COVER REVEAL & GIVEAWAY! THE PERFECT GENTLEMAN BY JULIE COOPER

Greetings to all My Jane Austen Book Club followers, and thanks to Maria Grazia for hosting my cover reveal for The Perfect Gentleman!

This cover was kismet, or at least it feels so to me. When cover discussions began, the excellent publishers at Quills and Quartos sent over some book cover sites to surf for ideas. A few evenings later, I was browsing one of those suggested sites, www.londonmontgomerycovers.com, when I found one I loved. It showed the hero (albeit of the wrong historic period) pictured with just enough specifics to pique the imagination. I don’t know about you, but I don’t care to have my cover heroes depicted in too much detail…they invariably have the wrong nose, eyes, or hair, are too young or too old, are Matthew Macfadyen when you prefer Colin Firth (or vice versa—I don’t judge!). And since this story starts out with a most unusual Regency Road Trip, the sample cover’s prominent speeding carriage seemed especially appropriate.

DANGEROUS TO KNOW - COVER REVEAL & GIVEAWAY

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 ever wondered about her rakes, rattles, and rogues? Surely, there's more than one side to their stories. Dangerous to Know: Jane Austen’s Rakes & Gentlemen Rogues, the book designed to expose certain histories about Jane Austen’s anti-heroes, reveals its cover today.

THE DARCY MONOLOGUES - COVER REVEAL BLITZ & GIVEAWAY

Welcome to our cover reveal blitz, dear readers! The Darcy Monologues will be out soon, on May 22nd,  but we are here to anticipate the release with an exciting event including a great giveaway contest too.

The amazing cover art is the genius of Shari Ryan of MadHat Books. She took the cover concept and created exactly as I envisioned. Shari professionally, quickly, and concisely handled my countless questions, suggestions, and “just one more tweak” in the challenging format of the print interior—even had a special script code written to make it happen. And then when the original concept had to be scrapped because of the print-on-demand company’s limitations that were beyond our control (long, convoluted story only to be shared over strong cocktails), Shari AGAIN created the present cover and interior for both print and e-book. I could not recommend her expertise more!

MR BENNET'S DUTIFUL DAUGHTER BY JOANA STARNES - COVER REVEAL & GIVEAWAY

Book Description

When Colonel Fitzwilliam’s disclosures are interrupted by the bearer of distressing news from Longbourn, Miss Elizabeth Bennet is compelled to consider an offer she would have otherwise dismissed out of hand. An offer of marriage from the all-too-proud Mr Darcy.

Yet how is she to live with a husband she hardly knows and does not love? Would she be trapped in a marriage of convenience while events conspire to divide them? Or would love grow as, day by day and hour after hour, she learns to understand the man she married, before she loses his trust and his heart?

On the cover

The portrait on Joana’s new book is titled Portrait of Miss Frances Vinicombe. 
It’s an oil on canvas that measures 92x71 cm. The portrait painting, ranked 2nd most prestigious genre by the French Académie de peinture et de sculpture, depicts the visual appearance of a human subject. While portraitists often strive for exact likeness, the viewer's recognition of the subject is of primary importance. It was common for artists to alter the image to accentuate or minimize the subject's physical, psychological or social traits. Traditionally, portrait paintings have memorialized the rich and powerful. Overtime, however, it became more common for middle-class individuals to commission portraits of their families and colleagues.  

John Opie was a British landscape and portrait artist, who painted quite a few famous people, including the author, Mary Wollstonecraft. (see image below)

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: A NOVEL OF OLD BOOKS, UNEXPECTED LOVE, AND JANE AUSTEN - COVER REVEAL

This lovely new book inspired to Jane Austen's work will be out on October 16, 2014. Looking forward to reading it! Meanwhile, let's have a look at its cute cover and at the book blurb.

Book lover and Austen enthusiast Sophie Collingwood has recently taken a job at an antiquarian bookshop in London when two different customers request a copy of the same obscure book: the second edition of Little Book of Allegories by Richard Mansfield. Their queries draw Sophie into a mystery that will cast doubt on the true authorship of Pride and Prejudice—and ultimately threaten Sophie’s life.

In a dual narrative that alternates between Sophie’s quest to uncover the truth—while choosing between two suitors—and a young Jane Austen’s touching friendship with the aging cleric Richard Mansfield, Lovett weaves a romantic, suspenseful, and utterly compelling novel about love in all its forms and the joys of a life lived in books.

First Impressions: A Novel of Old Books, Unexpected Love, and Jane Austen (Viking; October 16, 2014; 978-0-525-42724-7)

PREJUDICE MEETS PRIDE - COVER REVEAL + $25 AMAZON GIFT CARD GIVEAWAY

Hello there! If you like modern romance inspired to Jane Austen's work, here's a new one.  Cover revealed for Rachael Anderson's Prejudice Meets Pride. It's coming out very soon. Stay tuned! Meawhile try your luck with the $25 Amazon Gift Card giveaway below. Cheers!

Prejudice Meets Pride by Rachael Anderson

After years of pinching pennies and struggling to get through art school, Emma Makie’s hard work finally pays off with the offer of a dream job. But when tragedy strikes, she has no choice but to make a cross-country move to Colorado Springs to take temporary custody of her two nieces. She has no money, no job prospects, and no idea how to be a mother to two little girls, but she isn’t about to let that stop her. Nor is she about to accept the help of Kevin Grantham, her handsome new neighbor, who seems to think she’s incapable of doing anything on her own.

COVER REVEAL - LOVE AT FIRST SLIGHT BY J. MARIE CROFT

Genre: Fiction | Romance | Historical | Regency | Jane Austen Sequel

Publication Date: October 1, 2013

About the Book:

“It may not be universally acknowledged, but the unvarnished truth is that a young widow in possession of a good fortune is not necessarily in want of another husband.”

In this humorous, topsy-turvy Pride & Prejudice variation, all the gender roles are reversed. It is Mr. Bennet’s greatest wish to see his five sons advantageously married. When the haughty Miss Elizabeth Darcy comes to Netherfield with the Widow Devonport nee Bingley, speculation—and prejudice—runs rampant.

William Bennet, a reluctant and irreverent future reverend, catches Miss Darcy’s eye even though he is beneath her station. However, his opinion of her was fixed when she slighted him at the Meryton Assembly. As her ardour grows, so does his disdain, and when she fully expects to receive an offer of marriage, he gives her something else entirely ….

MY OWN MR DARCY BY KAREY WHITE - COVER REVEAL & GIVEAWAY

After being dragged to the 2005 movie Pride and Prejudice by her mother, sixteen-year-old Elizabeth’s life changes when Matthew Macfadyen’s Mr. Darcy appears on the screen. Lizzie falls hard and makes a promise to herself that she will settle for nothing less than her own Mr. Darcy. This ill-advised pledge threatens to ruin any chance of finding true love. During the six intervening years, she has refused to give any interested suitors a chance. They weren’t Mr. Darcy enough.

Coerced by her roommate, Elizabeth agrees to give the next interested guy ten dates before she dumps him. That guy is Chad, a kind and thoughtful science teacher and swim coach. While she’s dating Chad, her dream comes true in the form of a wealthy bookstore owner named Matt Dawson, who looks and acts like her Mr. Darcy. Of course she has to follow her dream. But as Elizabeth simultaneously dates a regular guy and the dazzling Mr. Dawson, she’s forced to re-evaluate what it was she loved about Mr. Darcy in the first place.