DEAR MR DARCY BY AMANDA GRANGE - GIVEAWAY WINNER

Thanks to Amanda Grange for her interesting guest post: "How many stars out of five did Jane Austen get from her contemporaries?" and many thanks to all the readers who entered the giveaway leaving their comments.

Among them,  my congratulations to ...

Lori 

who has just won a copy of Dear Mr Darcy, Amanda Grange 's latest release.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW & GIVEAWAY - WENDI SOTIS, DREAMS AND EXPECTATIONS

Join me and welcome author Wendi Sotis at My Jane Austen Book Club! Get the opportunity to meet a new lovely Janeite and  talented writer,  as well as the chance to win either a paperback or eBook version of her Pride and Prejudice  variation, Dreams and Expectations. Read the giveaway details below. 

Fist of all welcome Wendi and thanks a lot for accepting my invitation. My first question for you is, how did you come to write a Pride & Prejudice variation?

I found the  Jane Austen fan fiction community while searching for a version of P&P from Darcy’s point-of-view. I found quite a few that I loved, but I also realized that they weren’t quite what I had envisioned myself.  So, I started writing one of my own.  One night, I had a dream of a scene that never happened in the original novel, and decided to create my own story around that instead.  This eventually became Dreams and Expectations, and incorporated most of what I had already written for the Darcy’s POV story.

LOOKING FOR MR DARCY

(by guest blogger Kelsey Clark) 

If you are a girl, as I assume most of you reading this are, then you know what I am talking about when I say we are looking for our Mr. Darcy. We are looking for that special someone who may not look the best from the outside but is secretly perfect for us on the inside.

Now, we need to be careful with this impulse to ‘Darcy-fy’ guys. Not all guys are like Mr. Darcy; a jerk at first glance but inside a gentleman. Some guys are just jerks through and through. A lot of women get this romantic view on guys. Like their coarse outer demeanor is really just cause by pain and loneliness and YOU will be the one to get through to them. This is how women get stuck with abusive and neglectful guys, even smart women.

Of course, I am sure there ARE guys like Mr. Darcy out there; ones that have trouble expressing their true selves. But there is a thin line between prejudice and wisdom. Prejudice keeps good people (like Elizabeth and Darcy) apart. Wisdom keeps good women from being sucked into relationships with bad men. Know the difference.

AUTHOR GUEST POST & DOUBLE GIVEAWAY: MARIA GRACE, THE FUTURE MRS DARCY

Join me and welcome Maria Grace at My Jane Austen Book Club. Read her guest post, leave your comment and get a chance to win "The Future Mrs Darcy". There is 1 signed paperback for US readers and 1 e-book version for readers from the rest of the world. So,  please,  don't forget to add your e-mail address to your comment and specify which country you write from. The deadline for this giveaway contest is 23 August.

Given Good Principles is a three part series that explores what Jane Austen’s  Pride and Prejudice  might have looked like if Darcy’s pride and Elizabeth’s prejudice no longer played a central role in their relationship. For both, mentors and situations provide opportunities for reflection and growth, making them very different people when they meet.

In the first volume of the Given Good Principles series, Darcy’s Decision, Fitzwilliam Darcy faces the challenges presented, when, in the midst of dealing with Wickham’s attempt to compromise Georgiana, he discovers his father’s darkest secrets. With the help of his mentor, Mr. Bradley, Darcy struggles to overcome some of the blackest moments of his life.

AMANDA GRANGE, HOW MANY STARS OUT OF FIVE DID JANE GET FROM HER CONTEMPORARIES? - "DEAR MR DARCY" BLOG TOUR & GIVEAWAY

This has been an incredibly prolific year for Austen-inspired author, Amanda Grange. After Henry Tilney's Diary and Pride and Pyramids, a new novel has just been released, Dear Mr Darcy. In this lovely guest post, Amanda wonders how many stars out of five would Jane have got from her contemporaries if Amazon or goodreads had been around at that time. Leaving your comment  and adding your e-mail address you can get a chance to win a copy of Amanda Grange's Dear Mr Darcy. Check the giveaway details at the end of the post.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

As I’m a novelist with a new book out this month, Dear MrDarcy, I’m eager to know what everyone will think of it. This made me think about the reactions to Jane Austen’s books when she was a new novelist instead of a classic author.

Some of Jane’s family knew that she was “A Lady”, the author of Sense and Sensibility, but not all. When one of her nieces, Anna, came across a copy of Sense and Sensibility in the local circulating library, she threw it aside with “careless contempt, little imagining who had written it, exclaiming to the great amusement of her Aunts who stood by “Oh that must be rubbish I am sure from the title”. 

