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Jane Austen’s Health Problems, a Guest Post by Kyra Kramer

Posted on January 8, 2018 by Regina Jeffers

Jane Austen’s Problematic Health

Predicting the due date of a pregnancy is a matter of guesswork, even in these modern times. Babies are notorious for following their own schedule rather than the convenience of their mother, midwife, or obstetrician. Nevertheless, it is rare for a pregnancy to extend much beyond 40 weeks, and it is almost as dangerous for a baby to arrive in the 43^rd week as the 36^th.

When I was edging toward my 42^nd week of pregnancy with my second daughter, my midwife began issuing warnings that intervention would be necessary should my stubborn wee infant refuse to emerge within a reasonable time frame. Thankfully, the baby was simply waiting for the full moon on May Day to make her appearance, and she burst into the world without undue biomedical harrying. Jane Austen’s mother, Cassandra, was less fortunate than myself.

Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775, a full month after her parents had expected her. This would put her into the dangerous zone of a 43^rd or 44^th week gestation, which is given the benign name of a “postdate pregnancy” but is actually a cause for serious concern. As Annette Upfal explains in her article for the Journal of Medical Humanities:

There is a heightened risk of birth injury or death, and over 20% of postdate infants show signs of wasting of tissues – a medical condition known as post-maturity, which in severe cases can be fatal … If a pregnancy is prolonged, the placenta begins to degenerate and the fetus may receive inadequate nutrients from the mother.

Being born postdate can cause serious problems for the baby, including listlessness, irritability, inadequate feeding, failure to thrive, and a lifelong immune insufficiency as a result of in utero malnutrition. In plain English, a person born postdate may never develop a fully adequate immune system, and be susceptible to infections and chronic illnesses his or her entire life.

Although Jane Austen is usually thought of as robust (barring an almost fatal case of typhoid fever when she went away to school) right up until the 18 months prior to her death, a trawl through her surviving letters and other resources reveals she was incredibly vulnerable to contagious diseases a healthy adult would normally be able to fight off.

Illustration of Lecture Hall from the Glasgow Looking Glass, 1825-1826 https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2008/05/17/the-physician-in-the-19th-century/

For example, she was plagued with chronic conjunctivitis. Conjunctivitis, more colloquially known as pink-eye or red-eye, is an eye infection that can be caused virally or (in worse cases) by bacteria. In either case, with no treatment a person’s body usually fights of the viral or bacterial invader within 3 to 6 weeks. In contrast, Austen’s “sore eyes” persisted for months and became an acute case. For years she had to deal with intermittent return of the illness, and by the latter years of her life the “reoccurrences would be more frequent and disabling”.

Austen also caught whooping cough in 1806, when she was 30 years old. Whooping cough is incredibly rare in patients over 10 years of age, and when an adult infection (known as catarrhal) does occur it is typically mild and of short duration. In contrast, Jane Austen’s illness became serious enough for her sister, Cassandra, to have sent out letters among family and friends to apprise them of the trouble, as evidenced by the need for letters written “to inquire particularly” about Austen’s condition.

In the late summer or early autumn of 1808 Austen once more contracted an infection – this time in her ears. Interestingly, the same bacteria that commonly cause pink-eye — Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumonia, or Haemophilus – are also the bacteria that commonly cause ear infections. It is spread either through internal sinus drainage from the diseased eye into the ear canal, or when the patient rubs their itchy, swollen eyes and then touches their ear. The bacterial infection causes painful inflammation in the ear canal, and can even lead to hearing loss in some cases. A joint case of ear and eye infection is most common in infants and young children, who don’t have fully developed immune systems yet. It is rare for healthy adults to develop this issue. Yet it happened to the supposedly healthy Jane Austen.

Moreover, the 33-years-old Austen’s ear and eye infections lingered beyond any reasonable expectation. They also worsened, and became enough of a health problem that her family and friends were sending her ‘receipts’ of home-made remedies for treatment in an attempt to alleviate her condition. Happily, the family apothecary, Mr John Lyford (not the surgeon Dr. Giles Lyford who would attend her final illness in Winchester), was able to effect a cure by advising her to apply cotton soaked with “the oil of sweet almonds” to her. Upfal believes this to indicate that Jane Austen was suffering from otitis externa, and infection of the outer ear, but I think it to be more likely that it was her inner ear canal that was infected. Sweet almond oil, either undiluted or mixed with olive oil, is an antibacterial agent that has been used for medical treatment for thousands of years. Sweet almond oil seeping from a wad of cotton at the opening of the ear canal would have coated the inner ear and killed the bacteria causing the infection.

In 1813 Jane Austen began to experience terrible pains in her face, which Upfal attributes to postherpetic neuralgia but from the symptoms recorded I think the pains were most likely the result of trigeminal neuralgia. Trigeminal neuralgia causes, “ sudden attacks of severe sharp shooting facial pain that last from a few seconds to about two minutes … similar to an electric shock. The attacks can be so severe that you’re unable to do anything during them … The pain can be in the teeth, lower jaw, upper jaw, cheek and, less commonly, in the forehead or the eye … After the main severe pain has subsided, you may experience a slight ache or burning feeling … [or] a constant throbbing, aching or burning sensation between attacks.”

Jane Austen must have been in agony.

Trigeminal neuralgia seems to be caused most often by an enlarged blood vessel (usually the superior cerebellar artery) putting pressure on the trigeminal nerve (the 5th and largest cranial neve) close to the nerve’s connection with the pons, the descending section of the brainstem, but that pressure can also be created by a cyst or tumor.

One of the ailments most often given as the reason for Austen’s early death is Hodgkin’s disease, also known as Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Upfal supports this hypothesis, and I half-way agree with her. I believe Austen was suffering from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which is any blood cancer — includes all types of lymphoma – that isn’t Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The reason I believe Austen have been suffering from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) is directly connected to her neuralgia. One of the not-uncommon symptoms of NHL is trigeminal neuralgia, caused by the swelling of the lymph nodes or tumors in the cranial region. Common symptoms of NHL also include the intermittent low-grade fever, weight loss, itchiness, and fatigue that were Austen’s most common complaints in the last year of her life. Furthermore, NHL can have periods where the patient feels just fine, before the tiredness kicks in again. This is especially true of ‘indolent’ or slow-growing lymphomas. It can also cause the skin discoloration, the “black and white, and every wrong colour” that Austen lamented. Moreover, one of the most common risk factors for NHL is poor immune function, which Upfal argues (in my opinion, persuasively) that Austen experienced as a result of her postdate birth.

But why, if Austen was persecuted by ill health for most of her life, isn’t it more widely referenced?

41lKxP+dk+L._SX321_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg First, there is the determination of Austen herself not to be a “poor honey”, a silly female hypochondriac determined to secure attention for herself by her ailments. Austen could not stand that sort of thing. She complained to her brother Frank Austen in 1813 that Mrs. Edward Bridges was “a poor Honey – the sort of woman who gives me the idea of being determined never to be well — & who likes her spasms & nervousness & the consequence they give her, better than anything else.”

In her letters, Austen often turns any report of her illness into a joke, or minimizes the effects of her sickness and assures her correspondent that she is doing very well NOW, thank you very much. She frequently implies that any poor health was merely playacting on her part, such as when she tells her sister that, “It was absolutely necessary that I should have the little fever and indisposition which I had; it has been all the fashion this week in Lyme”. Her complaints are also seldom admitted to be serious, as when she downplayed the onset of her whooping cough as “a cold”. The health of other people was a much-mentioned topic in her letters, but her own health was ignored for the most part.

This pattern continued to the very end. A little more than a year before her death she assured a niece that she had “got tolerably well again, quite equal to walking about and enjoying the air,” joking that “Sickness is a dangerous indulgence at my time of life,” and cheerfully reporting “the advantage of agreeable companions” was the only medicine she needed. Only a few weeks before she died she wrote to one her nephews that, “I am gaining strength very fast. I am now out of bed from 9 in the morning to 10 at night: upon the sopha, ’tis true, but I eat my meals with aunt Cass in a rational way, and can employ myself, and walk from one room to another.”

Austen’s persistent negation of her own illness has created a belief in her good health that is more accepted than proven.

In addition, there are the “missing” letters; correspondence destroyed by her family after her death. In those letters Austen could have vociferously complained about dismal health and we would have no inkling of it. She could have likewise admitted to debauchery, cannibalism, and necromancy and we’d be none the wiser. Anything that would contradict the ‘ideal’ Jane Austen, the beloved sibling and aunt who had nothing more important in her world than her domestic concerns, was carefully eradicated by relatives eager to preserve her reputation in the Victorian era. Creating the idea that Jane Austen had fortitude in the face of illness, as well as a near-implacable refusal to acknowledge bodily functions below the neck, would have been the goal of her preservationists, and any letter indicating differently would have gone onto the fireplace grate.

We lost a tremendous amount of information about Jane Austen’s personality, life, and writing thanks to the destruction of her letters, and (alas!) we’ve also lost most of the clues that might have helped us unravel the mystery of her tragically precipitous death. A death that may have occurred so early because her birth was so late.

Meet the Author: Kyra Cornelius Kramer is a freelance academic with BS degrees in both biology and anthropology from the University of Kentucky, as well as a MA in medical anthropology from Southern Methodist University. She has written essays on the agency of the Female Gothic heroine and women’s bodies as feminist texts in the works of Jennifer Crusie. She has also co-authored two works; one with Dr. Laura Vivanco on the way in which the bodies of romance heroes and heroines act as the sites of reinforcement of, and resistance to, enculturated sexualities and gender ideologies, and another with Dr. Catrina Banks Whitley on Henry VIII.

Ms. Kramer lives in Bloomington, IN with her husband, three young daughters, assorted pets, and occasionally her mother, who journeys northward from Kentucky in order to care for her grandchildren while her daughter feverishly types away on the computer.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Austen Fandom vs. Austen Academics, a Guest Post from Melanie Rachel

Posted on January 5, 2018 by Regina Jeffers

This post appeared on Austen Authors in November 2016. As I am often asked why I choose to spend part of my writing career authoring JAFF (Jane Austen Fan Fiction), perhaps Melanie Rachel’s explanation of what she experienced at the most recent Jane Austen Society of North America’s (JASNA) annual gathering will offer an explanation. Despite what some may think, my Ph. D. does not go to waste.

At the JASNA annual conference last October, I was fortunate enough to meet with a number of JAFF writers and editors.

Did I participate in a little fangirling? Well, yes.

During the course of our various discussions, the topic of the divide between the Jane Austen fandom and Jane Austen academics arose, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

I’m one of those people who has a foot in both camps (a Ph.D. in English and author of two JAFF novels, working on another), and in the Jane Austen universe, I’m certainly not alone. Research on Austen herself and on the historical era of the Regency (versus the Georgian and Victorian) is very important for the composition of good stories. We need to know which words were in use at the time and what they meant, which of society’s “rules” were rigid and which were flexible, who was eligible to apply for a special marriage license, or how accurately a rifle could be fired. I now know that the date of the “Season” was not set in stone, but was based on Parliament’s calendar. I also know what happened to seats in the House of Lords when the current holder of the title was too ill to continue, but still alive. (No, his heir could not take that seat if he didn’t already hold a title of his own). Understanding that the years of the Regency supported a fashionable world whose moral sensibilities were more akin to the Roaring 20’s than the more conservative Victorian era is essential to our world-building. Knowing how Austen viewed her world, through the letters we still have and the research of “clever, well-informed” scholars, is incredibly helpful. So we can surmise, at least, that most writers are very happy to have the information or topics of speculation provided by academics.

The reverse cannot really be said, as a whole, for academics. I say this with some disappointment, and with a nod to my own failures in convincing other academics that fandom is serious business. The notion that Fan Studies, even when we’re dealing with classic literature, isn’t a “real field,” is pervasive, though I suspect, like culture studies in general, more acceptance will come as younger students join the ranks of doctoral candidates.

I do amuse myself, from time to time, by thinking of Fitzwilliam Darcy (pre-Hunsford, of course) as the snobby full professor who has an unlimited professional development fund and is assigned a large faculty office with lots of windows. Elizabeth Bennet? She’s an assistant professor of cultural studies who has to beg for conference registration funds and is shuffled off to a windowless office in the basement, next to the soda machine. Hey, maybe I should write that . . .

Of course, this kind of fractious camp-building isn’t limited to Jane Austen. I’ve seen this kind of divide at least since my own graduate school days, where literature students turned up their noses at MFA students, devaluing the creative and championing the analytical. I wondered then, and I wonder now, whether my fellow academics understood who was writing the very books they spent their own careers dissecting. Aren’t primary sources, like novels, our “first cause”?

As I’d been warned, this tension clearly played out at the JASNA conference in Huntington Beach, which, for the record, I enjoyed enormously and highly recommend (next year it’s being held in Kansas City, Kansas, and will focus on Persuasion).

As one does at conferences, I attended several presentations. I had particularly anticipated hearing “Jane Austen’s Lives and Deaths Through Fan Fiction.” The speaker was a graduate student writing a dissertation about JAFF.

At last, I thought, someone building a bridge between fandom and academia.

Unfortunately, while the young woman was clearly intelligent and the presentation well-rehearsed, it was also rather reductive. She focused purely on the published fiction, reading a random selection of novels that had received 1, 3, and 5 stars on their Amazon reviews (she told us she’d read about 125 in total). Therefore, 2/3 of her chosen texts were those most JAFF readers found lacking in some important way. In addition, while 125 books might sound like a lot to anyone who doesn’t read JAFF, it’s a rather small sample of the whole.

Once she read each book it was neatly categorized by trope. She mentioned as an example those stories that focused on excusing Darcy’s poor behavior at the beginning of the novel. Instead of arrogant, he is shy, or troubled over his younger sister’s near elopement, or even suffers from social anxiety (I call these writers Darcy apologists, and it’s true, they are legion). Until I inquired, though, she made no mention of those writers who also create Darcys whose behavior is much worse than in canon. All in all, they even themselves out, and it would have been fascinating to explore why we respond to Darcy this way when he’s really hardly in the book at all.

Why do we want Darcy to be a better man before he’s done the hard work he needs to do? Is our impulse to spare Elizabeth Bennet from a humiliating experience, or to mitigate its impact? Or is it that we simply want our romantic leads to be closer to perfect than they are? On the other side, why are we taking our anger out on Darcy by making his infractions worse? Why would we want to do that? Is there a larger narrative we are accepting or rejecting?

A second trope was that of kidnapping, primarily Georgiana or Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice fan fictions. The trope certainly exists. But so do spoofs on the trope—see, for example, JanetR’s humorous “Again?” Yet there was no conversation to be had on that subject, either.

When we write, our stories say a lot about us. I am really more interested in figuring out why these tropes exist than I am that they exist at all.

