Roger flopped back onto the grass and placed his hat over his eyes. “You will keep me safe from marauding females if I fall asleep, will you not?”
“Perhaps,” Victoria replied.
Roger lifted his hat and looked at her. She smiled in return, and he once again put his hat over his eyes. She would not let anyone accost him – at least, not anyone he did not wish to have accost him. The thought of him finally choosing someone to be his wife pricked her heart.
“You would not consider a parson, would you, Miss Hamilton?” Mr. Clayton asked.
“No, she would not,” Roger said from beneath his hat.
“I think I can speak for myself,” Victoria retorted.
[From tomorrow’s chapter of His Darling Friend, A Touches of Austen Novella]
Published to YouTube by Val on September 24, 2007
I really do not have a tie in between song and stories this week. I just happened to like this video. 🙂 So, let’s just get right into my writing news.
First, and absolutely most importantly…
Today is release day for Tom: To Secure His Legacy!
It is available in the Kindle store and in Kindle Unlimited. Currently, the price is reduced ($2.99 USD) and will remain that way until the end of the week, when it will go up ($4.99 USD). [All currencies are reduced and all currencies will be going up. I just could not list them all.]
Tomorrow, I will have a post about Tom’s story on Austen Authors. I hope you will drop by and maybe discover a few facts about coffeehouses, the London stock market, and how the two things go together.
Of course, don’t forget to also stop by and read Roger and Victoria’s story here tomorrow. 🙂 I managed to get caught up on this story this week! (But, I fell a week behind on Lydia’s story. 🙂 Eventually, it will all get caught up.)
Aside from writing two chapters of Roger’s story and getting my Austen Author’s post written. I started a new story! It has no title, and I have only written 1000 words or so. BUT… it is started! The plan so far has Kitty Bennet as the heroine and possibly Mr. Waller as the hero.
If you have read or when you read Tom’s story, there is a scene where Tom and Faith meet the Darcy’s (from Two Days Before Christmas) at a ball, and they have Mrs. Darcy’s sister Kitty with them because Kitty is visiting the Gardiners. The story I have just started will be set during this visit. The book will (probably) be the third in the Darcy Family Holidays series even though it stars a character from the Other Pens, Mansfield Park series. I am really enjoying having these two story worlds merging in places. I just love thinking of all these characters living in one big world.
I have removed Oxford Cottage, For Peace of Mind, Listen To Your Heart, Through Every Storm, and With the Colonel’s Help from all vendors except Amazon in preparation for the publication of Darcy and… A Pride and Prejudice Variations Anthology later this week. This anthology will be available in Kindle Unlimited for a minimum of three month. I have not committed to a definite plan on this yet as this is the first Pride and Prejudice work I have offered ever in Kindle Unlimited. Depending on how it does. If page reads stay high or sales are good, I might extend the Kindle Unlimited enrollment for a second three-month period. This is all a grand experiment at this point. But I know that just as there are some readers who only read in Kindle Unlimited, there are also parts of the world where buying books from Amazon is not a possibility. Therefore, I would love to figure out some way of rotating books through the Kindle Unlimited library and then back out to other distributors. I’ll do my best to keep you up-to-date on that here as well as in my newsletter.
And, that, I believe, is all my writing news for this week. I am still not far enough along in that new story to share from it. So, once again, here is an excerpt from a previously published story, and I think this excerpt might sort of go with the theme presented by today’s music choice of “Better Together” — even if not all the participants in this scene are terribly willing to cooperate 😀 and work together.
AN EXCERPT FROM One Winter’s Eve [Book Two of the Darcy Family Holiday’s Series]:
As they approached Netherfield, Richard guided his horse toward the side of the house.
“Where are you going?” Caroline asked.
“The servants’ entrance,” Richard replied.
“No, you are not.” Caroline nudged her horse to catch up to his.
“Yes, I am. If Darcy has returned, I would rather have Georgiana already attended to before he finds out I allowed her to be injured.”
“You did not allow me to be injured,” Georgiana said.
Richard huffed. No matter what his cousin or Caroline said, he had allowed Wickham to get too close to Georgiana.
“How will you manage the narrow stairs?” Caroline asked. “Miss Darcy will get bumped and jostled, and the servants will be delayed in their duties. We cannot have footmen carrying water for her bath if we are in their way.”
“But Darcy –”
“Is likely still at Longbourn,” Caroline interjected before he could finish his protest.
“She is right,” Georgiana said. “Neither he nor Mr. Bingley will be returned just yet.”
“But Mrs. Hurst –”
“Can be put to work seeing that a bath is drawn, and the surgeon is called.” Caroline raised a brow and gave him a challenging look. “The front stairs will be far easier to navigate should Georgiana need an arm upon which to lean.”
Richard scowled. She was making sense, which was incredibly annoying. However, it was not she with whom Darcy would be displeased. Had Darcy and Bingley not expressly invited him to Netherfield to keep Georgiana safe? He shook his head.
“If you promise to remain here, I will inquire if Mr. Darcy has returned.”
His scowl deepened. He did not appreciate the tone Caroline was using. It was not as if he were a child in the nursery who needed coaxing to behave as instructed. “Very well,” he grumbled. “If my cousin has not returned, we will do it your way, but if he has returned, we will take the back stairs, and the servants can stand to the side for five minutes.”
“Thank you, Miss Bingley,” Georgiana said with a stern look for Richard.
“Yes, thank you, Miss Bingley,” Richard added. However, he did not feel very thankful.
“It is not your fault,” Georgiana whispered.
“Perhaps.” He shook his head. How stupid he had been to allow Wickham to even come close to Georgiana! True, he had not expected the scoundrel to attempt an attack of any sort in his presence, but he should have been more vigilant.
“Mr. Darcy has not yet returned,” Caroline said as she came around the house without her horse.
“Very well,” Richard muttered as he turned his horse toward the front of the house. He could just imagine Darcy arriving as he lifted Georgiana down from his horse. But Darcy did not appear, and Georgiana was in her room, resting after having been seen by the surgeon, who had been on a call not far from Netherfield, before Darcy and Bingley returned.
~*~*~
Lovely music video. I wish you all success as you venture into KU territory. I know you want your reading base to have complete access to your works and sometimes, like Francis Bacon stated, ‘If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain.’ Love the excerpt from ‘Winter’s Eve.’ Our poor Richard had a hard struggle but a HEA. Congratulations on the launch of Tom’s story.
Thank you. I do want the best/ most efficient way to serve my readers, and that means trying some things and figuring out what does and doesn’t work. 🙂 It also likely means having a system in place that might look different from the standard system of distribution.
I loved the relationship between the Colonel and Caroline in One Winter’s Eve. They are both such strong personalities, but they meshed very well.
I’m ridiculously excited about your series crossing! That just made me so very happy. LOL happy release day!!
LOL Thanks. I have to admit that I’m rather excited about it myself.