BOOK REVIEW: DIANA BIRCHALL, THE BRIDE OF NORTHANGER

As she revealed in the interview I posted opening the blog tour, the Doyenne of Austenesque fiction, Diana Birchall,  started writing The Bride of Northanger  soon after the last JASNA conference whose theme was Northanger Abbey, in Portland in 2010. 

She had always found Northanger Abbey very charming and youthful and was particularly curious about the central relationship.  

I've personally always found Northanger Abbey very entertaining and,  in the same time,  an interesting experiment in the literary world of Jane Austen's time: it blends the conventions of two differnt types of novels,  the Gothic Novel and the Novel of Manners. 

So, I was really glad  when I heard there was a sequel to Northanger Abbey by Diana Birchall coming out and gladly accepted the invitation to take part in the blog tour to promote it.  We have a lot of Pride and Prejudice material to enjoy,  but rarely get to read fan fiction dealing with the other novels. This is why I also accepted to read and review The Bride of Northanger. 

JANE AUSTEN FOR CHILDREN. ALICE CHANDLER, AUNT JANE AND THE MISSING CHERRY PIE

Jane Austen has been part of my life ever since I read Pride and Prejudice as a book-loving child. The book-loving child grew up to be an English professor, and I’ve taught Jane Austen, written about Jane Austen, and lectured abroad about Jane Austen. Currently, I am giving a Jane Austen course at our local senior citizens’ center.

But what to do about my granddaughter Dana? How could I introduce her to the author I loved and give her at least a sense of what Jane Austen was like? I thought Dana would like a story about Jane Austen, if only I could find the right format for it.

My first decision was borrowed straight from Stephanie Barron, whose Jane Austen mysteries I so much enjoyed. Mine would be a mystery story, too—only at a child’s level rather than an adult’s. That was how the mystery of “Aunt Jane and the Missing CherryPie” originated.

My next decision was deciding who should be the narrator. Jane Austen lived surrounded by visiting nieces and nephews—some, very sadly, because they needed childcare after their mothers had died in childbirth. (Four of Jane Austen’s sisters-in-law died in this way—two after the birth of their eleventh child.) We know from Jane Austen’s nephew that she told “the most delightful stories, chiefly of fairyland, and her fairies had all characters of their own.” We also know that she wrote what she called Miscellaneous Morsels for her brother James’s daughter. So, Jane-Anna-Elizabeth Austen (always called Anna) became the narrator of my story.

SHANNON WINSLOW PRESENTS LEAP OF HOPE FROM HER NEW CROSSROADS COLLECTION

Leap of Hope: Write What You Love

Who hasn’t wondered at least once how life would have changed by making an alternate choice at some crucial moment in the past? Where would you be today if you’d turned right instead of left at an important crossroads or been able to sidestep a particular misfortune? Or perhaps you’ve daydreamed about a different life altogether, in a different place and time.

That’s what the stories of my new Crossroads Collection are all about: turning points, possibilities, and second chances. Each book features a new hero/heroine who’s given the extraordinary gift of a second chance at life, the chance to answer for themselves the intriguing question “what if?” The first two books feature Ben Lewis (a struggling minor-league baseball player) and Hope O’Neil (an Austen-obsessed college student). Their contrasting personalities and choices take them on radically different adventures. 

Maria Grazia has graciously offered to host both these new novels on blog tour today – Leap of Hope here, and Leap of Faith over at FLY HIGH!

SPOTLIGHT ON ... FINDING THE RAINBOW BY TRACI BORUM

Life seems nothing more than a quick succession of busy nothings.  ~Jane Austen 

   

This is precisely how Holly Newbury would sum up her life. At twenty-eight, she lives in a charming Cotswold village, serving as caretaker to three younger sisters—a rewarding job, but a tedious one. 

Soon, news of a Jane Austen movie filming nearby creates a snap of change in the air.  The villagers become involved as movie extras, and Holly starts up an Emma book club in honor of the film.  At the same time, Holly's own family drama plays out—her sisters experience heartaches and growing pains, while her widowed father finds new love in an unexpected place. 

Most importantly, the film brings with it an American screenwriter named Fletcher Hays, who ends up becoming Holly's very own Mr. Knightley.  But will she realize it too late?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Traci Borum is a writing teacher and native Texan. She's also an avid reader of women's fiction, most especially Elin Hilderbrand and Rosamunde Pilcher novels. Since the age of 12, she's written poetry, short stories, magazine articles, and novels.

Traci also adores all things British. She even owns a British dog (Corgi) and is completely addicted to Masterpiece Theater---must be all those dreamy accents! Aside from having big dreams of getting a book published, it's the little things that make her the happiest: deep talks with friends, a strong cup of hot chocolate, a hearty game of fetch with her Corgi, and puffy white Texas clouds always reminding her to "look up, slow down, enjoy your life." 

Website - Facebook page - Twitter - Goodreads page - Amazon link 

READ AN EXCERPT 

SO FAR AWAY BY P.O. DIXON - READ AN EXCERPT AND WIN A COPY!

From the Author

I am happy for the chance to visit My Jane Austen Book Club once again to share an excerpt from my newest release, So Far Away. Thank you so much, Maria Grazia!

In Lady Elizabeth: Everything Will Change Book One, Darcy made an astonishing discovery that set him on a course destined to change Elizabeth’s life forever. So Far Away: Everything Will Change Book Two centers upon the aftermath of Darcy’s discovery.