After the presentation, I approached the speaker to ask whether she had visited any of the online communities. While she was aware that they existed, she had not included in her research any of the JAFF sites that are the heart of the writing. She missed those spoofs, she missed the humor, the short stories, the unpublished novel-length stories, the sharing of plot bunnies, the amazing outpouring of time and effort of writers helping writers (particularly new writers), and, at least at one such site, A Happy Assembly, the tête-à-tête folder where not only do historians deeply immersed in events and culture of the time answer author questions, the discussion of Austen’s novels themselves continues to be held in minute detail. A recent discussion, for example, focused on what it might mean that Sir Lewis de Bourgh had his windows glazed (the answer being that this was a newer home compared to say, Pemberley) and how the notion that Rosings was not from a family with an ancient name might mean to Lady Catherine’s designs on Fitzwilliam Darcy. If any of my undergraduate literature students pointed out a detail like that in an essay, I would be beyond thrilled.

This is why the presence of fan fiction readers, writers, and supporters at conferences like JASNA is so important. If we want the opportunity to change the trajectory of the discussion, or even influence it a bit, we have to be present, to talk about the focus of these kinds of studies and why the relationship between academic and fandom need not be acrimonious. Not to mention you get to meet some fabulous people! This year, one of the keynote speakers was Richard Knight, who discussed the ongoing care of Chawton, the estate where Jane lived the final eight years of her life. Next year, Amanda Root, who played Ann Elliot in perhaps the best-known Persuasion film adaptation, will be speaking about that role.

The speaker will go back to her university and write her dissertation, and likely remain fixed on published JAFF books to the exclusion of the very lively online communities from which most of those stories sprang. This is not a tragedy. We will all survive the indignity. But we can do better.

Meet Melanie Rachel

Melanie Rachel is the author of Courage Rises and Courage Requires, both available for sale on Amazon. Her current modern WIP, Headstrong, is posting at A Happy Assembly. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Penn State University and currently lives in Tucson, Arizona, with her family and their freakishly athletic Jack Russell Terrier. She fell in love with Jane Austen as a young camper and then camp counselor, reading under the stars with the help of a flashlight. Extra batteries were considered essential camping gear.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melanie.rachel.583

Website: https://melanierachel.weebly.com/

Headstrong (WIP) : http://meryton.com/aha/index.php?showtopic=18096&st=0

Posted in Austen Authors, Jane Austen, JASNA, Vagary | Tagged Austen Authors, guest post, JAFF, JASNA | Comments Off

Wife Selling as a Means to a Moral Divorce, but Not Necessarily a Legal One

Posted on January 3, 2018 by Regina Jeffers

From the late 18th to the mid 19th centuries in England, divorce was expense—too expense for many of the populace. Divorce required a private Act of Parliament that could cost the petitioner somewhere around £3000. It also required the blessing of the church. The first divorce was not available until 1857. The sanctity of marriage evolved over 100 years from the period of the Marriage Act in 1753 to the Matrimonial Causes Act in 1857, which permitted a civil cause of action for divorce. So what was the solution for those who wished to shed himself of a wife in the late 1700s and early 1800s? WIFE SELLING became the customary mode of ending one marriage and beginning another. The practice became the means to end morally what could not be ended legally. A public sell of his Property (meaning his wife) provided a man with his only means to separate himself from his wife.

Selling a Wife (1812–14), by Thomas Rowlandson.

I seriously doubt many women were such willing parties in this farce.

In the preface of The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy tells the reader, “The incidents narrated arise mainly out of three events, which chanced to range themselves in the order and at or about the intervals of time here given, in the real history of the town called Casterbridge and the neighbouring county. They were the sale of a wife by her husband, the uncertain harvests which immediately preceded the repeal of the Corn Laws, and the visit of a Royal personage to the aforesaid part of England.” [If you have never read this tale, I highly recommend it. At a minimum, have a look at the film by the same name in which Ciarán Hinds portrays Michael Henchard, the Mayor of Casterbridge, a man who sells his wife and child for five guineas to a sailor named Newson.]

‘Hay-trussing — ?’ said the turnip-hoer, who had already begun shaking his head. ‘O no.’ From Robert Barnes’s illustrations for the 1886 weekly serialised edition of Thomas Hardy’s novel The Mayor of Casterbridge. This illustration, the first, depicts the protagonist, Michael Henchard, on the way to a fair to sell his wife and baby daughter. ~ Public Domain via Wikipedia

800px-Contemporary_wife_selling_print_georgian_scrapbook_1949.jpg

From the front flap of Wives for Sale: An Ethnographic Study of British Popular Divorce by Samuel Pyeatt Menefee, we learn, “Addressing a bigamous and indigent hawker in the middle of the last century, Justice Maule declared: I will tell you what you ought to have done. … You should have instructed your attorney to bring an action against the seducer of your wife for damages … you should have employed a proctor and instituted a suit in the Ecclesiastical Courts. … When you had obtained a divorce a mensa et thoro, you had only to obtain a private Act for divorce a vinculo matrimonii … and altogether these proceedings would cost you L1000. You will probably tell me that you never had a tenth of that sum, but that makes no difference. Sitting here as an English judge it is my duty to tell you that this is not a country in which there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. You will be imprisoned for one day.

“The judge’s ruling was a wry acknowledgement of the dilemma faced by the man in the street, who was normally unable to obtain a divorce sanctioned by Church or State. For centuries such men resorted to informal means of slipping the knot of matrimony, one of which was selling a wife in the open market. Wives for Sale is a fascinating study of this practice, which developed its own traditions, rules and procedures. The author considers the causes and consequences of wife sales and the reactions to the institution of the courts, the press and the public. He draws parallels between wife-selling and other contemporaneous social practices and beliefs and considers the custom as it was reflected in popular culture.

“From this study the selling of wives emerges as a popularly accepted expedient, often welcomed by husband, purchaser and “merchandise” alike. The author argues that the institution was a conservative and traditional solution to the problems faced by communities denied the practical option of divorce, a solution rooted in the primary mechanisms of social interchange.”

Menefee purports that the sales were planned in advance, meaning that the husband, wife and purchaser already knew one another and that the terms had been agreed upon before the public sale. Although it makes good drama, the spontaneous sale of a wife to a stranger was not typical of the transactions.

E.P. Thompson, a British social historian and political activist and author of The Making of the English Working Class and Customs in Common studied some 218 cases of wife selling from 1780 to 1880. He tells us that the sale was a public one, usually taking place in a marketplace. Therefore there were witnesses to the transaction. It was often announced beforehand. The halter or rope around the wife was not designed to degrade her, but as a public display of transferring her from one man to another. An auctioneer was employed for the purpose of appearing unbiased. The purchaser would not only be expected to pay the purchasing price for the wife, but also to buy a round of drinks at the tavern and purchase the rope. The husband would then provide the purchaser with a bit of coin as “good luck money” to secure the deal. At length, there would be an exchange of vows to represent a marriage ceremony.

Vintage News tells us, “One of the first reported cases of wife selling took place in 1733, in Birmingham, where Samuel Whitehouse sold his wife, Mary Whitehouse, in the open market to Thomas Griffiths for about one English pound. There are also cases where the wife is sometimes reported as having insisted on the sale and for many women, this was the only way out of an unhappy marriage. Wife selling reached its highpoint in the 1820s and 1830s and husbands who wanted to sell their wives came under extreme social pressure and the practice waned. This didn’t mean that there weren’t any more cases of wife selling and the most recent case was reported in 1913 when a woman claimed that her husband sold her to one of his workmates for £1.”

A French depiction of Milord John Bull, heading to Smithfield Market to sell his wife

Posted in Act of Parliament, book excerpts, England, Georgian England, Georgian Era, Great Britain, history, Living in the Regency, marriage, marriage customs, real life tales, Regency era | Tagged divorce, Great Britain, marriage, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy, wife selling | 6 Comments

Congratulations to the Winners from my Latest Blog Tour for “Pride and Prejudice and a Shakespearean Scholar”

Posted on December 30, 2017 by Regina Jeffers

Congratulations to all the winners of “Pride and Prejudice and a Shakespearean Scholar.”

Blog Hop

Monday, Dec. 4 – Austen Authors – Gorhambury House

Luisa Donaldson

pedmisson

Tuesday, Dec. 5 – MoreAgreeably Engaged – Taming of the Shrew

Mary Doyle

Wednesday, Dec. 6 – Historical Fiction Supper Club

Karen M Llanes

Thursday, Dec. 7 – Just Jane 1813 – James Wilmot

Becky C

Carol J. Perrin

Friday, Dec. 8 – Every Woman Dreams – Delia Bacon

Daniela Quadros

Monday, Dec. 11 – Babblings of a Book Worm – Militia Officers

J. W. Garrett

Tuesday, Dec. 12 – Every Woman Dreams – Gorhambury House

Luthien84

Wednesday, Dec. 13 – Every Woman Dreams – James Wilmot

Debbie B.

Wednesday, Dec. 13 – From Pemberley to Milton – Abandoned Wife

Betty Madden

Thursday, Dec. 14 – Every Woman Dreams – Taming of the Shrew

Sandra McComb

Friday, Dec. 15 – Every Woman Dreams – Militia Officers

darcy/bennett

Sunday, Dec. 17 – Darcyholic Diversions – Delia Bacon

(Cancelled due to an illness with the website owner – Because of this cancellation, I awarded extra prizes to some of those who had followed me throughout the blog tour, as they had no opportunity for another entry. Their names were chosen by Random.org from all those who participated in the blog tour. Thanks to all! Happy New Year! )

Gillian

Vesper

KateB

LynnChar

Ginna

Courtney Johnson

Glynis

Glenda M.

Posted in giveaway, writing | Tagged blog hop, blog tour, giveaway | 2 Comments

Twelfth Night Sale! – Reduced Price on 30 Titles from Regina Jeffers Through January 5!

Posted on December 27, 2017 by Regina Jeffers

These books are among the 30 titles that went on sale Friday, December 22, and will stay on sale through Friday, January 5, 2018. Fill up your eReaders with these 15 Regency romantic suspense and fun contemporary titles!!! (See the 15 Austen-Inspired titles that are part of this sale from the post yesterday.)

A Touch of Scandal: Book 1 of the Realm Series [historical fiction; Regency romance; romantic suspense]

2011 Write Touch Readers’ Award, 2nd Place, Historical Romance

(Disclaimer: This book is the self-published version of The Scandal of Lady Eleanor.)

The men of the REALM have served their country, while ignoring their responsibilities to home and love, but now Bonaparte is defeated, they each mean to claim their portion of a new and prosperous England. However, their long-time enemy Shaheed Mir has other plans. The warlord believes one of the Realm has stolen a fist-sized emerald, and the Baloch intends to have its return or his revenge.

JAMES KERRINGTON, the future Earl of Linworth left his title and his infant son behind after the death of his beloved Elizabeth, but he has returned to England to tend his ailing father and to establish his roots. With Daniel as his heir, Kerrington has no need to marry, but when Eleanor Fowler stumbles and falls into his arms, Kerrington’s world is turned upon its head. He will do anything to claim her.

LADY ELEANOR FOWLER has hidden from Society, knowing her father’s notorious reputation for debauchery has tainted any hopes she might have of a happy marriage. And yet, despite her fears, her brother’s closest friend, James Kerrington, has rekindled her hopes, but when Sir Louis Levering appears with proof of Eleanor’s participation in her father’s wickedness, she is drawn into a world of depravity, and only Kerrington’s love can save her.

The first fully original series from Austen pastiche author Jeffers is a knockout. – Publishers Weekly

Jeffers’s characters stay in the reader’s heart and mind long after the last page has been turned. – Favored Elegance

Kindle Kobo Nook

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A Touch of Velvet: Book 2 of the Realm Series [historical fiction; Regency romance; romantic suspense; adventure; mystery]

After years away from England, members of the Realm return home to claim the titles and the lives they once abandoned. Each man holds on to the fleeting dream of finally knowing love. For now, all any of them can hope is the resolutions of their previous difficulties before Shaheed Mir, their old enemy, finds them and exacts his revenge. Mir seeks a mysterious emerald, and he believes one of the Realm has it.

No one finds his soul mate when she is twelve and he seventeen, but BRANTLEY FOWLER, the Duke of Thornhill, always thought he had found his. The memory of Velvet Aldridge’s face was the only thing that kept him alive all those years he remained estranged from his family. Now, he has returned to Kent to claim his title and the woman he loves, but first he must obliterate the memory of his infamous father, while staving off numerous attacks from Mir’s associates.

MISS VELVET ALDRIDGE always believed in “happily ever after.” Yet, when Brantley Fowler returns home, he has a daughter and his wife’s memory to accompany him. He promised her eight years prior that he would return to make her his wife, but Thornhill only offers her a Season and a dowry. How can she make him love her? Make him her “knight in shining armor”? Regency England has never been hotter or more dangerous.

Kindle Kobo Nook

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A Touch of Cashémere: Book 3 of the Realm Series [historical fiction; Regency romance; romantic suspense/adventure/mystery]

MARCUS WELLSTON never expected to inherit his father’s title. After all, he is the youngest of three sons. However, his oldest brother Trevor is judged incapable of meeting the title’s responsibilities, and his second brother Myles has lost his life in an freak accident; therefore, Marcus has returned to Tweed Hall and the earldom. Having departed Northumberland years prior to escape his guilt in his sister’s death, Marcus has spent the previous six years with the Realm, a covert governmental group, in atonement. Now, all he requires is a biddable wife with a pleasing personality. Neither of those phrases describes Cashémere Aldridge.

MISS CASHEMERE ALDRIDGE thought her opinions were absolutes and her world perfectly ordered, but when her eldest sister Velvet is kidnapped, Cashé becomes a part of the intrigue. She quickly discovers nothing she knew before is etched in stone. Leading her through these changes is a man who considers her a “spoiled brat.” A man who prefers her twin Satiné to Cashémere. A man whose approval she desperately requires: Marcus Wellston, the Earl of Berwick. Toss in an irate Baloch warlord, a missing emerald, a double kidnapping, a blackmail attempt, and an explosion in a glass cone, and the Realm has its hands full. The Regency era has never been hotter, nor more dangerous.

Kindle Kobo Nook

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A Touch of Grace: Book 4 of the Realm Series [historical fiction; Regency romance; adventure; romantic suspense/mystery]

SOLA’s Seventh Annual Dixie Kane Memorial Awards, 3rd Place, Historical Romance

“Jeffers’s close look at the dark secrets of Regency society instills a sense of realism.” – Publishers Weekly

After years away from England, members of the Realm return home to claim the titles and the lives they had previously abandoned. Each man holds onto the fleeting dream of finally know love and home. For now, all any of them can hope is the resolution of his earlier difficulties before Shaheed Mir, their old enemy, finds them and exacts his revenge. Mir seeks a mysterious emerald, and he believes one of the Realm has it.

