“If you are not able to dance, there is always the chance of a stroll in the garden,” Mr. Carlyle said.
Felicity ducked her head and blushed but not before Victoria saw her cast an uneasy glance at Mr. Clayton. “I do enjoy gardens.”
“Indeed,” Mr. Clayton muttered. He turned and looked back towards the house. “They will likely start playing games soon. We should head back.”
“But I had hoped to see the far side of the rotunda,” Felicity said with a small pout.
“You do not need me for that,” Mr. Clayton said. “I find I have had my fill of gardens.”
Victoria’s eyebrows rose. It appeared Mr. Clayton had reached his limit for endurance. She could not help but feel somewhat happy for him.
[from His Darling Friend, A Touches of Austen Novella, and the current Sweet Tuesdays story]
Published to YouTube by Daniel Jang on November 22, 2014.
That Felicity! She’s a piece of work! In His Beautiful Bea, she was the character who was supposed to have touches of Maria Bertram in her, and she has not left those unsavoury details behind just because we are in a different book now. Oh, no! As you will see in tomorrow’s story, her unpleasant personality is flourishing.
“I am not taking your money, nor am I giving you any of mine.”
“Then, let’s make a different agreement. If I can skip the rock – not if I can skip it further than you, but just if I can skip it – you truly do not think I can?” he asked in response to Roger’s look of disbelief.
“No, the angle is all wrong.”
“You might be right, but then again, you might be wrong.”
“Very well, if you can perform this feat, what do you require in payment besides my admitting that you were right?”
“You must answer one question.”
“What question?” Roger eyed his brother-in-law skeptically.
“No, I will not tell you. You must agree to an unknown question, which should not be too hard to do unless, of course, you are hiding something?”
[from His Darling Friend, A Touches of Austen Novella, and the current Sweet Tuesdays story]
Published to YouTube by Hauser on November 24, 2017.
Will Roger take the bet and possibly have to reveal his secret to Diana’s husband, Berk? That’s just one of the secrets that are contained in tomorrow’s chapter of His Darling Friend. That is why I thought this song’s title seemed like a good choice to share today — and it’s just a beautiful song! I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I do. 🙂 Continue reading Music Monday: Song from a Secret Garden (Hauser)
Hugh Thomson (1860-1920) [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons
~*~*~
“Come in, my dears,” Mr. Bennet called from his chair near the small hearth in his study as Elizabeth opened the door. “How many daughters are visiting me today?” He peeked over his shoulder toward the door. “Myfavourites,” he said with a smile.
“No, Papa. I am here, too,” Lydia said.
“And you are not myfavourite youngest daughter? Have you given that position to Kitty? I shall have to write this down, so I do not forget if you have.” He closed his book and tucked it between his leg and the arm of the chair.
[from Loving Lydia, book 3 in the Marrying Elizabeth Series]
Lucy’s hand flew to her heart and her eyes grew wide. “So much? Surely, that was not necessary.”
Philip took the items from her and placed them on the desk before taking her hands and drawing her to her feet and into his embrace. “For you, Mrs. Dobney, there is no price too high.”
“But…”
He placed a finger on her lips to stop her protest. “I have already had this argument with Darcy, and I assure you that neither he nor you will convince me that the money was spent in vain, for it has bought back your things and, I hope, something far more valuable, your peace. From this day forward, there is nothing left of what your uncle did which can harm you.”
She squeezed him tightly. “How can I ever thank you for such a thoughtful gift?”
He looked down into her eyes, which were peering up at him. “Love me, always, just as you do now.”
She shook her head and smiled at him. “I cannot promise not to love you more with every passing day, but I will always, always love you.”
Published to YouTube by Aaron Goodvin on October 4, 2018.
This song was an earworm for me last week, and so I decided to share it with you. So thoughtful of me, I know. LOL It’s a sweet song with a catchy tune that I heard played a couple of times on the radio as I was making supper last week, and it stuck.
Above the video is an excerpt from one of my already published books, And Then Love. The excerpt is from the ending but had the right feel to go with the song today. If you have read that story, you might remember that Lucy approaches Phillip to ask him to marry her so she will not have to go live with a horrible uncle. He decides to help her, and over the course of the book comes to realize that marrying her is the best decision he has ever made.