The Book

So Far Away: Everything Will Change Book Two

Now that Elizabeth knows the truth about her past, she has returned to Longbourn. Wanting to reclaim her rightful place in the lives of her Bennet relations, she needs time before considering a life far away in Derbyshire with Mr. Darcy.

He promised he would wait for her for as long as it takes. With so much distance between the two of them the question soon became how long is too long.

"PRIDE, PREJUDICE AND SECRETS" BLOG TOUR - GUEST POST BY AUTHOR C.P. ODOM

I want to thank Maria Grazia for hosting me on her blog for my new book, “Pride, Prejudice, and Secrets,” as she did last year for “Consequences.”  To begin with, this novel is a variation on “Pride and Prejudice,” as were my previous two efforts, in that I try to portray what might have happened if a particular decision or even happened differently.  After that point, I try to keep the characters as true to those Austen portrayed as possible.  For example, I would have difficulty writing a variation in which Elizabeth Bennet married George Wickham; it just wouldn’t work for me, for my inner characterization of her would make such an event impossible.  If she would refuse both Mr. Collins and Darcy, then I can conceive of no way she would ever marry Wickham.  I know other authors have taken that path, and, if they made it work, they’re better writers than I am.

LIZZY & JANE, A NOVEL – INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR KATHERINE REAY

Sometimes the courage to face your greatest fears comes only when you've run out of ways to escape.

Hello Katherine and welcome back to My Jane Austen Book Club. Your Lizzy & Jane is a revisitation of two Austen heroines  in a present-day urban context. Can you tell us more about the Bennet sisters protagonists of your new novel?

Lizzy and Jane Hughes are a bit more antagonistic than the Bennet sisters. You always get the feeling in P&P that Lizzy and Jane Bennet have “each others backs” and always put the other first. These two have lost some of that, if they ever had it, and need to learn to see and love each other again. So the Lizzy & Jane reference is more how their mother saw them or the dream of what they can become rather than a reflection of who they are.

How much of their original personalities can we still recognize?

Ah… Probably not much at the beginning. Lizzy Hughes may have Lizzy Bennet’s “fine eyes” and sharp wit, but I’d hate to go up against Austen in those categories. At the end, you’ll see more. My sisters begin to understand each other and develop a more playful, loving relationship.

Why did you decide to have Lizzy be a talented chef?

 Food is so relational. I think food first entered the story as a reflection of my family life – and Lizzy working as a chef became an extension of that. We cook every Sunday – almost every day of the week, really. The kitchen is where my family connects, cooks, eats and shares best. It started when we lived in Ireland. We and another family got together every Sunday and cooked multi-course meals that took the whole day, post church, to prepare and enjoy. When we moved back to the States, we continued that tradition ourselves.

SYRIE JAMES: EIGHT REASONS WHY I LOVE NOVELS SET IN THE GEORGIAN AND REGENCY ERAS - JANE AUSTEN'S FIRST LOVE HOLIDAY BLOG TOUR & FABULOUS GIVEAWAY

I have a soft spot in my heart for historical fiction novels set in England during the Georgian and Regency eras. Why? There are so many reasons, but I’ll condense them down to eight:

1. I love stepping back in time.

Reading a novel set in the past is like discovering your own personal time machine. I love being immersed in all the sights, sounds, and smells of a time gone by, and experiencing, through the characters’ eyes, thoughts, and feelings, what it was like to live in another era. The Georgian and Regency eras are particularly appealing to me because it’s the time in which Jane Austen lived and wrote. Jane grew up during the Georgian era, which began in 1714 and spanned the reigns of the first four Hanoverian kings of Great Britain who were all named George. The Regency (which we more readily associate with Austen) was a brief sub-period of the Georgian era between 1811 and 1820, when King George III was deemed unfit to rule and his son, the Prince of Wales, ruled as his proxy as Prince Regent. 

It’s such fun to read about the way people lived then, and to spend time with them in their country houses, where even the poorest of the gentry class had servants to wait on them. Nobody in Austen’s novels is ever seen doing anything we’d recognize today as work. They ride horses, drive in carriages, play cards, play music, sing, read, sew, embroider, draw, paint, hunt, take long walks in the shrubbery, and dance at balls. Of course, it took servants to make all that leisure time possible—but what fun it is to lose ourselves in what seems like a lovely, fairy tale existence.

SPOTLIGHT ON ... GOODNIGHT, MR DARCY ( A BABY LIT PARODY ) - HOW TO INTRODUCE VERY YOUNG READERS TO JANE AUSTEN'S WORLD

About the Book  

The adored children’s classic Goodnight Moon gets a classic lit makeover in this charming parody of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice novel. In the opening of Goodnight Mr. Darcy ($16.99, Jacketless Hardcover, 10 x 8-1/2 in, 32 pages, 978-1-4236-3670-0), all of Austen’s much-loved characters are at the Netherfield Ball: In the great ballroom, there was a country dance, and a well-played tune, and Elizabeth Bennett; and Mr. Darcy surprised, by a pair of fine eyes . . . And don’t forget Jane with a blush and Mr. Bingley turned to mush, and a gossiping mother and father saying hush.

Parents and toddlers alike will enjoy this new take on Austen’s timeless work à la Goodnight Moon.