GABRIEL CROWDEN, the Marquis of Godown, can easily recall the night that he made a vow to know love before he met his Maker. Of course, that was before Lady Gardenia Templeton’s duplicity had driven Godown from his home and before his father’s will had changed everything. Godown requires a wife to meet the unusual demands of the former marquis’s stipulations. Preferably one either already carrying his child or one who would tolerate his constant attentions to secure the Crowden line before the deadline.

MISS GRACE NELSON dreams of family died with her brother’s ascension to the title. Yet, when she meets the injured Marquis of Godown at a Scottish inn, her dreams have a new name. However, hope never has an easy path. Grace is but a lowly governess with ordinary features. She believes she can never earn the regard of the “Adonis” known as Gabriel Crowden. Besides, the man has a well-earned skepticism when it comes to the women in his life. How can she prove that she is the one woman who will never betray him? The Regency era has never been hotter.

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A Touch of Mercy: Book 5 of the Realm Series [historical fiction; Regency romance; adventure; romantic suspense; mystery]

Members of the Realm have retuned to England to claim the titles they left behind. Each holds to the fleeting dream of finally knowing love, but first he must face his old enemy Shaheed Mir, a Baloch warlord, who believes one of the group has stolen a fist-sized emerald. Mir will have the emerald’s return or will exact his bloody revenge.

A devastating injury has robbed AIDAN KIMBOLT, Viscount Lexford, of part of his memory, but surely not of the reality that lovely Mercy Nelson is his father’s by-blow. Aidan is intrigued by his “sister’s” vivacity and how easily she ushers life into Lexington Arms, a house plagued by Death’s secrets–secrets of his wife’s ghost, of his brother’s untimely passing, and of his parents’ marriage: Secrets Aidan must banish to finally know happiness.

Fate has delivered Miss MERCY NELSON to Lord Lexford’s door, where she quickly discovers appearances are deceiving. Not only does Mercy practice a bit of her own duplicity, so do all within Lexington Arms. Yet, dangerous intrigue cannot squash the burgeoning passion consuming her and Viscount Lexford, as the boundaries of their relationship are sorely tested. How can they find true love if they must begin a life peppered with lies?

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A Touch of Love: Book 6 of the Realm Series [historical fiction; Regency romance; adventure; romantic suspense; mystery]

The REALM has returned to England to claim the titles they left behind. Each man holds to the fleeting dream of finally knowing love and home, but first he must face his old enemy Shaheed Mir, a Baloch warlord, who believes one of the group has stolen a fist-sized emerald. Mir will have the emerald’s return or will exact his bloody revenge.. Aristotle Pennington has groomed

SIR CARTER LOWERY as his successor as the Realm’s leader, and Sir Carter has thought of little else for years. He has handcrafted his life, filled it with duties and responsibilities, and eventually, he will choose a marriage of convenience to bolster his career; yet, Lucinda Warren is a temptation he cannot resist. Every time he touches her, he recognizes his mistake because his desire for her is not easily quenched. To complicate matters, it was Mrs. Warren’s father, Colonel Roderick Rightnour, whom Sir Carter replaced at the Battle of Waterloo, an action which had named Sir Carter a national hero and her father a failure as a military strategist.

LUCINDA WARREN’s late husband has left her to tend to a child belonging to another woman and has drowned her in multiple scandals. Her only hope to discover the boy’s true parentage and to remove her name from the lips of the ton’s censors is Sir Carter Lowery, a man who causes her body to course with awareness, as if he had etched his name upon her soul. Cruel twists of Fate have thrown them together three times, and Lucinda prays to hold off her cry for completion long enough to deny her heart and to release Sir Carter to his future: A future to which she will never belong.

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A Touch of Honor: Book 7 of the Realm Series [historical fiction; Regency romance; romantic suspense/adventure/mystery]

For two years, BARON JOHN SWENTON has thought of little else other than making Satiné Aldridge his wife; so when he discovers her reputation in tatters, Swenton acts honorably: He puts forward a marriage of convenience that will save her from ruination and provide him the one woman he believes will bring joy to his life. However, the moment he utters his proposal, Swenton’s instincts scream he has made a mistake: Unfortunately, a man of honor makes the best of even the most horrendous of situations.

MISS SATINE ALDRIDGE has fallen for a man she can never possess and has accepted a man she finds only mildly tolerable. What will she do to extricate herself from Baron Swenton’s life and claim the elusive Prince Henrí? Obviously, more than anyone would ever expect.

MISS ISOLDE NEVILLE has been hired to serve as Satiné Aldridge’s companion, but her loyalty rests purely with the lady’s husband. With regret, she watches the baron struggle against the impossible situation in which Miss Aldridge has placed him, while her heart desires to claim the man as her own. Yet, Isolde is as honorable as the baron. She means to see him happy, even if that requires her to aid him in his quest to earn Miss Satiné’s affections.

Sacrifice and honor, betrayal and redemption, all make for an exceptionally satisfying romance. A Touch of Honor is a mesmerizing story of extraordinary love realized against impossible odds. – Collette Cameron, Award-Winning Author

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A Touch of Emerald: The Conclusion of the Realm Series (Fiction/Historical; Historical Romance/Mystery/Adventure; Regency)

Four crazy Balochs. A Gypsy band. An Indian maiden. A cave with a maze of passages. A hero, not yet tested. And a missing emerald.

For nearly two decades, the Realm thwarted the efforts of all Shaheed Mir sent their way, but now the Baloch warlord is in England, and the tribal leader means to reclaim the fist-sized emerald he believes one of the Realm stole during their rescue of a girl upon whom Mir turned his men. Mir means to take his revenge on the Realm and the Indian girl’s child, LADY SONALI FOWLER.

DANIEL KERRINGTON, Viscount Worthing, has loved Lady Sonalí since they were but children. Yet, when his father, the Earl of Linworth, objects to Sonalí’s bloodlines, Worthing thinks never to claim her. However, when danger arrives in the form of the Realm’s old enemy, Kerrington ignores all caution for the woman he loves.

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His American Heartsong: A Companion Novel of the Realm Series (Regency romance, Historical romance, Series, The Realm)

The Deepest Love is Always Unexpected.

LAWRENCE LOWERY, Lord Hellsman, has served as the dutiful son since childhood, but when his father Baron Blakehell arranges a marriage with the insipid Annalee Dryburgh, Lowery must choose between his responsibilities to his future title and the one woman who makes sense in his life.

Although her mother was once a lady in waiting to the Queen, by Society’s standards, MISS ARABELLA TILNEY is completely unfit to be the future baroness: Bella is an American hoyden who demands that Lowery do the impossible: Be the man he always dreamed of being.

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His Irish Eve (Fiction/Historical Fiction; Romance; Regency Romance/Adventure)

When the Earl of Greenwall demands his only son, ADAM LAWRENCE, Viscount Stafford, retrieve the viscount’s by-blow, everything in Lawrence’s life changes. Six years prior, Stafford released his mistress, Cathleen Donnell, from his protection; now, he discovers from Greenwall that Cathleen was with child when she returned to her family. Stafford arrives in Cheshire to discover not only the son of which Greenwall spoke, but also two daughters, as well as a strong-willed woman, in the form of AOIFE KENNICE, who fascinates Stafford from the moment of their first encounter.

Set against the backdrop of the early radicalism of the Industrial Revolution and the Peterloo Massacre, a battle begins: A fight Lawrence must win: a fight for a woman worth knowing, his Irish Eve.

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The First Wives’ Club: Book 1 of the First Wives’ Trilogy (Regency romance, historical romance, trilogy, series, mystery, family relationships)

SOLA’s Seventh Annual Dixie Kane Memorial Awards, Honorable Mention, Historical Romance

NATHANIEL EPPERLY, the Earl of Eggleston, has married the woman his father has chosen for him, but the marriage has been everything but comfortable. Nathaniel’s wife, Lady Charlotte, came to the marriage bed with a wanton’s experience. She dutifully provides Eggleston his heir, but within a fortnight, she deserts father and son for Baron Remington Craddock. In the eyes of the ton, Lady Charlotte has cuckolded Epperly.

ROSELLEN WARREN, longs for love and adventure. Unfortunately, she’s likely to find neither. As a squire’s daughter, Rosellen holds no sway in Society; but she’s a true diamond in the rough. Yet, when she meets Epperly’s grandmother, the Dowager Countess Eggleston creates a “story” for the girl, claiming if Rosellen is presented to the ton as a war widow with a small dowry, that the girl will find a suitable match.

BARON REMINGTON CRADDOCK remains a thorn in Eggleston’s side, but when Craddock makes Mrs. Warren a pawn in his crazy game of control, Eggleston offers the woman his protection. However, the earl has never faced a man who holds no strength of title, but who wields great power; and he finds himself always a step behind the enigmatic baron. When someone frames Epperly for Lady Charlotte’s sudden disappearance, Nathaniel must quickly learn the baron’s secrets or face a death sentence.

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Second Chances: The Courtship Wars (Contemporary Romance, Psychology, Sexology, Reality TV, Downs Syndrome, Eccentric Hermits)

Rushing through the concourse to make her way to the conference stage, GILLIAN CORNELL comes face-to-face with the one man she finds most contemptible, but suddenly her world tilts. His gaze tells stories she wants desperately to hear. As he undresses her with his eyes, Gillian finds all she can do is stumble through her opening remarks. The all-too-attractive cad challenges both her sensibility and her reputation as a competent sexologist.

DR. LUCIAN DAMRON never allows any woman to capture his interest for long. He uses them to boost his career and for his pleasure. Yet, Lucian cannot resist Gillian’s stubborn independence, her startling intelligence, and her surprising sensuality. Sinfully handsome, Lucian hides a badly wounded heart and a life of personal rejection.

Thrown together as the medical staff on “Second Chances,” a new reality TV show designed to reunite previously married couples, Lucian and Gillian soon pique the interest of the American viewing public, who tune in each week, fascinated by the passionate electricity coursing between them. Thus begins an all-consuming courtship war, plagued by potential relationship-ending secrets and misunderstandings and played out scandalously on a national stage.

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One Minute Past Christmas: Tale of an Appalachian Christmas Miracle [short story, Appalachia, holidays, Christmas, family relationships, legends]

One Minute Past Christmas is the story of a Greenbrier County, West Virginia, family in which a grandfather and his granddaughter share a special ability — they call it a “gift”– that enables them to briefly witness each year a miraculous gathering in the sky. What they see begins at precisely one minute past Christmas and fills them with as much relief as it does wonder. But they worry that the “gift” — which they cannot reveal to anyone else — will die with them because it has been passed to no other relative for forty-four years.

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I do not own the rights to these two books, but Black Opal Books, the publisher, has placed a reasonable price them.

Angel Comes to the Devil’s Keep: Book 1 of the Twins’ Trilogy [romantic suspense; Regency romance; historical fiction; mystery; twins]

SOLA’s Eighth Annual Dixie Kane Memorial Awards, 3rd Place, Historical Romance; finalist 2017 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense; 2017 finalist Derby Award for Fiction

Huntington McLaughlin, the Marquess of Malvern, wakes in a farmhouse, after a head injury, being tended by an ethereal “angel,” who claims to be his wife. However, reality is often deceptive, and Angelica Lovelace is far from innocent in Hunt’s difficulties. Yet, there is something about the woman that calls to him as no other ever has. When she attends his mother’s annual summer house party, their lives are intertwined in a series of mistaken identities, assaults, kidnappings, overlapping relations, and murders, which will either bring them together forever or tear them irretrievably apart. As Hunt attempts to right his world from problems caused by the head injury that has robbed him of parts of his memory, his best friend, the Earl of Remmington, makes it clear that he intends to claim Angelica as his wife. Hunt must decide whether to permit her to align herself with the earldom or claim the only woman who stirs his heart–and if he does the latter, can he still serve the dukedom with a hoydenish American heiress at his side?

The story is charming, with interesting and realistic characters, a complex plot with plenty of surprises, and a sweet romance woven through it all. The author has a good command of what it was like to be a woman in nineteenth-century England–almost as if she had been there. She really did her research for this one. – Taylor Jones

Angel Comes to Devil’s Keep is a well-written tale of courage and sacrifice and what women went through in order to marry well in Regency England. The author did her homework and it shows in an authenticity that we don’t often see in Regency romances. – Regan Murphy

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The Earl Claims His Comfort: Book 2 of the Twins’ Trilogy

2016 Finalist for the Hot Prospects Award

Hurrying home to Tegen Castle from the Continent to assume guardianship of a child not his, but one who holds his countenance, Levison Davids, Earl of Remmington, is shot on the road and left to die. The incident has Remmington chasing after a man who remains one step ahead and who claims a distinct similarity—a man who wishes to replace Remmington as the rightful earl. Rem must solve the mystery of how Frederick Troutman’s life parallels his while protecting his title, the child, and the woman he loves.

Comfort Neville has escorted Deirdre Kavanaugh from Ireland to England, in hopes that the Earl of Remmington will prove a better guardian for the girl than did the child’s father. When she discovers the earl’s body upon road backing the castle, it is she who nurses him to health. As the daughter of a minor son of an Irish baron, Comfort is impossibly removed from the earl’s sphere, but the man claims her affections. She will do anything for him, including confronting his enemies. When she is kidnapped as part of a plot for revenge against the earl, she must protect Rem’s life, while guarding her heart.

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Posted in contemporary romance, historical fiction, Living in the Regency, modern adaptations, publishing, Realm series, Regency romance, romance, suspense, writing | Tagged " "His American Heartsong, " A Touch of Cashémere, "His Irish Eve, A Touch of Emerald, A Touch of Grace, A Touch of Honor, A Touch of Love, A Touch of Mercy, A Touch of Scandal, A Touch of Velvet, Angel Comes to the Devil's Keep, contemporary romance, One Minute Past Christmas, Regency romance, Romantic Suspense, Second Chances: The Courtship Wars, The Earl Claims His Comfort, The First Wives' Club | 5 Comments

Twelfth Night Sale! Reduced Price on 30 of Regina Jeffers’s Titles! First, Fill Up Your eReaders with JAFF!

Posted on December 26, 2017 by Regina Jeffers

As of Friday, December 22, 2017, thirty (30)of my titles went on sale. The sale will continue through Friday, January 5, 2018. Fill up your eReaders!!!! These 15 Austen-inspired titles should tempt you.

Darcy’s Passions: Pride and Prejudice Retold Through His Eyes [Austenesque; classics; retelling; Regency era; historical fiction]

FITZWILLIAM DARCY loves three things: his sister Georgiana, his ancestral estate, and Elizabeth Bennet. The first two come easily to him. He is a man who recognizes his place in the world, but the third, Elizabeth Bennet, is a woman Society would censure if he chose her for his wife. Can he risk everything he has ever known to love an impossible woman, a woman who has declared him to be “the last man in the world (she) could ever be prevailed upon to marry”?

