CATHERINE LODGE, THE PERILS OF PERFIDIOUS PLAGIARISTS

In August 2015, I was preparing to enjoy my birthday party at a sister's house, my family was around me, a small nephew was instructing me on the correct way to build with lego,  and the cake was flowing. I made the mistake of looking at my email.

"Hi," said and eagle-eyed reader who'd seen my novels on the Meryton.com site. "I didn't know you'd published your stories."

Celebration ground to a halt, I rampaged around Amazon - horrified to see that someone had smooshed my two stories together, under a hideous cover, with an ungrammatical title and using the pen name I'd used on-line.  Horribly, this meant it was someone who'd read my stories in a closed group I'd thought was a safe space, perhaps even someone I'd interacted with socially. 

It took me two days to get Amazon to admit that the stories were mine and take them down, followed by Nook and Barnes and Noble.  "Phew," thought painfully naive me. "Thank heavens that's over."  Of course, I never saw a penny/cent/pesos of what the plagiarist had made but I consoled myself that they probably didn't either and that it had all disappeared into Amazon's coffers.

THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF YOUNG LADIES IN JANE AUSTEN'S NOVELS + GIVEAWAY

(from guest blogger Eliza Shearer)

Several words pop up all the time in Jane Austen’s novels: ‘fine,' ‘nice,' ‘civil,' ‘pleasant’ and ‘elegant’ immediately come to mind. But my personal favourite is ‘accomplished,' a word that comes up over and over again, particularly when referring to young ladies.

While in the XVIII century the education of young women of genteel families left a lot to be desired, in the Regency there was a renewed interest in cultivating the mind and spirit of girls. For girls, being accomplished became a positive trait, and one that could lead to a good marriage. Jane Austen herself benefited from an open-minded approach to female education, and her father’s extensive and fascinating library was as open as Mr Bennet’s.

THESE DREAMS BLOG TOUR - VIGNETTE BY NICOLE CLARKSTON: LYDIA & GEORGIANA, GIRL TALK + GIVEAWAY

The events in this vignette fall just before Chapter 28 in These Dreams. Lydia and Georgiana are becoming close, as each girl tries to find ways to cheer the other. They have found a common bond in the disappointments of their young lives, but Elizabeth, the thread which first brought them together, is still emotionally distant.

There are quite a few sibling and sibling-like relationships running through this book. I enjoyed the relationship between Lydia and Georgiana for several reasons. The first was that Lydia is such a marvelous plot device! She will say things that no one else will say, and she brings an earthy freshness to the other characters just by her tart observations. She has absolutely no class-- not until the influences of Georgiana and Elizabeth begin to permeate her shaken senses-- and no fear, save for her own future.

Another thing I love about these two is that they are such opposites. They grow from each others’ example, and it is entertaining to watch how easily they come to terms with the elephant in the room: George Wickham. He played dirty by both of them, and they form a decided sisterly bond over the matter. As their friendship strengthens, they almost embark upon the girlhood that both had been denied; playing instruments, learning new crafts, planning picnics and comforting one another.

Elizabeth, through no fault or intent of anyone’s, becomes something of the outsider. Unlike the younger girls, her grief knows no balm, and she is tormented by night and day with her dreams and visions of the man she believes lost to her. Additionally, she is weighed down with the duties and responsibilities that the other two are yet unprepared to shoulder. In this short vignette, Georgiana and Lydia do a little speculating about the cause of Elizabeth’s low spirits.

~NC

I COULD WRITE A BOOK BLOG TOUR - KAREN M. COX, LOOKING FOR A NEW LOVE

Looking For a New Love: Why We Should Let Lizzy have Mr. Darcy, and Set Our Caps for George Knightley (a tongue-in-cheek male review)

All of Austen’s heroes have their excellent qualities. Henry Tilney is charming. Captain Wentworth is romantic. Edward Ferrars is loyal (sometimes to his detriment). Edmund Bertram is kind.

But one Austen gentleman is more famous than all the others combined (thank you, Colin Firth!) Mr. Darcy is the ultimate catch, right? Brooding, rich, tall, and with that noble demeanor, he has turned readers’ heads for 200 years. He fell for Elizabeth Bennet when she never suspected that his feelings ran so deep. He saved her family from certain disgrace. He changes his prideful ways for the woman he loves.

He’s everyone’s favorite book boyfriend.

But hold on a minute…

Have you met George Knightley?

PARTICULAR ATTACHMENTS BLOG TOUR - L.L. DIAMOND INTRODUCES HER HERO, LORD NATHANIEL SELE

Particular Attachments

She swore would never marry!

Georgiana Darcy is a lady with a secret! The last thing she wants is to return to London, but what else can she do when her brother and his wife make plans to spend the Christmas season in town. When Lizzy’s youngest sister, Lydia, joins them, Georgiana gains a confidante, but will Lydia’s outgoing nature cause problems when Lord Sele, son of a family friend reappears in Georgiana’s life?

As an insufferable boy, Lord Sele vowed he would marry Georgiana, but was his return from Ireland a coincidence or was his sole purpose to pursue her? He admits to desiring friendship, but Lydia is determined his desire is Georgiana and she will stop at nothing to see her best friend happily settled.

What is Georgiana to do when faced with the society she has managed to avoid for her entire adult life as well as the one man determined to change her mind about marriage? Will she be able to overcome her fears despite the spectre from the past that seems to be haunting her? Will she be forced to tell her secret and choose happiness or will someone from her past ruin everything?

