Author: Leenie Brown

Leenie Brown fell in love with Jane Austen's works when she first read Sense and Sensibility followed immediately by Pride and Prejudice in her early teens. As the second of five daughters and an avid reader, she has always loved to see where her imagination takes her and to play with and write about the characters she meets along the way. In 2013, these two loves collided when she stumbled upon the world of Jane Austen Fan Fiction. A year later, in 2014, she began writing her own Austen-inspired stories and began publishing them in 2015. Leenie lives in Nova Scotia, Canada with her two teenage boys and her very own Mr. Brown (a wonderful mix of all the best of Darcy, Bingley and Edmund with healthy dose of the teasing Mr. Tillney and just a dash of the scolding Mr. Knightley).

Music Monday: Something Just Like This, Instrumental Cover

Welcome to a new week. It’s time for a bit of music, some writing news, and an excerpt. Shall we get started?

Click play and read on. 🙂

Solís Music. “‘Something Just Like This’ The Chainsmokers & Coldplay – Piano Orchestral Pop Cover by David Solis.” YouTube, YouTube, 15 June 2017, youtu.be/4S5pqnv4EcE.

You can find the original version of this song by The Chainsmokers and Coldplay at this link if you wish to hear the words sung. In my mind, the lyrics really fit with the story I just finished writing and am sharing an excerpt at the end of this post, which is why I chose this song to share today.

Now, that I have told you there is a story connection to the music, let’s get to the writing news:

First of all, this happened last week…

Confounding Caroline is now available for pre-order! 🙂

And Delighting Mrs. Bennet, the sequel to this story started posting on Thursday.

It was truly a week of excitement because late Friday night, I finished writing Master of Longbourn, and I know I am the author, but it is such a good story. You’re going to have to read it. 🙂 Mr. Collins is just so surprisingly likable — truly. I have had early readers who have surprised themselves by saying things like “I really like Collins.” The final chapter and epilogue of the story will be posting this week on Patreon after I have had a chance to reread and polish them a little.

Before I get to the excerpt from Master of Longbourn, I want to remind you of what I said last week. This will be the last excerpt from this story, and I will likely not have an excerpt for the next two or three weeks or so. I am going to take some time to work on Delighting Mrs. Bennet, and then some other story will get started, although, at this very moment, I have not decided which one. 🙂 Maybe I will know by next Monday…maybe. 🙂

Now for…

AN EXCERPT (a longish excerpt) FROM Master of Longbourn: Continue reading Music Monday: Something Just Like This, Instrumental Cover

Wordless Wednesday: Airedale Terrier

8 weeks old little Airedale terrier puppy dog on a beer barrel via depositphotos.com

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Meet Dash. He’s joining us for our Thursday story tomorrow.

How could such a cute little fellow cause such a big problem?

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Music Monday: The One, Northanger Abbey

Good Monday to you!

It’s time for a writing news update, a lovely music video, and a story excerpt.

Twirish246. “Catherine & Henry Tilney || The One || Northanger Abbey.” YouTube, YouTube, 18 June 2015, youtu.be/l4dFFK3vt64.

Writing News:

I have finished the last edits on Confounding Caroline and will be working on setting up a pre-order. I’m hoping to have that completed by Thursday.

Tomorrow is my day at Austen Authors, and I will be sharing an excerpt from Confounding Caroline as well as an interesting anecdote I found while doing some research for that story.

This Thursday, Delighting Mrs. Bennet will begin posting! I have four posts for this story written and scheduled. I hope that I will have time to get the fifth post written before it is needed. However, I must put writing that story on pause for a while since…

Master of Longbourn MUST be published in June, and I am still not done writing it. Yikes! It is getting very close to finished. I can feel the excitement of the ending coming soon. I’m hopeful that it will be complete by the fifteenth. With the end coming so soon, there will likely only be this week’s excerpt and maybe one that leaves you wondering next week, but that’s it. Then, there maybe a little gap of excerpt-free Mondays, or I might share bits of Delighting Mrs. Bennet as I plan to work on that after Master of Longbourn is finished. I have been finding it challenging to keep up with two stories during the week, especially when they are alike. (Both Delighting Mrs. Bennet and Master of Longbourn are sequels to Darcy and Elizabeth stories, and quite frankly, I struggle to keep those Darcy and Elizabeth stories straight. 🙂 ) Due to finding working on two stories simultaneously to be tricky, I am going to try shifting how I do the stories. I’m also going through a period of evaluation as I look at how I am doing things and trying to see what needs to stay and what could maybe be changed up. Why? Because 1) I like to shake things up now and again to prevent boredom and 2) I think I am finally reaching that point of must slow down before it is too late 🙂 (I’m so bad at that LOL)