Revisit Jane Austen’s beloved novel, Pride and Prejudice, retold from Mr. Darcy’s point of view. Discover his soul-searching transformation from hopeless into the world’s most romantic hero. Experience what is missing from Elizabeth Bennet’s tale. Learn something of the truth of Fitzwilliam Darcy’s pride. Return to your favorite scenes from Austen’s classic: Darcy’s rejection of Miss Elizabeth at the Meryton assembly; the Netherfield Ball; the first proposal; his discovering Elizabeth at Pemberley; and Darcy’s desperate plan to save Lydia Bennet from his worst enemy, George Wickham, all retold through his eyes. Satisfy your craving for Austen’s timeless love story, while defining the turmoil and vulnerability in a man who possesses everything except the one thing that can make him happy.

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Captain Frederick Wentworth’s Persuasion: Austen’s Classic Retold Through His Eyes [historical fiction; Regency romance; retelling’ Austenesque; classics]

(Disclaimer: This is not a new title; it is a reworking of “Captain Wentworth’s Persuasion” from Ulysses Press.)

The love affair behind Jane Austen’s classic, Persuasion, rests at the heart of this retelling from Captain Frederick Wentworth’s point of view.

He loved her from the moment their eyes met some eight years prior, but Frederick Wentworth is determined to prove to Anne Elliot that she made a mistake by refusing him. Persuaded by her family and friends of his lack of a future, Anne had sent him away, but now he is back with a fortune earned in the war, and it is Anne, whose circumstances have brought her low. Frederick means to name another to replace her, but whenever he looks upon Anne’s perfect countenance, his resolve wavers, and he finds himself lost once again to his desire for her. Return to the Regency and Austen’s most compelling and mature love story. Jeffers turns the tale upon its head while maintaining Jane Austen’s tale of love and devotion.

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Vampire Darcy’s Desire: A Pride and Prejudice Paranormal Adventure [Regency romance; paranormal; Scottish; Austenesque; classics}

[Disclaimer: This work was originally released by Ulysses Press. It has been reworked and self published by the author.]

Vampire Darcy’s Desire presents Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as a heart-pounding vampire romance filled with passion and danger.

Tormented by a 200-year-old curse and his fate as a half human/half vampire dhampir, Fitzwilliam Darcy vows to live a solitary life rather than inflict the horrors of his life upon an innocent wife and his first born son. However, when he encounters the captivating Elizabeth Bennet, his will is sorely tested.

As a man, Darcy yearns for Elizabeth, but as a vampire, he is also driven to possess her. Uncontrollably drawn to each other, they are forced to confront a different kind of “pride” and his enemy’s “prejudice,” while wrestling with the seductive power of forbidden love. Evil forces, led by George Wickham, the purveyor of the curse, attack from all sides, and Darcy learns his only hope to survive is to align himself with Elizabeth, who is uncannily astute in how to defeat Wickham, a demon determined to destroy each generation of Darcys.

Vampire Darcy’s Desire retells Austen’s greatest love story in a hauntingly compelling tale. Can love be the only thing that can change him?

“An engaging and romantic paranormal surprise” ~ JustJane1813

“Jeffers ups the ante even more by basing the core of the plot line on the traditional Scottish ballad.” ~ The Royal Reviews

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Mr. Darcy’s Fault: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary (Fiction/Historical Fiction; Romance; Austenesque; Variation; Regency)

What if an accident prevents Elizabeth Bennet from reading Mr. Darcy’s letter of apology? What if said letter goes missing and ends up in the hands of George Wickham? What if Mr. Wickham plans to use the evidence of both Georgiana Darcy’s ruination and Darcy’s disdain for the Bennets to his benefit? How will Darcy counter Wickham’s plans and claim happiness with the woman he loves?

When he notices his long-time enemy in the vicinity of Hunsford Cottage, FITZWILLIAM DARCY means to put an end to an assignation between ELIZABETH BENNET and Mr. Wickham, but Darcy is not prepared for the scene which greets him in Rosings Woods. Elizabeth lies injured and crumpled beneath the trees, and in order to save her, by Society’s standards, Darcy must compromise Elizabeth. Needless to say, Darcy does not mind being forced into claiming Elizabeth to wife, but what of the lady’s affections? Can Darcy tolerate Elizabeth’s regard being engaged elsewhere?

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The Pemberley Ball: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary Novella [Austeneque; Regency romance; historical fiction; vagary; multiple endings]

Elizabeth Bennet’s acceptance of his hand in marriage presents FITZWILLIAM DARCY a hope of the world being different. Elizabeth offers warmth and naturalness and a bit of defiance; but there is vulnerability also. With characteristic daring, she boldly withstood Caroline Bingley’s barbs, while displaying undying devotion to her sister Jane. More unpredictably, she verbally fenced with the paragon of crudeness, his aunt, Lady Catherine, and walked away relatively unscathed. One often finds his betrothed self-mockingly entertaining her sisters and friends, and despite Darcy’s best efforts, the woman makes him laugh. She brings lightness to his spirit after so many years of grief.

Unfortunately for ELIZABETH BENNET, what begins gloriously turns to concern for their future. She recognizes her burgeoning fears as unreasonable; yet, she cannot displace them. She refuses to speculate on what Mr. Darcy will say when he learns she is not the brilliant choice he proclaims her to be. Moreover, she does not think she can submit to the gentleman’s staid lifestyle. Not even for love can Elizabeth accept capitulation.

Will Elizabeth set her qualms aside to claim ‘home’ in the form of the man she truly affects or will her courage fail her? Enjoy a bit of mayhem that we commonly call “Happily Ever After,” along with three alternate turning points to this tale of love and loss and love again from Austen-inspired author, Regina Jeffers.

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Elizabeth Bennet’s Excellent Adventure: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary [Pride and Prejudice, Fiction, Jane Austen, Regency romance, Historical romance, classics, variation]

The Last Man in the World She Wishes to Marry is the One Man Who Owns Her Heart!

ELIZABETH BENNET adamantly refused Fitzwilliam Darcy’s proposal, but when Maria Lucas discovers the letter Darcy offers Elizabeth in explanation of his actions, Elizabeth must swallow her objections in order to save her reputation. She follows Darcy to London and pleads for the gentleman to renew his proposal. Yet, even as she does so, Elizabeth knows not what she fears most: being Mr. Darcy’s wife or the revenge he might consider for her earlier rebuke.

FITZWILLIAM DARCY would prefer that Elizabeth Bennet held him in affection, but he reasons that even if she does not, having Elizabeth at his side is far better than claiming another to wife. However, when a case of mistaken identity causes Darcy not to show at his wedding ceremony, he finds himself in a desperate search for his wayward bride-to-be.

Elizabeth, realizing Society will label her as “undesirable” after being abandoned at the altar, sets out on an adventure to mark her future days as the spinster aunt to her sisters’ children. However, Darcy means to locate her and to convince Elizabeth that his affections are true, and a second chance will prove him the “song that sets her heart strumming.”

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Elizabeth Bennet’s Deception: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary (Fiction/Historical Fiction; Romance; Austenesque; Regency Romance; Vagary; Classics)

What if Fitzwilliam Darcy refused to approach Elizabeth Bennet when he observes her upon the grounds of Pemberley? What if Elizabeth permits Mr. Darcy to think her the one ruined by Mr. Wickham? What if love is not enough to bring two souls together?

FITZWILLIAM DARCY’S pride makes the natural lead to ELIZABETH BENNET’S ruination when the lady appears, without notice, upon Pemberley’s threshold to plead for Darcy’s assistance in locating his long-time enemy, George Wickham. Initially, Darcy cannot look beyond the pain of lost hopes, but when Charles Bingley demands that Darcy act with honor, Darcy assumes the task. Even so, the idea of delivering Miss Elizabeth into the hands of Mr. Wickham leaves Darcy raw with anguish. Yet, Darcy loves Elizabeth Bennet too much to see her brought low. He sets his heartbreak aside to save the woman he affects, but it is not long before Darcy realizes Elizabeth practices a deception, one Darcy permits so he might remain at her side long enough to convince the lady that only in each other can either find happiness.

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Mr. Darcy’s Present: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary [Fiction; Romance; Regency; Austenesque; vagary; Christmas; holiday]

The Greatest Present He Would Ever Receive is the Gift of Her Love…

What if Mr. Darcy purchased a gift for Elizabeth Bennet to acknowledge the festive days even though he knows he will never present it to her? What if the gift is posted to the lady by his servants and without his knowledge? What if the enclosed card was meant for another and is more suggestive than a gentleman should share with an unmarried lady? Join Darcy and Elizabeth, for a holiday romp, loaded with delightful twists and turns no one expects, but one in which our favorite couple take a very different path in thwarting George Wickham and Lydia Bennet’s elopement. Can a simple book of poetry be Darcy’s means to win Elizabeth’s love? When we care more for another than ourselves, the seeds of love have an opportunity to blossom.

Words of Praise for Mr. Darcy’s Present… Jeffers takes a familiar story and reinvigorates it with humor, warmth, and wisdom. – Roses and Lilacs Reviews

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Mr. Darcy’s Bargain: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary [vagary; Austenesque; Regency romance; scams; Ponzi; historical fiction]

Darcy and Elizabeth are about to learn how “necessity” never makes a fair bargain.

When ELIZABETH BENNET appears on his doorstep some ten months after her refusal of his hand in marriage, FITZWILLIAM DARCY uses the opportunity to “bargain” for her acceptance of a renewal of his proposal in exchange for his assistance in bringing Mr. George Wickham to justice. In Darcy’s absence from Hertfordshire, Wickham has executed a scam to defraud the citizens of Meryton, including her father, of their hard-earned funds. All have invested in Wickham’s Ten Percent Annuity scheme. Her family and friends are in dire circumstances, and more importantly, Mr. Bennet’s heart has taken an ill turn. Elizabeth will risk everything to bring her father to health again and to save her friends from destitution; yet, is she willing to risk her heart? She places her trust in Darcy’s ability to thwart Wickham’s manipulations, but she is not aware that Darcy wishes more than her acquiescence. He desires her love. Neither considers what will happen if he does not succeed in bringing Mr. Wickham before a magistrate. Will his failure bring an end to their “bargain”? Or will true love prevail?

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A Dance with Mr. Darcy: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary [Pride and Prejudice; Regency romance; historical fiction vagary; JAFF]

The reason fairy tales end with a wedding is no one wishes to view what happens next.

Five years earlier, Darcy had raced to Hertfordshire to soothe Elizabeth Bennet’s qualms after Lady Catherine’s venomous attack, but a devastating carriage accident left him near death for months and cost him his chance at happiness with the lady. Now, they meet again upon the Scottish side of the border, but can they forgive all that has transpired in those years? They are widow and widower; however, that does not mean they can take up where they left off. They are damaged people, and healing is not an easy path. To know happiness they must fall in love with the same person all over again.

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The Road to Understanding: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary [Pride and Prejudice; Inspirational Romance; vagary; historical fiction; Great Valley Road; Colonial romance]

DARIUS FITZWILLIAM’s life is planned down to who he will marry and where he will live, but life has a way of saying, “You don’t get to choose.” When his marriage to his long-time betrothed Caroline Bradford falls through, Darius is forced to take a step back and to look upon a woman who enflames his blood with desire, but also engenders disbelief. Eliza Harris is everything that Darius never realized he wanted.

ELIZA HARRIS is accustomed to doing as she pleases. Yet, despite being infuriated by his authoritative manner, when she meets the staunchly disciplined Captain Fitzwilliam, she wishes for more. She instinctively knows he is “home,” but Eliza possesses no skills in achieving her aspirations.

Plagued with misunderstandings, manipulations, and peril upon the Great Valley Road between eastern Virginia and western Tennessee in the years following the Revolutionary War, Darius and Eliza claim a strong allegiance before love finds its way into their hearts.

This is a faith-based tale based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

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Honor and Hope: A Contemporary Pride and Prejudice [romance; contemporary romance; classics; Austenesque; football; winery]

Liz Bennet’s flirtatious nature acerbates Will Darcy’s controlling tendencies, sending him into despair when she fiercely demands her independence from him. How could she repeatedly turn him down? Darcy has it all: good looks, intelligence, a pro football career, and wealth. Attracted by a passionate desire, which neither time nor distance can quench, they are destined to love each other, while constantly misunderstanding one another until Fate deals them a blow from which their relationship may never recover. Set against the backdrop of professional sports and the North Carolina wine country, Honor and Hope offers a modern romance loosely based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

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MR. DARCY’S BRIDEs: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary

I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses.

ELIZABETH BENNET is determined that she will put a stop to her mother’s plans to marry off the eldest Bennet daughter to Mr. Collins, the Bennet heir to Longbourn, but a man that Mr. Bennet considers an annoying dimwit. Hence, Elizabeth disguises herself as Jane and repeats her vows to the supercilious rector as if she is her sister, thereby voiding the nuptials and saving Jane from a life of drudgery. Yet, even the “best laid plans” can often go awry.

FITZWILLIAM DARCY is desperate to find a woman who will assist him in leading his sister back to Society after Georgiana’s failed elopement with Darcy’s old enemy George Wickham. He is so desperate that he agrees to Lady Catherine De Bourgh’s suggestion that Darcy marry her ladyship’s “sickly” daughter Anne. Unfortunately, as he waits for his bride to join him at the altar, he realizes he has made a terrible error in judgement, but there is no means to right the wrong without ruining his cousin’s reputation. Yet, even as he weighs his options, the touch of “Anne’s” hand upon his sends an unusual “zing” of awareness shooting up Darcy’s arm. It is only when he realizes the “zing” has arrived at the hand of a stranger, who has disrupted his nuptials, that he breathes both a sigh of relief and a groan of frustration, for the question remains: Is Darcy’s marriage to the woman legal?

What if Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet met under different circumstances than those we know from Jane Austen’s classic tale: Circumstances that do not include the voices of vanity and pride and prejudice and doubt that we find in the original story? Their road to happily ever after may not, even then, be an easy one, but with the expectations of others removed from their relationship, can they learn to trust each other long enough to carve out a path to true happiness?

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Pride and Prejudice and a Shakespearean Scholar: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary

Unless one knows the value of loyalty, he cannot appreciate the cost of betrayal.

What if Darcy and Elizabeth met weeks before the Meryton assembly? What if there is no barely “tolerable” remark to have Elizabeth rejecting Mr. Darcy’s affections, but rather a dip in a cold creek that sets her against him? What if Mr. Bennet is a renown Shakespearean scholar who encourages Darcy to act the role of Petruchio from Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” to bring Elizabeth’s Katherina persona to the line?

ELIZABETH BENNET’s pride has her learning a difficult lesson: Loyalty is hard to find, and trust is easy to lose. Even after they share a passionate kiss outside the Meryton assembly hall and are forced to marry, Elizabeth cannot forget the indignity she experienced at the hands of Fitzwilliam Darcy. Although she despises his high-handedness, Elizabeth appreciates the protection he provides her in their marriage. But can she set her prejudice aside long enough to know a great love?