Eleanor Tomlinson as Georgiana Darcy

Thank you so much for having me,  Maria Grazia!

One of my favourite scenes in Particular Attachments is the first time Georgiana sees Nathaniel (Lord Sele) after so many years. It’s not a major interaction between the two, but in some ways it shows so much in his reaction to her as well as her reaction to him. Since Particular Attachments is from Georgiana’s point of view, I thought I’d write an outtake from Nathaniel’s perspective. I hope you enjoy it J

 L.L.Diamond

~ * ~

JANE AUSTEN AND THE MEN WHO LOVED HER

(by Alice Chandler)

Why do so few men read Jane Austen? That question has been getting a lot of attention recently. In an article reprinted in the blog Jane Austen’s World, William Deresiewicz writes about “the strangeness, the effrontery, of a heterosexual man who reads Jane Austen.” Another article by Margaret Barthels, talks movingly about her father, who was a lifelong Austen reader, even in a world of “female-dominated fandom.”  A 2008 survey readership found that 96% of all Austen readers were women. Even allowing for the distortions of such self-reported data, the evidence is clear. Women read Jane Austen. Men do not--or to be more accurate, most men do not. It was not always so.

FAIR STANDS THE WIND BLOG TOUR - CATHERINE LODGE, IN DEFENCE OF MRS BENNET

Author Guest Post

I admit it, I feel sorry for Mrs Bennet.  I know she would be horrendously annoying to live with, no one likes to hear the same thing over and over again, and no one likes to be told what they ought to be doing, especially if it's the one thing you don't want to do, whether it's tidying your bedroom or marrying someone you can't stand.

But the poor woman, really doesn't understand her own life.  She must know that her husband despises her and most of her children, he makes no secret of the fact and she, equally obviously, does not understand why.  As far as she is concerned, she is doing everything right, she runs a comfortable, well-fed household and she is doing her best to get her daughters advantageously married.  Indeed, she seems to be the only person who understands how desperately important it is to get them married, and what a horrendously stupid thing Elizabeth does in refusing Mr Collins.

SHARON LATHAN, THREE WAYS TO WED DURING THE REGENCY - GUEST BLOG & GIVEAWAY

My sincerest thanks to Maria Grazia for hosting me on My Jane Austen Book Club today. It is an honor to be here, and a great pleasure to share a bit of my research with your readers, as well as my latest novel. Darcy and Elizabeth: Hope of the Future is the second book in the two-volume Darcy Saga Prequel Duo, which began with Darcy and Elizabeth: A Season of Courtship. These two novels perfectly fit with my Darcy Saga Sequel to Pride and Prejudice, the series now including nine lengthy novels and one novella.

Three Ways to Wed during the Regency

Today I thought I would talk about the legitimate avenues for a legal marriage in England during the period our beloved characters lived. As a result of the Hardwicke Marriage Act of 1753, the rules and requirements were strictly detailed, in large part to prevent the rash marriages of the prior decades. 

The five major points of the 1753 Marriage Act were:

      1.  A license and/or the reading of the banns were required to legally marry.

2. Essential parental consent if either person was under the age of 21.
3. The ceremony must take place in a public chapel or church where at least one of the two resided AND by an authorized Church of England clergyman.
4. The marriage must be performed between 8am and noon, AND before designated witnesses.
5. The marriage had to be recorded in the marriage register with the signatures of both parties, the witnesses, and the minister.

DANGEROUS TO KNOW: JANE AUSTEN'S RAKES AND GENTLEMEN ROGUES. CHRISTINA BOYD PRESENTS HER NEW PROJECT.

Oops, I’m at it again.

I’m Christina Boyd, the editor of The Darcy Monologues, and I am thrilled to finally announce that my next anthology project, Dangerous to Know: Jane Austen’s Rakes and Gentlemen Rogues, is well underway. My team and I thank you for helping us launch the news to the Jane Austen community.

Jane Austen’s masterpieces are littered with any number of unsuitable gentlemen—Willoughby, Wickham, Churchill, Crawford, Tilney, Elliot—adding color and depth to her plots but often barely sketched out to the reader. Have you never wondered about the back story of her rakes and gentlemen rogues? Surely, there's more than one side to their stories.

AUTHOR MARIA GRACE, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN JANE AUSTEN - A LESS AGREEABLE MAN BLOG TOUR

Jane Austen portrays a wonderful vision of heroines like Elizabeth Bennet who are hardly doormats to their men. It is important to realize though, that our modern views of marriage did not apply to Jane Austen’s day, and expectations (and realities) of marriage were very different for women then. These differences applied to many areas of life. One of particular notes was the tolerance for domestic violence.

Warm and affectionate marriages were desirable, but practical considerations were probably the backbone of most matches. Loving relationships were more likely to form after marriage than before, if they formed at all. Whatever amiable feelings might develop did so in the context of a clear hierarchy. In regency society, no one doubted that the husband was the head of the relationship, in charge of essentially everything.

There cannot, indeed, be a sight more uncouth, than that of a man and his wife struggling for power: for where it ought to be vested, nature, reason, and Scripture, concur to declare;

… How preposterous is it to hear a woman say, ' It shall be done!' —' I will have it so!' and often extending her authority not only beyond her jurisdiction, but in matters where he alone is competent to act, or even to judge. (Taylor, 1822)