation threatening to destroy her neighborhood in this fresh and modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice by debut author Nikki Payne.
Liza B.—the only DJ who gives a jam—wants to take her neighborhood back from the soulless property developer dropping unaffordable condos on every street corner in DC. But her planned protest at a corporate event takes a turn after she mistakes the smoldering-hot CEO for the waitstaff. When they go toe-to-toe, the sparks fly—but her impossible-to-ignore family thwarts her every move. Liza wants Dorsey Fitzgerald out of her hood, but she’ll settle for getting him out of her head.
At first, Dorsey writes off Liza Bennett as more interested in performing outrage than acting on it. As the adopted Filipino son of a wealthy white family, he’s always felt a bit out of place and knows a fraud when he sees one. But when Liza’s protest results in a viral meme, their lives are turned upside down, and Dorsey comes to realize this irresistible revolutionary is the most real woman he’s ever met.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Payne debuts with an entertaining and politically charged retelling of Pride and Prejudice that tackles gentrification, prejudice, and the intersections of race, class, and gender. Rigid Filipino CEO Dorsey Fitzgerald and passionate Black DJ and activist Liza Bennet are at odds over Dorsey's efforts to gentrify Merrytown, Liza's DC neighborhood, before they even meet. Dorsey is struggling to prove himself as the heir to Pemberley Development following his adoptive parents' death and Liza's efforts to rally the community to halt the company's plans using her radio show and popular social media accounts aren't making his job any easier. In a twist on Austen's classic meet-ugly, Liza arrives at a Pemberley gala to stage a flash protest, mistakes Dorsey for one of the waitstaff, and attempts to entice him to join her cause. When a snowstorm later strands them together in the Pemberley offices, their mutual misconceptions start to melt away as their attraction heats up. As their connection grows, they work hard to see eye to eye, even while keeping up appearances by performing their parts on opposite sides of the fight for Merrytown. While it doesn't stand out among a crowded field of Austen retellings, the redevelopment plot puts a fresh twist on familiar beats and the enemies-to-lovers romance sizzles. This is good fun.