FITZWILLIAM DARCY places only two demands on his new wife: her loyalty and her trust, but when she invites his worst enemy to Darcy House, he has no choice but to turn her out. Trusting her had been his decision, but proving his choice the right one before she destroys two hearts meant to be together must be hers, and Darcy is not certain Elizabeth is up to the task.

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Note! I do not yet have the rights back for this title, but the eBook version is reasonably priced by Pegasus Books.

The Prosecution of Mr. Darcy’s Cousin: A Pride and Prejudice Mystery (Mystery/Suspense/Thriller; Fiction/Historical Fiction)

2016 Finalist for the Frank Yerby Award for Fiction

2016 Finalist for the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense

2016 Finalist Chanticleer International Book Awards

Fitzwilliam Darcy is enjoying his marital bliss. His wife, the former Elizabeth Bennet, presented him two sons and a world of contentment. All is well until Darcy receives a note of urgency from his sister Georgiana. In truth, Darcy never fully approved of Georgiana’s joining with their cousin. Major General Edward Fitzwilliam for Darcy assumed the major general held Georgiana at arm’s length, dooming Darcy’s sister to a life of unhappiness.

Forced to seek his cousin in the slews of London’s underbelly, at length, Darcy discovers the major general and returns Fitzwilliam to his family. Even so, the Darcy’s troubles are far from over. During the major general’s absence from home, witnesses note Fitzwilliam’s presence in the area of two horrific murders. When Edward Fitzwilliam is arrested for the crimes, Darcy must discover the real culprit before his cousin is hanged for the crimes and the Fitzwilliam name is marked by shame.

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The Taming of the Shrew’s Connection to “Pride and Prejudice and a Shakespearean Scholar” Excerpt + Giveaway

Posted on December 14, 2017 by Regina Jeffers

One of the main themes in my upcoming release of Pride and Prejudice and a Shakespearean Scholar: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary is the use William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew as a basis of the interaction between Darcy and Elizabeth. My story DOES NOT follow Shakespeare’s play exactly, but there is enough similarity in the two for a lover of Shakespeare to take note. Of Shakespeare’s comedies, Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing are my favorites.

For those of you who have never read or seen a production of Taming of the Shrew, here is a brief synopsis provided by No Sweat Shakespeare: “The play opens as the student Lucentio arrives in Padua. He hears that the merchant Baptista has two daughters, but the younger, prettier daughter, Bianca, cannot be married before her strong-willed sister, Katherina. On seeing Bianca Lucentio falls in love with her and changes identities with his servant Tranio. Bianca already has two suitors, but doesn’t like either. The elderly Gremio hires Lucentio, disguised as a Latin tutor, to woo Bianca on his behalf, while Hortensio disguises himself as a musician to get access to her. Meanwhile Petruchio, a young adventurer from Verona, arrives to visit hisfriend Hortensio. He learns about Katherina and decides to woo her, aided by both Gremio and Hortensio.

“Baptista is enthusiastic about Petruchio’s suit because the feisty Katherina is a burden to him and is continually quarreling with her sister and with him. Petruchio will not be put off as he woos Kate and he fixes their wedding day. At the church, where Kate unwillingly awaits him, Petruchio arrives in an absurd outfit and after the ceremony he leaves for Verona immediately, with his new wife. On reaching there Kate is mistreated by Petruchio and his servants, and is denied food and sleep. To teach her to obey him Petruchio does not allow her new clothes or a hat. Eventually, worn down by her husband’s relentless eccentricity, Kate submits and accepts all his eccentricities. They set off to visit her father in Padua.

“On the journey the couple meet Vincentio, Lucentio’s wealthy father, who is subjected to a strange conversation as Petruchio tests Kate’s obedience. The three reach Padua where Hortensio, rejected by Bianca, has married a widow and Baptista has been tricked into believing a passing stranger is Tranio’s rich father. While Vincentio attempts to unravel the complexities of the situation his son Lucentio returns from a secret wedding with Bianca.

“Nevertheless, Baptista holds a wedding feast for both his daughters. As the men relax after their meal Petruchio devises a competition to prove whose wife is the most obedient. Bianca and the widow fail to come to their husbands when called while Kate lectures the women on the duties of a wife.”

One of my favorite film adaptations of the story stars Richard Burton as Petruchio and Elizabeth Taylor as Katherina. When I taught school, I often showed my students excerpts from the teenage-geared film Ten Things I Hate About You, starring Julia Stiles as Kat and the late Heath Ledger as Patrick. In both these films, there is a scene where Petruchio/Patrick must “persuade” Katerina/Kat that he means to marry/date her.

Below, find my version of this contest. Darcy has compromised Elizabeth by kissing her at the Meryton Assembly. She thinks her father will cover up her indiscretion, but Mr. Bennet says otherwise. Elizabeth then means to avoid Mr. Darcy and his marriage proposal.

Excerpt from Chapter 11:

Darcy stormed across the lawn toward the Longbourn stables, but drew up short when the building came into sight. “How in blazes am I to persuade a woman who barely tolerates my presence to spend the remainder of her days as my wife?” Uncertain how to proceed, he stared up at the wooden structure before him and back to the house. He imagined that canny old Shakespearean scholar was pointing toward the stable, urging Darcy on. “Bennet is as crazy as his daughter,” Darcy grumbled. “I should up and leave them all to share in their delirium.”

But he knew he would not act so dishonorably. Moreover, the idea of marrying Miss Elizabeth Bennet had taken root in his soul. It was as Bennet purported. The woman would enliven Darcy’s days. With a heavy sigh, Darcy closed his eyes, attempting to steel his resolve. He had come to Hertfordshire to escape the guilt he felt in failing Georgiana and to escape Lady Catherine’s marital manipulations, only to land in a trap of his own making. “At least, I can say my future bride did not apply her arts and allurements to bring me to task.” Darcy chuckled to himself. “Certainly did not expect a dip in a creek to lead to marriage vows.”

With that, he strode forward. Reaching the stable door, he swung it wide with enough force to announce his presence to this intended. “Going somewhere, my dear?”

* * *

When the door banged against the side wall, Elizabeth jumped. She had hoped to be absent when Mr. Darcy came calling. “I am not your ‘dear,’” she said baldly. Her shoulders shifted in a defensive manner. Unsurprisingly, so did Mr. Darcy’s.

The gentleman held his position, and for that, Elizabeth was thankful. She did not think she could tolerate his touch at this moment, for the memory of his hands caressing her back were all to familiar. “I disagree. Your father and I have spoken, and you are to be ‘my dear’ for the remainder of our days.”

“My father erred,” she challenged. “I would prefer to live out my days alone than to saddle myself with the likes of you.”

“The likes of me?” he asked as he took two steps in her direction. “And what do you find so offensive with the likes of me?”

Reflexively, Elizabeth retreated a full step. She wished Mr. Darcy was not so handsome and she did not still carry a very vivid memory of his kiss or of the manner in which his lips had branded hers or of the solid heat of his body as she clung to him.

With a lift of her chin, she said, “From the very beginning, from the moment I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners impressed me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain for the feelings of others—”

“Selfish disdain for others?” he interrupted. “Did I not show your sister Mary tender care upon more than one occasion? Have I not been an attentive audience for your father? And you? Did I not offer to carry a complete stranger across a chilly creek at the cost of my favorite hat? The most you can hold against me is that I choose not to speak much unless I am among intimate acquaintances or when I share a private conversation with a highly intelligent person, be he male or female. Have I not always provided you my attention when you have a point of reference to impart?”

It was all Elizabeth could do not to stamp her foot in frustration. She despised him when he spoke with logic. “You touched my person without my permission,” she argued. “On more than one occasion.”

Mr. Darcy crossed his arms over his chest and leaned leisurely against one of the support posts. “You held no objections to our last encounter, at least none until we were found out.” He smirked.

“I object now,” she claimed.

“I fear it is too late, my dear.” He emphasized those dreaded words. “We have been observed breaking propriety.”

Elizabeth could still feel the warmth of his breath against her cheek, but she shove that tinge of desire to the side. “It was but a simple kiss,” she contested.

Mr. Darcy straightened. She noted the shift in his demeanor. It would do her well to remember that he was a proud man—a man accustomed to having his way. “The kiss we shared was everything but simple.” He began slowly stalking her. Intent marked his features.

Elizabeth’s nerves hitched higher. Suddenly, she realized why he had previously seemed so relaxed: She had no means of escape. Whatever had possessed her to permit him to corner her so? She should have stormed past him when Mr. Darcy first entered the stable. More importantly, whatever had possessed her to kiss him? Over the years, she had engaged in several flirtations, but never once had she considered an indiscretion, so why was it that she had acted so boldly with the one man who engendered her disapprobation? And what had possessed him to kiss her? Did he often kiss unsuspecting women? The idea of Mr. Darcy embracing another brought a frown to her forehead. Whether she wished his kiss or not, Elizabeth wanted the one they has shared to be a break from his normal interaction with eligible young ladies.

Instinctively, she back-stepped. “Grand or simple,” she declared as her gaze veered upward. Wrapping the length of her riding habit about her arm and catching the nearby ladder, she took the first step. “It was only a kiss. There is no reason for us to marry.” She climbed another rung, while Mr. Darcy moved ever closer.

He paused to look her up and down, and Elizabeth knew a flush of color pinked her cheeks, for surely from her position on the ladder, her ankles were exposed to the gentleman’s view. The heat of their embrace last evening was not part and partial of her imagination. “I cannot permit you to ruin your future,” he declared in tones that should have brooked no argument.

But Elizabeth was never one to avoid an obstacle in her way. “It is my future. My choice.” She continued to climb to the hay loft, while Mr. Darcy reached for the first rung of the ladder to follow her.

“Yet, you do not hold the advantage of making the choice for your sisters’ futures. Your disgrace will affect their chances of finding husbands.”

Looking down upon Mr. Darcy, Elizabeth kicked at the loose straw sending it peppering down upon him. He blinked hard and spat against the dusty deluge. “The matter is not of your concern, sir. I shall explain it all to my sisters.”

“Miss Bingley already objects to her brother’s attentions to Miss Bennet. Your family’s connection to me would soften the lady’s disparaging words. Miss Bingley would cherish a continuance of the privilege of being a guest at Pemberley,” he argued, as his slow methodical climb began.

“If I were Mistress of Pemberley, Miss Bingley would only be invited if I chose to do so, and I would never extend my good graces to the lady,” Elizabeth declared before backing away from the opening.

“Bold words, my dear,” he reasoned, “but if Bingley chooses your sister, the future Mrs. Bingley will beg you, for family’s sake, to include Miss Bingley in your plans for the entertainments at Pemberley, and you will no doubt relent, for you love your elder sister. You love all your sisters. And you are willing to suffer the worst you can imagine if doing so would keep them safe from scorn. Even if the worst you could image comes in the form of a gentleman from Derbyshire.” He climbed through the opening to stand before her.

Tears misted Elizabeth’s eyes. She was trapped—both in the hayloft and in a situation she did not desire; even so, she would not surrender so easily. “You know nothing of my nature, sir.” She grabbed a handful of straw and threw it at his face, but only a flurry of dust motes reached him.

“Obviously, I know more of your nature than you do of mine,” he stated in hard tones as he took a long stride to reach her.

Surprised by his boldness, Elizabeth stepped back quickly to avoid him, but her boot caught on some farm wire around the bale of hay, and she pitched backward. She knew Mr. Darcy reached for her, and in desperation, she grabbed his wrist, but it was too late. She tumbled backward, with only a pile of hay to soften her fall, but her shame was not complete, for the gentleman had followed her down. Thankfully, he had the foresight to turn his body so as not to land hard upon her.

Elizabeth attempted to sit up, but before she could reclaim her wits about her, Mr. Darcy had rolled over upon her, pining her in place. “You will release me,” she ordered.

She caught a glimpse of what she thought was annoyance before his expression closed over. “I will release you when things between us are settled.”

“Nothing you can say or do will change my mind.” She wriggled from side to side, but from the waist down, he was firmly planted upon her person.

“Like it or not, you are mine, Elizabeth Bennet,” he growled when they were nearly nose-to-nose. “Your father sent me to find you, and soon someone or more than one person will discover us here together—experiencing a romp in the hay. Although we might have been able to keep last evening’s indiscretion a secret if not for Miss Bingley, this situation will be more problematic. I will simply rest all my weight upon you, and you will not be able to escape. We will wait for our witnesses to our taking liberties with each other.”

Again, she fought him, only to have Mr. Darcy make good upon his threat. His weight pressed her further into the prickly hay. “I will never be yours,” she hissed.

He shook his head slowly in the negative as if he thought her protests were of little consequence before presenting her a cool smile. “Would you not prefer to spend our time in more pleasurable pursuits?” He lowered his head to caress her jaw line with his lips.

“I have no desire for another kiss from you!” She turned her head to the side to avoid his kissing her again, but she could not control the hitch in her breathing as a result of his warmth invading her body.

“I do not need to kiss you to mark you as mine,” he murmured against the side of her neck as his lips skimmed down the column of it.

Even through her objections, Elizabeth felt the return of the stirrings she had experienced last evening. Yet, she was not to know what would come next.

“Lizzy!” She recognized Charlotte’s voice from below. “Are you in here?”

“Please,” Elizabeth pleaded in a whisper.

“I cannot,” he said against her lips. “Your father means for us to marry.”

She stared at him in frustration. Mr. Darcy expected her to surrender, but the word was not in her vocabulary. She dug down deep to claim the presence of mind to once again to defy him. “You will regret this moment, sir. Mark my words.” With that she shoved hard against his chest, and he easily rolled away from her. Standing quickly, she shook the hay from her clothing and moved to the opening. “Charlotte! she said with a well-placed smile, as she peered down upon her friend. “You are to congratulate me. Mr. Darcy has offered me his hand in marriage, and I have accepted.”

Introducing Pride and Prejudice and a Shakespearean Scholar

Unless one knows the value of loyalty, he cannot appreciate the cost of betrayal.

NOW FOR THE GIVEAWAY! Leave a comment below for the chance at winning an eBook copy of Pride and Prejudice and a Shakespearean Scholar. The giveaway will end at midnight EST on December 16, 2017.

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How Did an American Author of the 1840s Influenced “Pride and Prejudice and a Shakespearean Scholar” + a Giveaway

Posted on December 8, 2017 by Regina Jeffers

Delia Bacon 1811-1859, daguerreotype taken in May 1853 ~ public domain ~ via Wikipedia

Born in Tallmadge, Ohio, in February of 1811, Delia Saltar Bacon was an American author who was among the first to purport what is known as the Baconian theory, which perpetuates the idea that Sir Francis Bacon and others were the true authors of the works we currently attribute to William Shakespeare.

