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).

Same Name, New Look

I learned some new things this weekend!

[ Thanks to the awesome live chat help people at bluehost.com and the many excellent videos and articles about how to do almost anything on wordpress ]

I learned how to point from one site to another, how to export and import files, and how to migrate subscribers as well as a few other things.

[ Did you know you had migrated? 🙂 ]

I admit that I am quite proud of my non-techy self at the moment because despite a small error that lead to a time-consuming clean-up,

[ I hit the import button too many times and spent hours deleting extra files, comments and pictures ]

it looks like leeniebrown.com is up and ready to roll at least on a basic level. I will be spending some more time learning the new features and playing with things as time goes by, but for now we are ready to post again.

Aside from the obvious appearance change, there are a couple other changes you might notice. During the shift over of files from the former site, I decided to do some cleaning and some older posts hit the recycling bin.

[ But, I kept a copy of your encouraging comments. I really do enjoy hearing from my readers. ]

I also know that before this month is out Listen to Your Heart will be published, which means it will have to be removed from this site. So, I have already eliminated many of the chapters. However, there is a link to where the previous chapters can be read at the beginning of Chapter 12 and there will continue to be a link at the beginning of each chapter until the time comes to publish.

Please be aware that as I play with things and learn how to use new plugins and features, things may shift around. Hopefully, the disruption will be minor and will add to the functionality of the site both for me and for you.

Now, to start working seriously on this week’s posts…all that website work time has put me behind schedule. First up, what will I post for tomorrow’s Wordless Wednesday and what will happen with Philip and Lucy in this week’s Thursday’s Three Hundred? Looks like it’s going to be a busy afternoon.

Old Clapham Church, London 1750

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“Miss Tolson?” From a window in the church, Philip Dobney had seen the lady enter the graveyard and was worried when she had stayed for so long. For the past few minutes, he had been watching her weep from the window as the sermon he had been practising sat neglected on a pew a few feet away. He knew that grief was a demanding master who ran roughshod over many, sometimes, leading them to consider all sorts of things they would not have considered when in a happier state. And it was always strongest at first, so he knew that Lucy’s grief was great. It had been but a few days since Mr. Tolson had been buried. It was the first service of that sort which he had performed since accepting the living here in Kympton.

[from And Then Love]

~*~*~

KOBO AMAZON NOOK IBOOKS MAILING LIST PATREON SOCIETY6

The Refrigerator Door: Loving Jesus, a Poem by Josiah Lynch

My sister sent me this poem yesterday. Her son, who is in grade six, was given a task of writing about a picture. The picture he wrote about was a picture of Jesus holding a lamb. This is what he wrote.

Metaphorical Lemon Puffs

The recipe for Lemon Puffs as it appears in The English Art of Cooking by Richard Briggs, printed in 1798.

I chose this recipe thinking it would represent Austen’s Fools. You know ─ the characters who seem all that is charming but turn out to be. . .well. . .not so nice. I thought the sugar could represent their charm and the sourness of the lemons could represent those parts of their character they wished to keep hidden. Little did I realize how this experiment was going to truly show me their characters.

I followed the recipe as it was written except for one small change. I found whipping the eggs and sugar by hand to be something I was not capable of doing for half an hour. Though I did persevere for more than half of that time, I finished the half hour using an electric hand mixer.

After the half hour of mixing, the egg and sugar mixture was thick but no overly so. I questioned the addition of three beaten eggs, but since the recipe said to add them, I did. Perhaps I had done something wrong, but my mixture became quite runny as I suspected it would. Still I continued. I dropped small drops on a parchment lined pan and baked them. The results were not unlike the Austen characters who seem so promising but leave disappointment in their wake. As the small drops baked, they ran together and flattened out…there was no puff in my lemon puffs. How disappointing!

They seemed to lack substance ─ does that sound like some of those rather shallow Austen Fools?

So what is a lady to do when met with such disappointment? Go looking for a Colonel Brandon, of course. Or in the case of my lemon puffs, search the kitchen for ingredients which might have been found in a regency kitchen.

To my runny, disappointing lemon puff mixture, I added. . .

3 1/2 t. baking powder (I do not know if they had this back then, and perhaps baking soda would have worked just as well or better since there was an acid, the lemon juice, in the batter already.)
1 1/2 c. almond flour
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

I then dropped the much more substantial batter onto parchment lined pans and baked. I wish I could tell you precisely how long I baked them, but I can’t since I forgot to set the timer, and the oven was accidentally turned off during the baking of one pan. My best guess is they took about 13 minutes to bake at 350°F. And, in the words of my dear husband who endured the grumbling that went along with this baking experiment, the results were “surprisingly delicious”─crisp on the outside and soft and cake-like on the inside.

This makes me wonder. . .can an Austen Fool be made into something less disappointing? Now there’s something to ponder while enjoying a lemon cookie with a cup of tea.

A Change of Heart

About a week ago on a snow day, I sat down with my computer and decided to take part in a playground challenge at A Happy Assembly (a JAFF forum). The topic was grovelling and making amends. I thought about that horrible scene in Pride and Prejudice where Darcy’s proposal is firmly refused. I decided to give a unique reason to Elizabeth for her burst of anger and harsh words.

It is snowing again today, but I am at school and not home. Traffic was horrid, and I was late. I ended up filling in for a colleague and had part of a class taken for fundraiser. I am feeling rather growly, so I decided to share Elizabeth and Darcy’s story of what happened after the refusal but before Darcy could leave the parsonage.

A small bit of understanding, a kind word, a small gesture is sometimes all it takes to go from grumbly to contented…to have

A Change of Heart

“Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness.” Darcy turned to leave.

Elizabeth saw the hunch in his shoulders and the slight shake of his head. Was he deriding himself? Had she truly heard pain behind his anger? Her emotions threatened to overcome her, and without a thought, she called out to him.

Continue reading A Change of Heart