[A little side note: When I say horrible uncle here, I mean nearly as bad as they come. I tapped into my dark side for a couple of characters in the Willow Hall Romance series, and Lucy’s uncle was one of them. As bad as they come is reserved for another despicable character in this series.]
Along with humming or singing the above song throughout last week, I also managed to get a good bit of writing done.
Tom: To Secure His Legacy is not quite finished, but it is so close to being done. I’m hopeful that three more chapters will complete it. Therefore, it should be done by the end of Friday. I hope to get three chapters of this story posted at Patreon this week instead of the two chapters I have been doing.
(Oh! You might be interested in the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Darcy, as well as Mrs. Darcy’s sister Kitty, showed up in one chapter of what I wrote for Tom’s story this week. The Mr. and Mrs. Darcy here are the ones from Two Days Before Christmas. I figured I should clarify that since I have several stories which end with a Mr. and Mrs. Darcy.)
Roger’s story now has three chapters, and if I get one more written this week (which is the plan), then that story will begin posting on Tuesdays here on my blog. If you look at the menu options, you will see that Sweet Tuesdays has been added as a choice. However, there are no posts there yet. I just needed to set up the link so I could tag it at the beginning of each chapter for those who might need to go back and read previous chapters.
I have a title for the story, and if you are on my mailing list, you will receive a January update from me that will share that title with you. Everyone else will have to wait until next Monday when I share it here. 🙂 [hint but not a very good one: The title is three words long and is a reference to something that is said in Emma.]
Those are the stories in progress with the most news. The other writing I did was…
I wrote another chapter of Loving Lydia, and a few hundred words of Apple Blossoms got dictated this week. Nothing very interesting or new is happening with those stories right now. (Well, news-wise. Story-wise there is interesting stuff happening with both. But I can’t tell you about that just yet. 😉 )
On quick reminder that the Kobo 40% off boxset sale ends on February 3 at 11:59 PM EST. The promo code to enter at check out is 40JAN. The two box sets which I have in this promotion are
The Choices Series which includes all four novellas in that series: Her Father’s Choice, No Other Choice, His Inconvenient Choice, and Her Heart’s Choice
It’s hard to believe that another year has come and gone. Today, I’m going to take a little look back at 2018 as we “Let Her Go.” ( 🙂 I do love a good pun!)
Published to YouTube by The Piano Guys on February 19, 2014
It was a busy year!
Let’s begin by looking at the Class of 2018 books. 🙂 I have included the month in which they were published for those who might be curious about that sort of detail.
January
March
April
May
June
October
December
To go with this peek at the Class of 2018, I have created a quick three-question survey. I would love it if you would take a minute and answer these questions. I’ll post the results of the survey next week.
Recently published does not equal 2018 bestseller. The bestsellers for the year are on this graphic. Some of the new releases made the cut, but not all.
Here’s another interesting statistic from the year:
At the time of my writing this post on Saturday, December 29, 2018, my yearly word count total is
327,242 words
But…there is still today, and I am hoping to find time to write a little bit. I did not finish the fourth installment of Loving Lydia on Friday. I only got part way through it before I had to stop for the night. It needs to be done.
Speaking of Loving Lydia, it will be the first Thursday blog story of the year, and it starts posting this Thursday!
In that same vein of thought, you might like to know that Delighting Mrs. Bennet, which is the book that comes right before Loving Lydia in the Marrying Elizabeth series, is scheduled to be published NEXT Thursday, January 10, 2019, and will be the first book published in 2019. Preorder details should be arriving soon, I hope. (I still need to work on a few things for this.)
I am still working on Tom: To Secure His Legacy. This book will be the first book posted on Patreon for 2019 and hopefully, will be the second book published. (Fingers crossed — well, yours not mine. Typing is too difficult when you cross your fingers. LOL)
I have some other plans that I am trying to get nailed down better as this year ends and a new one begins. Hopefully, I will be able to share some of those plans with you in next Monday’s post.
For now, I will leave you with a small excerpt from Tom’s story (which I did not get to write on very much this week due to holidays and my husband being off work).