Delia Bacon attended school at Catherine E. Beecher’s School for Girls in Hartford, Connecticut. From 1826 to 1832, she was teacher. At one time she attempted to start her own school, but the venture failed. Her next endeavor was first to write Tales of the Puritans and then a play called The Bride of Fort Edward (1839), which was based on a 1777 story of the murder of Jane McCrea. Bacon also lectured on literary and historical topics to knew some success on the lecture circuit until she became involved with a young minister and was forced to look for other work. This occurred in 1850.

“Bacon gradually evolved a theory that the works attributed to Shakespeare had in fact been written by a coterie of writers led by Francis Bacon and including Edmund Spenser and Sir Walter Raleigh and were credited by them to the relatively obscure actor and theatre manager Shakespeare largely for political reasons. Becoming thoroughly convinced of the notion, and with some encouragement from Ralph Waldo Emerson, she traveled to England in 1853, ostensibly to seek proof. She was uninterested in looking for original source material, however, and for three years lived in poverty while she developed her thesis out of ingenuity and ‘hidden meanings’ found in the plays. In 1856, for unknown reasons, she abandoned her plan of opening Shakespeare’s grave to look for certain documents she believed would support her position. Nathaniel Hawthorne, at that time U. S. consul in Liverpool, took pity on her, lent her money, and arranged for the publication of her book The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded (1857). Immediately after the appearance of the book, she suffered a mental breakdown, and she never learned that it had met with little but ridicule. She was returned to the United States in 1858. The idea that had obsessed her assumed a life of its own, and the theory continued to have its adherents throughout the years.” [Encyclopedia Brttannica] She died in September 1859.

How does this tie into my new release, Pride and Prejudice and a Shakespearean Scholar? In my story, Mr. Bennet is a renown Shakespeare scholar, a man of whom Darcy and Bingley know only from their years at Cambridge. What they do not know of Mr. Bennet helps to drive the story. But what of those Shakespearean plays. Is there any chance William Shakespeare is not the author? In Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare by James Shapirio, the author tells us of several “conspiracy theories” regarding the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays. One involved Miss Delia Bacon, an American playwright, whose best known work was The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded, in which she attributes the plays to social reformers such as Francis Bacon and Sir Walter Raleigh. She speaks of Bacon, Raleigh, Lord Buckhurst, Edmund Spenser, the Earl of Oxford, and others as being disappointed and defeated politicians, who collaborated and used drama (an art form coming into itself during the Elizabethan period and one enjoyed by both the wealthy and the common man) to oppose the “despotism” of Queen Elizabeth and King James. For example, there are many who think that Shakespeare’s Macbeth comments on the 1605 Gunpowder Plot.

Shakespeare’s Globe tells us, “Shakespeare’s ‘Scottish Play’ was probably written in 1606, just three years after James I was crowned as Elizabeth’s successor, and so undoubtedly seems to be paying homage to the succession of the Scottish King to the English throne. But within that time, in November 1605, the Gunpowder Plot had been discovered: the plan to blow up the Houses of Parliament, kill James and replace him with a Catholic monarch failed and the plotters were tortured and horribly executed. The impact of the event was so dramatic that we still remember it today on Bonfire Night, so we can only imagine the enormity of the event for Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

“Why are the Gunpowder plot and Macbeth connected? Firstly, many of Macbeth’s themes resonate with the attempted revolt: it’s a play about treason, the overthrow of a King, and the downfall of his murderers. Even more importantly, King James was commonly believed to be descended from Banquho the thane of Lochquhaber, the historical counterpart of Shakespeare’s Banquo, the friend who Macbeth betrays and has murdered. With this in mind the witches’ prophesy that Banquo’s ancestors will be kings takes on a new meaning: it is referring to Banquo’s ancestor James Stuart, King of Scotland and England. By extension, it has been suggested that the escape of Fleance, Banquo’s son, from Macbeth’s murder plot is designed to echo James’s own escape from the Gunpowder plot and to subtly compliment the House of Stuart as legitimate and truly-descended rulers.”

Okay. Does that not play with all we hold most dear in English literature? Obviously, I do not have Darcy and Elizabeth back in the 1600s, but what I do have is a “puppet master,” of sorts in Mr. Bennet, who encourages Darcy to “tame” Elizabeth much as does Petruchio with Katherine in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. Within the story, you will find other examples from Shakespeare’s works, and I do acknowledge the Bacon theory when Darcy, Elizabeth, Mr. Bennet, Jane and Bingley visit the old ruins and tour Gorhambury House, much as Elizabeth and the Gardiners did at Pemberley in Austen’s tale.

INTRODUCING PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND A SHAKESPEAREAN SCHOLAR

Unless one knows the value of loyalty, he cannot appreciate the cost of betrayal.

Now, for an EXCERPT: You may read Chapter 1 (how Darcy and Elizabeth meet) on the Austen Authors’ Writers’ Block at this link:

http://austenauthors.net/writers-block/exquisite-excerpts/pride-and-prejudice-and-a-shakespearian-scholar/

from Chapter Two

Darcy watched her storm away. “Magnificent,” he murmured in admiration. He held no idea what had come over him. He certainly did not set out to flirt with the lady. Perhaps it was his recent confrontation with Lady Catherine that had him looking to potential mates other than Anne. Or perhaps is was Georgiana’s encouraging words regarding his need to look beyond the obvious. Or more likely it was the loneliness that had invaded his soul of late that had spurred him on. “The lady is certainly from the norm.”

He brushed the dirt and water droplets from his hat as he privately enjoyed the sway of her hips as she marched angrily across the field. Those hips were made more enticing by the damp muslin clinging to her skin and undergarments. He chuckled. She was a real virago. As he turned, he noticed something dark lying in the long grass and bent to retrieve it. It was the book in which the woman had been writing when he approached her. He had meant simply to inquire of Netherfield’s location, but when he had looked down upon the enticing globes of her breasts peeking from the neckline of her day dress, something primal had caught his good sense and had emphatically announced: Mine.

He glanced in the direction of her retreating form, momentarily considering whether to chase after her to return the book in his hand, but he thought it likely she would throttle him if he acted, even if he did so in good conscience. Moreover, she had set herself a good clip, especially for one walking without boots. She was nearing the far side of the field.

“Perchance Bingley will know something of the lady,” he said aloud, as he opened the book to view her last entry. The words brought a smile to his lips as he read…

Mama has no idea that I prefer Juliet’s words when she speaks of the necessity of our marrying before Papa passes to the prescribed sensibility of society on the matter.

’O bid me leap, rather than to marry Paris,

From off the battlements of any tower,

Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk

Where serpents are. Chain me with roaring bears,

Or hide me nightly in a charnel-house

O’ercovered quite with dead men’s rattling bones,

With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls.

Or bid me go into a new-made grave,

And hide me with a dead man in his shroud—

Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble—

And I will do it without fear or doubt.

To live an unstained wife to my sweet love.

Darcy was not certain he was comfortable reading the lady’s most intimate thoughts. On one hand, he was impressed by her knowledge of Shakespeare, her having quoted from Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, and now Romeo and Juliet with accuracy. “She even recognized my walking song,” he said in real respect. “I know few men—and fewer women—who hold knowledge of so many of Shakespeare’s finest pieces.” But on the other hand, the notation regarding her need to marry was troubling. “When she discovers my identity, will the lady transform into another Caroline Bingley? Will the need arise for me to avoid her as I do Miss Bingley?” Darcy thought that would be a true shame, for he did wish to take the lady’s acquaintance properly just to see if they could be in each other’s company for more than a few minutes without freely tossing accusations holding no merit about. “Certainly, she had a right to be angry, for I placed her down, but not as she wished, but there was that moment when I kissed her hand. Something resembling interest passed between us.”

Reluctantly, Darcy placed the journal in the pocket of his greatcoat. He would return the book when the opportunity arrived. “To think all I wished was to ask directions to Netherfield.” With a shrug of resignation, he set out the way he had come. This time he would pay more attention to locating the marker leading him to Netherfield.

* * *

When she was certain the man had not followed her, Elizabeth had sat upon the opposing stile from the one she had foolishly crossed earlier to don her stockings, garters, and boots. Mrs. Hill would have something to say about the moss stains on both her gown and her smock, but there was nothing for it. Surprisingly, tears stung her eyes. She had never encountered such an overbearing man, but she had to admit, if only to herself, she had enjoyed the heat and the strength of his body as he held her in his arms. For just a moment, she felt protected and foolishly a bit cherished. “Even so,” she announced to the birds above her in the trees lining the field, “I wish the cad the fate of Prometheus. A vulture forever nibbling upon his liver. Or perchance his cold heart instead.” With a satisfied nod of her head, she shook out her skirts to loosen them from her legs and then said a prayer that she could sneak into Longbourn without her mother’s notice.

However, God meant to vex her day, for although she managed to cross the kitchen and mount the servants’ stairs without anyone’s notice, when she reached the entrance hall, the sound of female voices filled the front drawing room. On silent feet, she tiptoed along the carpet, wordlessly asking the Fates to permit her invisibility.

“Lizzy!” her mother bellowed when the floor board popped from her weight pressing down upon it, and everyone in the room looked up to see her standing awkwardly in place outside the open room door.

Biting back a curse no lady should utter, Elizabeth straightened her shoulders to face those within the room. “Good morning, Lady Lucas. Charlotte. I did not realize you meant to call upon us today.” She remained a step outside the room’s entrance, where the shadows might mask the condition of her clothing.

“Do you wish tea?” Jane asked kindly.

“Perhaps later,” Elizabeth said with a well-placed smile. “I must to speak to Papa first.”

“You leave your father to his studies,” her mother warned. “I told Mr. Bennet that no one would disturb him this afternoon if he would promise to be agreeable over supper when Mr. Bingley comes calling this evening. Now, stop dilly-dallying in the hall. Come join us. I am certain Charlotte is desirous of your conversation.”

Elizabeth sighed in resignation and stepped forward where they all might view the condition of her dress. “I fear I have taken a tumble,” she said with a hard swallow.

Charlotte Lucas’s dark head turned away so her friend might smother her laughter in her serviette. Meanwhile, the rest of the room gasped upon viewing her smudged and wet appearance.

“Elizabeth Ruth Elaine Bennet!” her mother shrieked. “What am I to do with you?” Mrs. Bennet threw her head back in despair, her mother’s mobcap draping to one side.

Lydia mocked, “I have seen drier fish.”

Jane and Charlotte were both quickly at Elizabeth’s side. “Oh, Lizzy,” Jane whispered in sympathy. “Come, I shall assist you in changing your clothing.”

“No, I shall do it,” Charlotte corrected. She shot a glance to Mrs. Bennet. “It might be best if you see to your mother. I would dislike seeing her suffer from a fit of her nerves.” Mrs. Bennet had retrieved her handkerchief from her sleeve and was waving it about in agitation.

Elizabeth shook her head in the negative. “Both of you remain. I am a bit sore from my tumble. I believe I shall lie down after I change my clothes. It is imperative that I not disappoint Mama twice in one day. I just require a bit of rest.”

“Are you certain?” Jane asked.

Elizabeth placed a smile upon her features. “Absolutely. I have suffered no harm more than a few bruises, sodden skirts, and wounded pride.”

With acceptance in her stance, Jane nodded her agreement and turned toward her mother. Elizabeth squeezed the back of Charlotte’s hand. “Do not permit Lady Lucas to tarry too long. Mama calms faster when she has no audience.”

Charlotte smiled knowingly. “No more than a quarter hour. Now, go change before you catch your death from being cold.”

Elizabeth quietly departed, although the sound of her mother’s “It did me little good to forbid her to go out. Lizzy never listens to me.” followed her down the hall. Without a glance backwards, Elizabeth turned to her father’s study. She required someone of sense to vet out the truth of her encounter with the stranger.

She tapped lightly upon the door, but did not wait for her father to bid her to enter. Instead, she turned the latch and slipped into the room, closing the door behind her. “Papa, I know you are extremely busy with your research, but may I claim five minutes of your time?”

He did not look up immediately, rather he finished his notation before placing his pen in the well. It was the way with him. How many times had she waited until he finished his thoughts before he addressed her? “Lizzy?” he remarked in distracted tones. “Is something amiss?”

Although she had closed it behind her, she had not moved from the door. “Something is amiss, sir. Yet I do not know the best course.”

“Come sit,” he instructed, gesturing to the chair pulled close to his desk. She crossed to the cushioned seat. As always, the odor of musty manuscripts and cigars and leather filled the space. He folded his hands across and middle and said, “You appear quite disheveled. I assume your tale will include an explanation of what occurred to your gown.”

Both of her parents had expressed their concern over her appearance, but their approaches were as different as their histories. Her father was of the gentry—a country squire, educated at Cambridge and considered one of England’s finest intellects. Her mother was the daughter of a rich man with connections to trade. Elizabeth doubted that Fanny Bennet had ever read an entire book. Her mother was not illiterate, but Mrs. Bennet saw no reason to educate her girls unless one of them took a special interest in a social skill, such as her sister Mary’s love of music. “I walked to Oakham Mount after Mama returned to her quarters for a restorative nap.”

“I imagine this was against Mrs. Bennet’s orders,” he surmised. Immediately Elizabeth experienced guilt. Although he did not yell and fuss over her deception, her father’s simple statement told Elizabeth that he did not approve of his daughter’s acting behind Mrs. Bennet’s back.

Elizabeth dropped her eyes. “Mama did not specifically forbid my leaving,” she offered as an excuse that made her feel more at fault than if she had admitted her manipulation. “It was only implied, sir.”

Her father snorted his amusement. “The fool considers himself as wise as Solomon, while a man of intellect realizes we are all fools.”

Elizabeth protested, “I did not intend to act a fool. It was all the strange gentleman’s fault.”

“What strange gentleman?” he asked with a lift of his brows.

She leaned forward to press her point. “The one who accosted me on Oakham Mount.”

“Accosted you?” he questioned in serious tones. “Did he harm you? Treat you poorly?”

“Certainly he treated me in an ill manner,” she declared.

“You would know the men from the neighborhood.” His gaze remained steady, and Elizabeth resisted the urge to squirm. “The only stranger is Mr. Bingley. Was it he who approached you? I would not wish to sit with the man if he does not respect my daughter.”

Elizabeth shook off the suggestion. “You described Mr. Bingley as having hair a shade or so darker than Jane’s, with reddish tints to his locks. The man I encountered was tall and dark and…”

Her father chuckled. “And handsome?”

She bristled, “Reasonably fair of countenance.” The unguarded admission shocked her.

His brows drew together in what appeared to be mock thoughtfulness, and Elizabeth suddenly felt the fool her father had described previously. “How did the man touch you?”

Frustration ate at her. She would be forced to admit her temper. “He kissed my hand.”

“How did he come in possession of your hand?” Mr. Bennet ran his palm across his features to smooth his expression.

