Sweet Regency Romance – Page 24

Morning Dress for April 1801

From *The Lady’s Monthly Museum*. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

She looked at the faces which stared back at her in disbelief. “I am not fit for bedlam, if that is what you are thinking. I know it is a sudden turnabout, but a turnabout it is. I have made my choice and am moving forward. How is it you said it, Richard? The past is in the past? And that is where it shall stay.”

“And you are certain of this, Catherine?” questioned Lady Matlock. “You are not just taking the role expected of you for the sake of the family?”

“Good heavens, no!” Lady Catherine shook her head. “I have spent far too many years doing as the family expects. Is not a lady in her dotage allowed to do the unexpected? In three weeks, I shall hand over the care of Rosings to the younger set and shall begin to take my ease.”

[from Listen to Your Heart]

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Austen Couples – I Knew I Loved You (Savage Garden)

A new month = a new music theme on Mondays. 🙂 For the month of April, all the music videos will be fan-created music homages to stories that have been put on film or were written for film. We’re starting with a montage of Austen characters. Therefore, I picked a line from a story of mine which pairs the same characters as Austen did in her work.

My choices were Darcy and Lizzy, Jane and Bingley, Lydia and Wickham, Marrianne and Colonel Brandon. I chose…

These four lines are from a novelette I wrote called Morning Mist which began with the questions: “What if Marianne met the colonel before she met Willoughby and what if the setting where they met played into Marianne’s love of the romantic?” The lines above are from that first meeting in a misty meadow one morning.

Morning Mist is currently only available in the anthology Thunder, Mist, and Frost. However, I have been contemplating breaking the anthology apart and making each title available separately, and I think this might happen later this year since it would give readers more options.

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Reel Around the Sun (Riverdance)

I just couldn’t let a month of Celtic music pass without including some Irish dancing. 🙂 It’s so fun to watch.

I decided to pair a line from a conversation that is had between Fritz and Miss Wesley at a ball. (Dancing is the connection here. 😉 ) This line also connects to a book that I have on preorder until Wednesday where Miss Wesley and the gentleman she is adamant she cannot like are the heroine and hero.

<<Fritz and Belle’s story where we first meet Charlotte and Miles (Belle’s little brother).

Charlotte and Miles’s story >>

His Irreplaceable Belle is an original sweet Regency romance that nods to Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Belle’s father did not approve of Fritz and schemed to separate the two of them. Years later, they are reunited in this story.

Similarly, Miles’s father (same father as above) does not approve of Charlotte and does his scheming best to separate the two young lovers. His Sensible Heart contains small touches of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, like a very sensible heroine with a less sensible sister.

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Courting is a Pleasure (The Choral Scholars of University College Dublin)

Shall we start the week with a traditional Irish song and a story excerpt about a couple who is courting? (The courtship in the story turns out better than the one in the song. 🙂 )

The lines from Unravelling Mr. Darcy below are from when Darcy and Elizabeth meet after Rosings when Elizabeth and Jane are still at the Gardiners.

Darcy’s been given a second chance to win Elizabeth’s heart, and he’s not letting anything stop him from succeeding — not even his tightly wound pride.

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A Trip to the Islands (Keltische Harfe), Nadia Birkenstock

Here’s something a little different for today’s musical selection — a harp solo. 🙂 I have a couple of books where the harp is mentioned, but today, I’m going with a line from a book where the heroine actually plays the harp — because that’s how Jane Austen wrote her. 🙂 I’m talking, of course, about Mary Crawford.

The lines below are from the first time Mr. Durward calls on Mary at her sister’s home.

Mary: To Protect Her Heart is book 3 in my Other Pens series, and, as the title suggests, is where Mary Crawford finally finds her own happily ever after.

Not a fan of Mary Crawford in Mansfield Park? Neither am I. However, this Mary — well, she’s gotten the Leenie treatment and you might just find yourself rooting for her.

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