If Amazon had been around in 1811, no doubt Anna would have given it a 1* review!

DO WE READ JANE AUSTEN FOR THE RIGHT REASONS?

I found this video interview with Fran Lebowitz discussing Jane Austen's fame on You Tube by chance and it made me think over and over about something I have always been convinced of.  I have already mentioned that fact here on My Jane Austen Book Club, especially when I began writing this blog a couple of years ago. Maybe you noticed that I often asked Austen - inspired writers in our "Talking Jane Austen with..." sessions if they didn't think that movie and TV  adaptations had misled our reading and interpretation of Jane Austen's novels. Most  film versions -  if not all of them -  focus on the romantic aspect of the love stories told in the books and that gave start to the illusion that Jane Austen's work  was mainly romance. Honestly, Jane Austen is one of the least romantic authors  I've read in my life, of that I am definitely convinced. The most unromantic proposals or happy ending  in books can be found in  her works. She made slight exceptions for Emma (If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more)  and Persuasion ( You pierced my soul ) but, still, what Jane Austen cannot be considered  is a romantic writer. I don't love her the less for that, and you also know how much I love watching the TV series or the films adapted from her works. 

VISITING BATH & LYME REGIS

Bath - The Crescent

Bath - One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it

On my tour of England from north to south last year (HERE) I couldn’t complete my Jane Austen pilgrimage, since my friends and I were following more than one trail (Richard III, movie locations, literature, abbeys and cathedrals) and each of us had put her own special goals on our common schedule. This is why we decided we would complete my Austen tour this year  visiting the South – West region of the Island and  starting from Somerset (we landed in Bristol),  more precisely  from Bath.

Me at the Roman Baths

The most common opinion on the years Jane Austen spent in Bath wants them unhappy and unproductive.

Jane arrived in Bath with Cassandra and her parents in 1800, after her father had unexpectedly announced his desire to retire from the ministry. Young Jane must have been really depressed if not shocked, though Bath was not and is not an unpleasant place .

Those (1800- 1809) are the years of The Watsons, which she left unfinished, of Harris Bigg-Wither’s proposal (her only marriage proposal for what we know), which she rejected, but those are tragically and especially the years when her father died and left Jane, her mother and her sister doomed to live on the financial contributions of the Austen men.

JULY BOOK GIVEAWAYS - WINNERS

A good day to the lovely readers of My Jane Austen Book Club. I hope you are all enjoying these very hot summer days and reading good stuff. A good Austenesque novel? 

 I'm just back from England where the weather was extraordinarily fine and I'm so busy  catching up with all the things left behind? 

I promise I''ll post about the Austen trail of my tour soon but for  today I just have to give a proper happy ending to the book giveaway contests  running at My Jane Austen Book Club in the latest weeks. 

Regina Jeffers's  modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice, Honor and Hope, has been won by Samantha Remington. 

PAMELA AARES, JANE AUSTEN AND THE ARCHANGEL - GIVEAWAY WINNER

Every life deserves one great love ... and Jane Austen would have deserved a great one for all the glorious moments she has granted us with her writing. Jane Austen & the Archangel by Pamela Aares tries to imagine a great love story for a great heroine. Have you read my author interview? 

There was a chance to win a copy of the book leaving a comment + e-mail address below that post. I hope you did it!

Here's the name of the lucky winner: Julie Martin Wallace

Congratulations to her and many thanks to Pamela Aares

P.O. DIXON, BEWITCHED, BODY AND SOUL: MISS ELIZABETH BENNET - GIVEAWAY WINNER

Here I am to announce the name of the winner of P.O. Dixon's Bewitched, Body and Soul: Miss Elizabeth Bennet as promised.

Congratulations to Sonia!

And many thanks to P.O. Dixon for writing "Can you die of a broken heart?" especially for My Jane Austen Book Club and for granting our readers a copy of her book.

CECILIA GRAY, AUSTEN VERSUS UPDATED - GUEST POST AND GIVEAWAY

Cecilia Gray is the author of a new YA series, The Jane Austen Academy: 

 The last thing that the girls at the elite Jane Austen Academy need is hot guys to flirt with. But over the summer the school has been sold, and like it or not, the guys are coming. And it’s about to turn the Academy—and the lives of its students—totally upside down… 

Enjoy her post, Austen versus updated and leave your comment  to get a chance to win an e-book version of the first novel in the series, Fall for You, A Modern Retelling of Pride and Prejudice (the winner will choose either mobi (Kindle), epub (Nook/iPad) or PDF format) . Don't forget to add your e-mail address to be contacted in case you win. This giveaway contest ends on July 30.