Despite her best efforts, her voice rasped, cutting like shards of glass. “I was sitting upon a log. He came up behind me and extended his hand to assist me to my feet.”

“So, you presented your hand to the man, and he kissed it?” He spared her a shake of his head in denial. “Quite a scoundrel. Is there more I should know of the this stranger?”

This had to be one of the most uncomfortable conversations in which she had ever participated. Determined to make her point, Elizabeth declared, “He picked me up in his arms to carry me across the brook between Mr. Olsen’s and Mr. Kincaid’s farms.”

Her father tilted his head to one side in consideration. “Why would the man assume you could not cross alone?”

Elizabeth again dropped her eyes in shame, for she knew her father would not approve. “I had removed my half boots and stockings before he arrived. I was writing in my diary. But after the stranger kissed my hand without permission…” her voice rose in consternation.

“I thought we established that you offered the gentleman your permission by presenting him your hand,” he argued.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes in vexation. “Please, Papa, permit me to finish.”

Her father sat forward, and his smile had lost its amusement. “Instead, permit me to summarize the obvious,” he said in serious tones. “You rushed away from the man when his kiss of your proffered hand offended you. You wore no boots, but still you meant to cross the cold stream despite the foolishness of your actions. By your own admission, the man presented you no offense beyond the brush of his lips across your bare knuckles. When he offered to carry you across the stream’s stones, you again objected to his forwardness.”

“He did not offer!” she protested. “I told him when he would not turn aside and go away that he was no gentleman, and he took it upon himself to prove me in error.”

“Knowing my Lizzy, you did not take well to his defending his pride. How did you make him pay for his presumptuous nature?”

“I struck him with the boot I carried in my left hand.”

Relief eased the lines of weariness etched upon her father’s forehead. “I imagine you struck him harder than I could have if I chose to challenge him for his behavior.”

“Then you will do nothing to defend my honor?” she charged.

“I would bend Hell over the Devil’s anvil to defend your honor, Elizabeth. You are now and forever my dearest Lizzy, but I will not challenge a much younger man to defend your pride. He would dispatch me in less than a minute, then you and your sisters and your mother would be set out in the hedgerow when my heir presumptive claims Longbourn.”

“But the man set me in the water when I demanded that he place me down,” she protested. Her arguments were having little effect upon her father, for he disguised a laugh behind his hands as he pretended to cough.

At length, he asked skeptically, “Did you unknowingly provoke the man?”

Standing defiantly, she snapped, “I repeated lines from Shakespeare, as did he.”

“Obviously, I cannot fault a man the improvement of his mind, but if you encounter the gentleman again, point me in his direction. I promise to present the fellow a earful laced with my disdain for his handling of my daughter.”

NOW FOR THE GIVEAWAY!! COMMENT BELOW FOR AN OPPORTUNITY TO WIN AN eBOOK COPY OF “PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND A SHAKESPEAREAN SCHOLAR.” THE GIVEAWAY WILL END AT MIDNIGHT EST ON DECEMBER 12, 2017. THE PRIZE, HOWEVER, WILL NOT BE AWARDED UNTIL THE BOOK RELEASES ON DECEMBER 15.

Posted in Austen Authors, blog hop, book excerpts, book release, British history, buildings and structures, eBooks, Elizabethan drama, estates, Georgian England, Georgian Era, giveaway, historical fiction, history, Jane Austen, Living in the Regency, marriage, marriage customs, Pride and Prejudice, publishing, reading habits, real life tales, Regency era, Regency romance, research, Vagary | Tagged blog hop, book excerpt, book release, British history, eBooks, Elizabethan drama, estates, Francis Bacon, Gorhambury House, historical fiction, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Pride and Prejudice and a Shakespearean Scholar, Publishing, Regency romance, Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, Vagary | 14 Comments

“High Tea” in Lake Park

Posted on December 4, 2017 by Regina Jeffers

On Saturday, December 2, I joined fifty+ other ladies and gentlemen for tea at the Lake Park Community Center. Ours was the 2 PM service. There were other services, one at noon and another at 4 PM, and the event was hosted by the local garden club. This was a special treat for me from one of my dearest friends, Kim Withey. At our table, we joined two other ladies and two delightful young ladies, whose mother, we were told, was from Yorkshire, England.

The event had us all thinking about high tea in England, which was a Victorian custom. One thing led to another and soon we were discussing tea traditions and Jane Austen.

Tea in the afternoon, we are told, began with the servants rather than with those they served. Some people question whether this could be true, but I have read something similar in more than one non-fiction book. Doubters say there is no way workers would come in from the field to take take and some sort of meal. However, in the households of the late 1700s, when the tradition began, it would make sense for the servants, who had been up since dawn to be permitted a mid afternoon meal around two o’clock. They would have eaten breakfast around eight and would have a late supper.

By Jane Austen’s time, afternoon tea, especially for those residing in London, took place around three or four. It is believed that the afternoon tea was followed by a walk in the park in what was known as the “fashionable hour.” In addition to the tea, the house’s hostess would serve her guests or family members some sort of finger sandwiches on thin bread, with no crust. I am particularly found of cucumber sandwiches, but I believe that is more modern than during this time. It would me more likely that the sandwiches had some sort of meat paste or very thin slices of meat. There would be biscuits (what we Americans call “cookies”), small cakes (not petite fours, as we sometimes think), but rather fairy cakes. The Huffington Post describes fairy cakes as such: “Fairy cakes are not, as their name might imply, themed cakes designed and decorated to the liking of fantasy and sci-fi fans. They are, simply stated, smaller versions of cupcakes. They’re widely popular in the UK, and tend not to pile on the icing in the same way that American bakers do with cupcakes. Mich Turner, a British baker and champion of the fairy cake, describes American cupcakes as having ‘the wrong icing: great wodges of lurid buttercream, rather than the traditional non-fat glace stuff.’ Conversely, fairy cakes use a lighter glace icing. They also are traditionally made with a lighter sponge cake as opposed to the thicker butter cakes used in cupcakes. Alternatively, a fairy cake is a type of cupcake with its top cut off and replaced in two pieces, like wings. These are also called butterfly cupcakes.” As most of those in London during the Season ate supper around 8 PM, it would sense to adopt some sort of mid-day meal, and during the Regency the concept of lunch or “nuncheon” was not universally accepted.

Sandwich Cake via The English Kitchen https://theenglishkitchen.blogspot.com/2010/08/ traditional-victorian-sandwich-cake.html

“High Tea” became popular during the Victorian era. “High tea” refers to the height of the tables, not necessarily “High Society.” Low tea would be served on what we might think of as a coffee table, here in the U. S. High tea was served on a table meant for dining. High tea served a more complete meal than did the tea we mentioned above. There would be a choice of bread, some sort of fish (usually salmon, but other fish could be served), roast pork or beef, ham, trifle, sponge cake, fruit tarts, currant teacake, macaroons, sandwich cake (see both the Swedish style with the vegetables and shrimp, as well as the one made of sponge cake and filled with jellies, fruit, etc., above). One would also expect to see a variety of jellies and cheese, as well as clotted cream and butter.

Silver Mote Spoon/Skimmer ~ London 1720 ~ http://www.silvercollection.it/dictionarymotespoon.html

Kathryn Kane on the Regency Redingote says that tea leaves used during the Regency was a coarser mix/chop than we see today. This meant the tea was steeped for a longer period of time, but the larger leaves were easier to strain from the teapot, or Heaven Forbid!, the cup. Kathryn tells us, “Mote skimmers, also called mote spoons, were considered an essential part of any upscale English tea service for well over a century before the Regency began. Yet today, very few people are even aware of the existence of mote skimmers, let alone what they looked like or how they were intended to be used when tea was being served. Though there were some who considered a mote skimmer old fashioned by the time the Regency began, these handy little implements were still a part of a great many family tea services.

“The origin, history and use of the mote skimmer …

“Whether their teapots were made of silver or porcelain, most upper-class households had a set of silver implements which were considered part of their tea service and were brought out when tea was served. At the turn of the nineteenth century, these sets of silver implements typically included a dozen or more silver teaspoons, so that each guest would receive a silver spoon in the saucer when their tea was served to them. However, there were other implements in these silver sets which were meant for use only by the hostess as she brewed and served the tea to her guests. These silver hostess utensils typically included a tea scoop, a set of sugar tongs and a mote skimmer.”

Posted in food, food and drink, Regency era, tradtions, Victorian era | Tagged food, food and drinks, high tea, meals, Regency Era, tea, Victorian era | Comments Off

A Closer Look at “Christmas at Pemberley”

Posted on December 1, 2017 by Regina Jeffers

This is one of those books that floats around in the author’s head for some time before it becomes a reality. Although we have a bit about the letters Princess Charlotte wrote to her supposed lover, it deviates from many of story lines for there is no great angst or mystery. It is simply a story of life and death and new beginnings…the story of a Christmas miracle. This book is essentially Georgiana’s story, but Kitty Bennet plays a major role, as does Elizabeth and Darcy.

At the beginning of the book, Darcy has taken Elizabeth with him on a business journey. She is pregnant, and he wants to keep her close, for they have experienced several miscarriages, and Elizabeth is despondent. I have her refusing to permit anyone to even speak of the baby until she is far enough along that even if the child came early, its chances of survival were improved. I based this on personal experience. Before I had my son at age 38, I had experienced a miscarriage and an ectopic pregnancy. I never thought to have my own child. During that pregnancy, I refused baby showers and the like, until I was six months along. With modern medicine, I thought if he made it to six months, he would survive. He made it to seven and a half. Now, he is 33 with 3 children under the age of six.

But I have digressed. Elizabeth in the book wonders why God has not permitted her the joy that her sisters have known. On this journey from Northumberland to Derbyshire, there is a massive snow storm, and the Darcys must take shelter at an inn. Okay. This is the hokey part: It is Christmas, and there is no shelter for the Josephs family at the inn. You got it. Mrs. Joseph is ready to deliver. Elizabeth insists that she and Darcy aid the family.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (oops! I mean Pemberley), Georgiana has her own hands full. First, the Bennets arrive: Mr. and Mrs. B., Kitty, Mary, and Mary’s intended (who was not expected). Mrs. Bennet took it on herself to invite the young man. Thinking it would be good for Elizabeth’s disposition, Darcy had invited the Bennets to Pemberley. We also find the Bingleys in attendance. They have arrived with their children and Jane expecting another. However, Miss Bingley was not invited, but like Mary’s betrothed, the lady tags along with her brother. These few are the only invited guests to what becomes a large holiday party.

Lady Catherine has been with her brother, Lord Matlock, but as the Matlocks are to visit with their eldest and his family for Christmastide (to view their new grandchild), her ladyship is without quarters. Although she and Darcy have never made up since Lady Catherine’s scathing letter regarding Darcy’s marrying Elizabeth, Lady Catherine shows up on Pemberley’s doorstep, with her daughter Anne in tow, and demands rooms. Georgiana, who is still a bit intimidated by her ladyship, naturally, does not turn her aunt and cousin away. Oh, by the way, Lady Catherine was to meet with the Collinses before returning to Kent, and she invites Mr. and Mrs. Collins to join her at Pemberley.

Kitty’s love interest, the clergyman, Mr. Winkler, holds the living at Pemberley, and he comes and goes with some regularity in the story line. He involves Kitty in administering to the poor in the neighborhood, a perfect role for the wife of a clergyman.

Then Colonel Fitzwilliam calls upon the household. He has been in America (during the War of 1812). With him is his aide, Lieutenant Roman Southland, and a gentleman from America, Mr. Beauford Manneville, who is not all he pretends to be. The storm has stifled their travel, and the colonel brings his companions to Pemberley, expecting Darcy will welcome them. Georgiana is most happy to have her cousin, the colonel, return, for she carries tender feelings for the man, who has not yet realized that she has turned into a young woman in his absence.

This is absolutely a love story. Obviously, Darcy and Elizabeth are in love, but they are married. What of the others? Georgiana convinces the colonel finally to see her as she has always seen him. The lieutenant, who happens to be the cousin of the cleric who held the living at Rosings Park before Collins—a man that Lady Catherine adored, takes a liking to Anne, while the American has a eye on Miss Bingley. There are lots of high jinxes and tender moments. You will laugh, and you are likely to cry at some of the scenes, for once Darcy and Elizabeth make it home, their world will never be the same. [I should say that this book won several Inspirational Romance awards, for there are more than one bit of an actual sermon and lots of questioning of God’s intent within one’s life in the story line.]

Christmas at Pemberley: A Pride and Prejudice Holiday Sequel

(Inspirational Romance; Fiction/Historical Fiction; Classics)

To bring a renewed sense joy to his wife’s countenance, Fitzwilliam Darcy secretly invites the Bennets and the Bingleys to spend the Christmastide festive days at Pemberley. But as he and Elizabeth journey to their estate to join the gathered families, a snowstorm blankets the English countryside. The Darcys find themselves stranded at a small out-of-the-way inn with another couple preparing for the immediate delivery of their first child, while Pemberley is inundated with friends and relations seeking shelter from the storm.

Without her brother’s strong presence, Georgiana Darcy desperately attempts to manage the chaos surrounding the arrival of six invited guests and eleven unscheduled visitors. But bitter feuds, old jealousies, and intimate secrets quickly rise to the surface. Has Lady Catherine returned to Pemberley for forgiveness or revenge? Will the manipulative Caroline Bingley find a soul mate? Shall Kitty Bennet and Georgiana Darcy know happiness?

Written in Regency style and including Austen’s romantic entanglements and sardonic humor, Christmas at Pemberley places Jane Austen’s most beloved characters in an exciting yuletide story that speaks to the love, the family spirit, and the generosity that remain as the heart of Christmas.

Excerpt #1 from Chapter 2: At the inn, Elizabeth is rereading a letter from Darcy.

My dearest, loveliest Elizabeth,

As I sit at this desk in awe of the most splendid of gifts that you have offered me this night, my heart overflows with love. The loneliness has dissipated, and I do not speak of the physical closeness we shared last evening—as exquisite as it was—I speak of the happiness that you have brought to my life and to Pemberley. From the beginning, you destroyed my hard-earned peace, and many times I found myself spiraling out of control, but I would, willingly, suffer the pain again to know you for but one day—one hour, even. You are everything—firmly planted are my hopes—you are the coming chapters of my life’s book.

A TEAR SLID DOWN hER CHEEK, but Elizabeth didn’t whisk it away. he had rattled her senses that night. Rattled. Shaken. Turned her world upside down in the most tantalizing ways. Her heart had pounded so intensely when she’d looked upon her husband for the first time: It had mimicked the cadence of his as Darcy drew her into his embrace. Unbelievable desire had coursed through her— ricocheted through her body and devoured her soul. Luckily, she’d spoken quite frankly with her Aunt Gardiner prior to the wedding night. If not, his power over her might have frightened Elizabeth. Instead, she’d viewed it as a challenge, and although she’d allowed Darcy to lead, she’d learned to exercise her own power. Elizabeth loved it when he surrendered to her—when he couldn’t deny her.