I think that is all the writing news, so now for that…

EXCERPT FROM Master of Longbourn: Continue reading Music Monday: The One, Northanger Abbey

Wordless Wednesday: Drawing Room, St James’s

By Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827) and Augustus Charles Pugin (1762–1832) (after) John Bluck (fl. 1791–1819), Joseph Constantine Stadler (fl. 1780–1812), Thomas Sutherland (1785–1838), J. Hill, and Harraden (aquatint engravers)[1] [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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Which character in one of my books has ties to St. James’s? Anne is about to find out. [The book title is listed below the excerpt.]

Anne snorted again. “Have you dismissed your mistress?”

He (Blackmoore) gave one sharp nod. “For now, at least. Whether it stays that way or not has yet to be seen.”

Anne shook her head and rolled her eyes. At least, he would not be her problem. “How considerate of you,” she said dryly.

He shrugged. “I did say that I might not be reformed.”

“In case you were wondering, I will not marry a man with a mistress, nor will I become one.”

Blackmoore laughed. “I would not attempt to suggest such. I felt the way Madoch protected you the last time we met, and I have endured his glares all evening.” He shook his head as he continued to chuckle. “No, no, he is not someone with whom I wish to tangle. I fear I would not win.”

The comment surprised Anne. “I beg your pardon, but I do not understand your meaning. What exactly makes a man who cares for horses someone who must be feared?” Alex was not a small or retiring man, but he was not a brute either. How he could inspire such a reaction in a gentleman who was his superior in rank was beyond her comprehension.

Blackmoore laughed once again. “His connections, my dear, his connections. It is not that he cares for horses but for whose horses he cares.”

[from Her Heart’s Choice]

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Music Monday: Period Dramas – At the Beginning

Welcome to the beginning of a new week full of possibilities. As I look forward to the week ahead, I like to start by taking inventory of where I am by looking back at what I accomplished last week. It’s a lot easier to know where you are going if you know where you are starting. 🙂

But first…

Some musical inspiration…

videosbyloo. “Period Dramas – At the Beginning (PDC).” YouTube, YouTube, 17 June 2011, youtu.be/jMLlkAMLV-Q.

And then…

Writing News:

Mr. Darcy’s Comfort released, successfully, last week on Thursday. 🙂 You can find out more about the book as well as a link that will provide all my vendor options at this link:

https://books2read.com/b/3GYBBr

My writing time focused only on Master of Longbourn this week because I actually took two nights off from writing. I did not take them off completely. I still did some other book business work, but no story was written. Launching a book can be draining (so much excitement is tiring 🙂 ) and when I combined that with a lack of sleep (because my body does that sometimes), I ended up with a mushy, not terribly creative brain. And that is not good for writing. 🙂 So, after fighting the idea for a while (I’m no quitter, you see :D) I gave in and allowed the brain to do things other than create imaginary worlds. Hopefully, this week, I will get in all five writing sessions.

Because of the book release, I did not do my regular editing time. I gave that time to book release sorts of things such as creating a graphic, posting an excerpt (which I am using for marketing purposes), sending out an email to my mailing list, making sure I had the book added to my book page and a few other things like that. (I have a list. It’s rather long.)

But that was last week, and though I will need to keep doing some marketing work for the new book, this week during editing period, I plan to begin final edits on Confounding Caroline since I have them back from my editor. I should have a publication date firmed up by next Monday!

I have also begun a project of updating book covers and reorganizing some things. This project will not be completed any time soon, but it has begun. I started by updating the cover for Listen to Your Heart. The story inside has not changed, although I did update the book list in the backmatter and added an excerpt from And Then Love.

And lastly, I created a bundle of stories — a box set of Dash of Darcy and Companion Stories. This bundle contains Finally Mrs. Darcy, Waking to Mr. Darcy, A Very Mary Christmas, Discovering Mr. Darcy, and Not an Heiress.

I have only uploaded this bundle to Kobo so far since I wish to apply to have it included in a promotion in May, but this week, I will be attempting to add it to other vendors. In fact, between when I am writing this Saturday night and Monday when you are reading this, I might have gotten part of that done. There will be a print version eventually.

Phew! You know, now that I have listed all that out I can understand better why I was so tired by the end of the day on Thursday. When I’m just working on this and that steadily through a week, I don’t see how much I am actually doing. Little by little, consistent, steady effort adds up!

Now, for…

AN EXCERPT FROM Master of Longbourn: Continue reading Music Monday: Period Dramas – At the Beginning