Story Connections – Page 5

Cottage at Le Pouldu (Władysław Ślewiński)

Cottage at Le Pouldu, ca. 1892. Władysław Ślewiński, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Her Convenient Forever is on sale this month, so I thought that today, I’d share an image that goes along with an excerpt from that book.

If you’ve read the first three books of my Touches of Austen series, you will have met Felicity Love, and you probably really don’t like her. She’s not nice in those stories. I did a good job of making her unlikable if I do say so myself. And then, while writing book three, I knew that I was going to have to write a story for her. I didn’t really want to. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to make her likeable. But it simply had to be done.

Her Convenient Forever is that story.

It is set near the sea in Kent where Mr. And Mrs. Love have rented a cottage for the summer and where Felicity is coming to terms with the mess she has made of her life through selfish living. In fact, the opening chapter shows her in the very deepest kind of despair. This somewhat lengthy excerpt is from that first chapter.

Sweet Solitude (Edmund Blair Leighton)

Sweet Solitude. Edmund Leighton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

When I saw this painting I thought of the heroine in His Beautiful Bea. She likes quiet escapes and books. So, I chose an excerpt from that book to share today, but it’s not from her perspective. It’s from the hero’s point of view.

This is the hero:

For those who don’t know:

His Beautiful Bea is book 1 in my Touches of Austen series of original sweet Regency romances with deliberate nods to Jane’s novels. This book pairs long-time friends and neighbors as the romantic interests. The heroine lost her father in the war, and his friend, the hero’s father, has promised to care for the heroine’s family.

Those sound like they could be things that nod to possibly Sense and Sensibility or Emma, but in fact, when I wrote this story, the nods I had in mind were to Mansfield Park. After all, our quiet and bookish heroine is infatuated with the younger son of her neighbour’s two sons, but he doesn’t see her as anything other than a friend. Does that sound a bit like a Fanny/Edmund situation?

There are other nods as well, but as you can see from the details that I have given, this is not a retelling or a variation. This story, while inspired by various bits of Austen stories, is completely original — characters, setting, and plot.

“Dance in the City” by Renoir

“Dance in the CIty” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. The woman is identified as artist Suzanne Valadon. Original is in Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.

Ok, so I know that this is not a Regency era painting and that the couple is neither dressed or dancing as as a Regency era couple would be. How anachronistic!

Now that we have that out of the way 😉 let me tell you why I picked this image to share today with an excerpt from Delighting Mrs. Bennet. My reasons are pretty basic. First, the couple seems to be enjoying their dance very much, and second, her dress is blue. I know, not exceptionally deep reasons to match this with the excerpt below, but there you have it. 😀 By this point in the series, Darcy has learned to be rather swoony, so I hope you enjoy this snippet from Chapter 8.

[FYI for those who do not yet own this book, the ebook edition is on sale everywhere this month (May 2023). See the book promo page for a link and details, or click the book cover image below to find links to various stores.] Continue reading “Dance in the City” by Renoir

The Next Ten Minutes Ago (Jeremy Jordan and Laura Osnes)

Yesterday, I was talking with a couple of people about Finally Mrs. Darcy, and afterward, the song “Ten Minutes Ago” from Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella popped into my mind as I was thinking about Darcy and Elizabeth’s whirlwind reunion to married story in that little novella of mine. It seemed to be a good pairing, and I decided I would share that song and novella today as my story connections post.

As you can see (and hear), between making that decision and creating this post, I changed my mind about what song I was going to share.

I went to YouTube, typed in my search info, listened to a recording studio sort of video of the song I was looking for, and then saw the title for this song. I suffer from excessive curiosity at times — today was one of those times. 🙂 I clicked on the video and by the time the song was half over, I had changed my mind that this song might be an even better fit for Finally Mrs. Darcy, since both the song and the story play with the idea of time — looking forward and back.

And I think it still captures the elation and hope that Darcy and Elizabeth feel mere moments after meeting again at a ball and beginning, though never finishing, a dance.

Scenes and Soirees

Some time ago, when Enticing Miss Darcy was just being published, I created a set of “scrapbook” pages for a post I did about it at Austen Authors. I came across those pages in my computer files and thought I’d share them here today. Sorry, there is no excerpt, but I think each page will give you a good bit of information about the story.

This book, as well as all my other Dash of Darcy and Companion books are on sale this month because next month, they are going to become exclusive to the Kindle store so they can be enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. (Links to the series on several stores and info about prices can be found on my Current Book Promotions page by clicking here.)

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

At the end of Enticing Miss Darcy, you will find a short story sequel included in the book. 🙂

*whispers* The hero of the story is a Fitzwilliam brother. The third and youngest.

And a bonus image

Jack is one of the original characters I have created, so I’m going to include his “Meet the Main Character” card here for you to get to know a little about him. 🙂 (Oh, and in case you are wondering, Alistair is the fellow who married Anne in Becoming Entangled and another original character. 🙂 )

Remember this book and all the other Dash of Darcy and Companion books are on sale now and moving to Kindle Unlimited in April. I really do hope you’ll take a chance on this book and meet Jack.