For a couple of months, I’ve been sharing occasional video updates about my writing life on Substack, which I use as my newsletter provider, and YouTube.
Today, I’m going to start sharing those video here as well as on my blog and Ream Stories so that readers have lots of choices to find and follow me and learn about my books. Here’s today’s post that goes with the video above.
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Good Morning!
Today’s schedule at my house got tossed out the window this today before I was even fully awake. The good news is that the plumber is here to fix the kitchen sink’s drain pipe. The bad news is that this is when I had scheduled to do my What’s Up Wednesday video. So, that’s not happening. 🙂 Instead, let me share with you a behind the scenes video that I made yesterday as I was working on getting a book for my other pen name (Annilee Nelson) ready for release day.
This video shows you how I get Books2Read links, pages, and tabs ready to go. I hope you enjoy the peek into one small part of my writing life. It’s the same process for Leenie books – and I even show you my B2R author page for Leenie in the video too. (BTW, all the links on my book page here on my website currently take you to a B2R book tab.)
The video is just about 12.5 minutes long.
Enjoy!
P.S. Are there other behind the scenes things you’d be interested in learning about? Let me know in the comment section.
Images taken by me (Leenie Brown) at Uniacke Estate Museum Park, Nova Scotia
Today’s excerpt takes place in the study at Longbourn so I thought I’d gather a few images of different desks and desk items I’ve taken pictures of over the years when visiting various historical houses. However, I found that I only needed images from one historical house.
These pictures were taken at a Sunset and Shadows a few years ago at Uniacke Estate Museum Park. That evening, those in attendance were allowed to go behind the ropes and into the rooms. We were even allowed to peek inside drawers (that’s how I got the top middle picture) and cupboards. It was wonderful getting to see and photograph the rooms from different angles.
Uniacke Estate was built as a summer home between the years 1813 and 1816. The study is a small room with lots of interesting things in it. More things than I have pictured. The gentleman who owned the home, Richard John Uniacke, was, at one point in his career, Nova Scotia’s attorney-general. So, as you might imagine a study would have been an important room for such a man. And the shelves were lined with many legal books.
I have no idea if Mr. Bennet had any books in his study that would also have been on Mr. Uniacke’s shelves, but I do think he would have loved the little room with it’s desk, chairs, walls of books, and scientific equipment.
It is Mr. Bennet’s study in which the following prologue to Not an Heiress is set. This prologue lays the foundation for the scheme that will play out in the book.
I must warn you a little bit about this book. If you like your reading to be squeaky clean. This one is not that. It’s clean, but it’s closed door/fade to black clean. The hero and heroine do fall into a compromising position or two over the course of the story and we know that impropriety has taken place. There is no sex on the page but there is off the page and before the couple is married.
And if you expect all good-girls like Mary Bennet who read sermons to always be good and beyond the temptation that is presented by a handsome officer, then, this book is going to disappoint you because even good-girls can fall prey to desires when circumstances are arranged to leave no means of escape. 😉
However, if you like a different sort of Lady Catherine who is fun, that you’ll find in this story.
Not an Heiress is set in the spring around Easter a few years after Darcy and Elizabeth are married and is a sequel to Discovering Mr. Darcy in which Lady Catherine with the help of Colonel Fitzwilliam scheme to see Darcy and Elizabeth happily married. In this book, it’s Richard’s turn to find his happily ever after via a trap laid by his aunt.
A Meeting by the Stile, Heywood Hardy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Isn’t this a beautiful picture. I love this artist’s painting of horses and people. I could sit and look at them, admiring the details and dreaming up stories, for quite some time. 🙂
I thought that the name of this painting made it perfect to pair with the first chapter of Two Days in November since there is a gentleman on horseback and a meeting at a stile.
Two Days in November is a story that takes place over two days in November. They are the days after Jane and Elizabeth have left Netherfield, when Collins comes to Longbourn, and when Darcy and Elizabeth meet on the street in Meryton.
But it is Darcy’s discovering Elizabeth at the stile and hearing her sister’s tragic story of a love that was lost which turns his mind in a better direction than it was set upon going. I hope you enjoy reading about how this meeting at the stile begins. (It doesn’t finish until the end of chapter 2. 🙂 )
Published by: Sayer & Bennett, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Who doesn’t love a trip to a library or bookstore? I know I do. And in the excerpt from For Peace of Mind below, the party from Gracechurch Street is going to indulge in such a pleasure. Unfortunately, this trip to the bookstore is not going to be a pleasure trip, and that meme that often shows up on social media about a lady who always has a book with her will always have a companion and a weapon is going to prove very true.
The excerpt below is from Chapter 5 and ends right before the use of a book as a weapon is put to the test. I cut it off right before that so that you can enjoy the discovery of how the book comes in handy.
Enjoy!
Please note: For Peace of Mind is currently only available at Amazon because it is enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited Program.