A smile turned up her mouth’s corners. They were good together—the absolute best. Her hand instinctively rested on her abdomen. “Please, God,” she whispered. “this time…please.” She wanted so desperately to prove to Darcy and to the world that she was worthy of being the Mistress of Pemberley—worthy of his love.

___________________________________________

Excerpt #2 from Chapter 4, Colonel Fitzwilliam arrives at Pemberley, but when word comes to the drawing room, everyone thinks it is Darcy and Elizabeth. [Note: In my books, the colonel is “Edward,” my father’s name. Austen never presented the character with a Christian name in the original Pride and Prejudice.]

Georgiana and Kitty raced along the passage and down the main staircase.“We’ll tell Elizabeth that your parents allowed you to return to Pemberley because you were lonely now that Miss Bennet is engaged.”

“Elizabeth will never believe I miss Mary’s company,” Kitty objected.

Georgiana tutted her disagreement. “We just need for our sister to believe us long enough for her to reach the drawing room to greet your family.”

They waited impatiently for the Darcys’ arrival, each girl fidgeting with her dress. Then Mr. Nathan opened the door, and instead of Mr. and Mrs. Darcy, three winter-cloaked gentlemen strode through the opening. Both girls stood in awe of the men—all fine specimens of maleness. “Oh, my,” Kitty swallowed her words. She clawed at Georgiana’s arm.

But Georgiana stood frozen in place. The man in front held her mesmerized. A year—more than a year had passed since she had last seen him, but he remained as before. Solid. Raven haired. Smoky blue eyes. Eyes that appeared to look through her. See me. Georgiana willed herself not to say the words. Not quite as tall as her brother, she still barely reached his shoulders. “Edward!” she called and launched herself into his waiting arms. In his embrace, Georgiana inhaled the scent of him deeply. He smelled of cold and leather and sweat and the spicy cologne he always had worn. “Thank God, you’ve returned to us.”

Her cousin picked her up, clutching Georgiana to his chest, and swung her around in a circle. “My, Goodness!” he laughed easily. “What happened to my little Georgie?”

“You’ve been away for a year, Edward,” she protested.

“So, I have.” He laughed again as he set her on her feet. “Where’s that rascally brother of yours?” he glanced toward the main stairs.

“Fitzwilliam and Mrs. Darcy are on their way from Northumberland,” she explained.

Edward frowned. “Well, Fitz will be delayed. We barely made it from Liverpool on horseback. Darcy won’t chance it in a carriage.” The colonel gestured to the men waiting behind him. “Do you have rooms available, Cousin? I don’t wish to attempt riding to Matlock.”

“Of course.” Georgiana nodded to Mr. Nathan, and the man ducked into a servant’s passageway to do her bidding.

Edward spotted Kitty waiting patiently. “And is this who I believe it to be?” he asked teasingly.

“You remember Mrs. Darcy’s sister Catherine from the wedding, do you not, Edward?”

The colonel bowed to Kitty. “Absolutely. I am pleased to find you at Pemberley, Miss Catherine.”

Kitty curtsied to the group. “I’m certain Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth shall be thrilled for your return, Colonel.”

Edward placed Georgiana’s hand on his arm. “Allow we to introduce my traveling companions, my dear. Miss Darcy. Miss Catherine. May I present Lieutenant Roman Southland? the lieutenant is my assistant.”

The officer bowed formally. “MissDarcy, the colonel has spoken often of his cousin, but his words didn’t do you justice.” He kissed Georgiana’s outstretched hand. “Thank you for accepting our intrusion upon your hospitality.”

“Pemberley would never turn away the colonel’s associates,” Georgiana responded. “Edward is family.” She wanted to ask what her cousin had said of her and how often the colonel spoke of her, but instead, Georgiana smiled welcomingly at the man.

“And this gentleman,” the colonel indicated the man not wearing a uniform.“This is Mr. Beauford Manneville. Mr. Manneville is from South Carolina in the Americas, but he’s come to our ‘enemy’ shores to do business with our government and to renew his acquaintance with his distant cousin Lord Shelton.”

“Welcome to England, Mr. Manneville.” Georgiana curtsied and again extended her hand. “I’m sorry that your first experience on British shores brings you icy roads.”

The colonel laughed softly. “You don’t understand, Georgie. In South Carolina, snow rarely falls. Cold weather doesn’t tarry either. Is that not correct, Manneville?”

The man openly shivered. “I’ve never been so cold, Colonel, and you may leave your levity out of it, sir.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam bowed stiffy. “As you wish, Manneville.” He turned to Georgiana with a touch of lightheartedness. “And from what entertainment did we pull you ladies?”

Georgiana suddenly remembered the others waiting in the drawing room for her return. “Oh, Edward,” she gushed. “I am doubly happy to see you, especially in Fitzwilliam’s absence. We’ve a houseful of guests, including Lady Catherine and Anne.”

“Darcy invited our aunt for Christmas?” he asked incredulously.

“No. Her ladyship invited herself, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Collins. Lady Catherine visited the earl, but his lordship and the countess have traveled east to welcome the arrival of Viscount Lindale’s first child.”

Edward beamed with the news. “Did you hear, Southland? I’m to be an uncle. My brother Rowland’s wife is in her confinement.” The lieutenant removed his gloves and laid them nearby. “Then it is fortuitous that we didn’t seek Matlock. It appears your family is scattered between here and Lincolnshire, sir.”

“they are. That they are.” He smiled genuinely at Georgiana. “Come, Gentlemen. I’ll introduce you to Lady Catherine De Bourgh, my family’s paragon of virtue,” he said teasingly.

Georgiana fell into step beside him as they climbed the stairs. “In addition to her ladyship and Anne, the Bingleys and the Bennets are in residence,” she said softly.

“My, you do have a houseful. I thought you exaggerated, Cousin. How many await me in the drawing room?” He directed Georgiana toward the open door. Kitty and the lieutenant followed, and Mr. Manneville brought up the rear. “Counting you three, we number nineteen,” she responded.“Fitzwilliam invited the Bennets and Mr. and Mrs. Bingley as a surprise for Mrs. Darcy, but the others have sought shelter at Pemberley.” Georgiana leaned against him. “Handling so many distinct personalities has been challenging.”

His finger stroked her arm. “You’ve performed well, Georgie. I’m proud of you.”

They had reached the open door. Taking a deep breath, Georgiana glided into the room. “Look who’s joined us,” she announced.

For the length of two heartbeats, no one moved, and then Anne, Lady Catherine, and Mr. Bingley rushed forward to greet the colonel. Anne, who was the closest to the door, reached him first. “Edward,” she gasped.“You’ve returned to us. Bless the heavens!”

The colonel embraced her warmly. “I’m well, Anne.” He kissed her cheek.“You look lovely.”

“My health has improved,” she said shyly.

“That pleases me more than you know.” Edward then turned to his aunt. He took Lady Catherine’s outstretched hand and bowed over it. “Your ladyship.” he offered the obligatory air kiss. “You, too, look well.”

“I am as I always am, Edward.” She accepted his whispery kiss on her cheek.“You are a fortnight early, sir. The earl departed for Lindale’s estate less than a day prior.”

“So Georgiana has informed me.” He glanced about the room taking in familiar and unfamiliar faces.“I pray Lady Lindale has a safe delivery.”

Lady Catherine stepped to the side.“We are anticipating Darcys’ arrival,” she clarified.

the colonel nodded his understanding. “As I have explained to Georgiana, I would not expect Darcy for, at least, another day. We traveled by horseback from Liverpool. The roads remain treacherous. We walked the horses the last seven miles or so.”

“That’s disappointing,” Mr. Bingley observed,“but safety is paramount to speed in such cases.”

The colonel blew out a long breath.“It was a difficult journey.” He shook Bingley’s hand. “If you will allow the impropriety,” he said to the group,“my associates and I will freshen our clothes and then rejoin you. With such a large party, introductions will take some time.”

“Of course, Colonel,” Lady Catherine declared before Georgiana could open her mouth.“I assume my niece can have meals sent in.”

Edward interrupted. “Georgiana is a gracious hostess, Aunt. My cousin will see to our needs without error. She’s Lady Anne’s daughter and understands her duties.”

“Come, Gentlemen.” Georgiana gestured toward the hall. “Mr. Nathan has indicated that your rooms are ready. I’ll show you the way.”

The three travelers bowed solemnly to the room and followed her. Georgiana caught Edward’s hand. “Thank you for deflecting her ladyship’s implied censure.”

“You don’t need rescuing, Georgie,” he whispered. “But I’ll act your gallant if you prefer.”

“You are my gallant, Edward,” she said softly. “You always have been.”

Excerpt #3 comes from Chapter 16: Lady Catherine discovers her daughter Anne kissing Lieutenant Southland.

Without preamble, Lady Catherine stormed into the room as the couple jumped apart. Never in all her years had she expected to find her daughter in an intimate embrace with a gentleman. Catherine didn’t know whether to celebrate or stand in horror. As was typical, she chose something less sedate than a celebratory moment, centering her disdain on the man who had just compromised Anne. “Lieutenant.” she snarled. “have you no principles? You’ll unhand my daughter immediately.” Anne took a half step toward her in the lieutenant’s defense, but Lady Catherine’s cold glare warned her daughter to not interfere.“I ask again, Lieutenant. Have you no defense for your actions?”

* * *

“Perhaps, Lady Catherine, we could all have a seat and discuss this calmly,” Elizabeth said with authority from the open doorway. With a flick of her wrist, Pemberley’s mistress sent the two maids and a footman on their separate ways and closed the door behind her. She quickly assayed the dilemma and discovered a very flushed Anne De Bourgh standing between her mother and Edward’s aide-de-camp. Immediately, she moved to defuse the situation. “Come, let me assist you, your ladyship.” She caught Lady Catherine about the waist and directed Darcy’s aunt to a chair. “Allow me to pour you some sherry,” she said as she shot a pleading glance to the lieutenant to move.

Southland reacted immediately. he scurried to a nearby tray and poured a glass and handed it to Elizabeth.“Drink some of this,” Elizabeth encouraged.“It shall calm your nerves.”

Lady Catherine intoned aristocratically, “I’m not the type to succumb to nerves, Mrs. Darcy.”

“No one believes you are, your ladyship,” Elizabeth said softly, “but it’ll give us a moment to compose our thoughts. Please do it for me.” Elizabeth knelt obediently beside Lady Catherine’s chair.

Giving the lieutenant a deathly glare, Lady Catherine reluctantly took a small sip of the potent drink.

“Thank you, your ladyship.” Elizabeth caught the woman’s hand and gave it a weak squeeze. Lady Catherine’s gaze fell on her, and for a brief moment, Elizabeth saw vulnerability.

Yet, a soft knock on the door drew their attention, and Darcy slipped into the room. Elizabeth observed the recognition in his eyes. “Mr. Nathan seemed to think her ladyship had suffered some sort of shock,” he said cautiously.

Darcy’s eyes rested on her face. He spoke of his aunt’s health, but she knew he would take his cues from Elizabeth. “A bit of an exaggeration, I fear,” Elizabeth automatically rose and took a step toward him. It was a response of which she become conscious upon Darcy’s return to Longbourn—when he brought Bingley to Jane in order to right a wrong, Elizabeth found herself physically drawn to him. No matter when she saw him, the moment Darcy stepped into a room, she moved closer. “Her ladyship simply requires a moment. Perhaps you might escort your cousin and the lieutenant into the room next door while I see to your aunt.”

Thankfully, Darcy didn’t protest. Over the last three years, they’d learned to trust each other exclusively. With a nod of understanding, he asked, “Anne, would you and Lieutenant Southland join me in the yellow sitting room?” He moved to lead the way.

Anne turned to her mother. “I’m sorry, your ladyship,” she whispered through silent sobs. “You must try to understand.” After a brief bow to both Elizabeth and Lady Catherine, Southland caught Anne’s elbow and escorted her from the room.

Elizabeth waited for their departure before turning to Darcy’s aunt.With a deep sigh, she pivoted, expecting to find an irate aristocrat whom she would have to appease, but was greeted by the distraught tear-stained face of Lady Catherine, and instantly, Elizabeth felt compassion for what she suspected to be a very lonely woman. “Your ladyship,” she empathized and pulled a footstool over to sit at Lady Catherine’s feet.

“Might I?” Lady Catherine held the glass for Elizabeth’s view. She took it immediately. “Of course.” Walking to the serving tray, Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder at the sunken figure resting back into the chair’s cushions. What happened to the imperious Lady Catherine? Where did all her fight go? Returning to the footstool, she sat and then eased the drink into the woman’s gnarled grasp. They sat in silence for a few minutes before Elizabeth asked, “Would you like to speak of it, your ladyship? I realize I’m probably the last person with whom you would consult, but I’m at your disposal. You’re my husband’s aunt, and I desire only the best for you.”

Lady Catherine’s gaze returned to Elizabeth’s face. “Why would you treat me with respect? With compassion?” she murmured. “I’ve never treated you kindly.”

Elizabeth frowned. “We’ve known our contentious moments, but I understand your intensity. You wished the best for your child, and Mr. Darcy is truly the best of men. If I were to have my own child, I’d fight with a similar ferocity to secure his future.”

Admiration played across the lady’s face.“I expect you would, Mrs. Darcy. You give as good as you receive. I doubt if Mr. Darcy had any idea of your tongue’s viciousness.” Lady Catherine half smiled.

“I beg to differ, your ladyship. Your nephew was on the receiving end of more than one of my barbs. I like to think my sauciness was part of my charm,” Elizabeth impishly said.

The line of Lady Catherine’s mouth tightened to hide her smile. “A certain sauciness on my sister’s part attracted his father, and I am positive that Sir Lewis found it appealing.”

“I suspect you’re correct,” Elizabeth said judiciously. “Therefore, although your words stung, after careful analysis, I accepted your intent. I can place those sentiments behind us if you agree.”

Lady Catherine’s eyebrow rose in question.“I suppose we might make the effort for Darcy’s sake.”

“Then for Mr. Darcy’s familial benefit we’ll persevere,” Elizabeth said contritely. “Now, with that settled, may we address your concerns for Miss De Bourgh?”

“What is there to address? Anne must marry Edward’s aide. She’s been compromised.”

Original cover for Christmas at Pemberley ~ I rejected this one because it looked too Victorian.

Posted in American History, Austen Authors, book excerpts, British history, eBooks, family, Georgian Era, historical fiction, holidays, Jane Austen, Living in the Regency, Pride and Prejudice, publishing, Regency era, Regency romance, romance, Ulysses Press | Tagged American history, Austen Authors, book excerpts, British history, Christmastide, family, historical fiction, holidays, inspirational romance, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Regency Era, Regency romance, Ulysses Press | Comments Off

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