************************

Oh, to have grown up in Jane Austen’s times.There was so much to worry about. So much repressed angst. So many reasons to storm away,fist to mouth, with repressed emotion.

A few hundred years has done nothing to lessen the drama.

Developing The Jane Austen Academy series meant updating all the major plot points and themes so they’d retain their Austenesque essence but feel fresh and relevant to my characters. It meant keeping the Austen Dilemma with a modern twist.

Is that you Mr. Darcy? Darcy figures in Modern Pop Culture by guest blogger Susan Wells

Long after the publication of Jane Austen's beloved "Pride & Prejudice," the world has been on a never-ending quest to recreate the gentlemanly Darcy figure in books, television shows, and movies again and again. It comes as no surprise how frequently you'll see strands and threads of the handsome, prideful, and mysterious Mr. Darcy weaved into modern literature and film. In fact, Mr. Darcy is probably Jane Austen's most well-known, recreated character of all time.

Women, in particular, have become rather obsessed with Darcy ever since Jane Austen first penned him in 1813. Why is it that one character has completely transformed the male figure in both film and literature? Well, if there is a man more balanced in both heartfelt sincerity and prideful sass than Mr. Darcy, I'd love to know who. No seriously – I would.

Mr. Darcy is a combination of both utter perfection and human imperfection. He snubs the beautiful Elizabeth Bennett is such an artful way at the beginning, but wins her heart and hand with ever-so-subtle romantic gestures in the end. He isn't the only character that ever behaved in such a way, however. Study some of your favorite shows or movies in modern pop culture and you'll be surprised how often you'll see Darcy behaviors embedded into the personalities and personas of male leads. In fact, though he is seated deep in the past, Mr. Darcy manages to inject himself into most every romantic male lead nowadays. Check out these three famous characters that embody the Darcy figure in modern pop culture.

REGINA JEFFERS, HONOR AND HOPE - GUEST POST AND GIVEAWAY

Jane Austen’s works are often classified as “romances.” The assumption comes from the premise that if the heroine meets a handsome man in Chapter One, he must be the hero. Fitzwilliam Darcy is the romantic hero of Pride and Prejudice, and although he does not appear in Chapter One, he does make an appearance by Chapter Three, and Austen’s chapters are short in comparison to contemporary writers. However, if you know nothing of the story line nor do you have sweet dreams of Colin Firth emerging dripping wet from a placid lake (Sigh!) or of Matthew Macfadyen walking through the morning mist with an open shirt and lots of chest hair (Sigh!), you may not think much of the infamous Mr. Darcy.

Quite frankly, upon our first meeting of this wonderful character, he is a jerk. He makes a horrendous “first impression.” But that is the thing with Austen. Her original title of the novel and her theme are one and the same: first impressions are misleading.

From the first line of Pride and Prejudice, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife,” Austen plays a merry game with her readers. “First impressions” are misleading: Darcy does not come to Hertfordshire seeking a wife; Wickham is not the perfect mate for Elizabeth; Jane might be more beautiful than Elizabeth, but she lacks her sister’s depth of character; Darcy’s best quality is not his wealth, nor is his worst quality his pride. Austen’s theme permeates every line, and, generally, the reader does not recognize that our favorite author hits us over the head with it. Readers simply sense the resonance found within Austen’s works.

P.O. DIXON , CAN YOU DIE OF A BROKEN HEART? AUTHOR GUEST POST & GIVEAWAY

“Well, my comfort is, I am sure Jane will die of a broken heart, and then he will be sorry for what he has done.” Mrs. Bennet opines to Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice.

And so begins Bewitched, Body and Soul: Miss Elizabeth Bennet. The Bennets’ third born daughter Mary posits the notion of one dying from a broken heart to Elizabeth when writing to her of their eldest sister Jane’s relentless malaise. 

A broken heart, heartbreak, both are figures of speech used when describing the intense emotional distress, pain, or suffering one feels after losing a loved one, be it the result of death, divorce, breakup or even physical separation. Constant anxiety and romantic rejection also bring about this malady.

PRIDE AND PYRAMIDS BY AMANDA GRANGE & JACQUELINE WEBB - GIVEAWAY WINNER

Thanks to all of you who showed their interest in this book both on our facebook page or here on blog. Among the commenters to my interview with Amanda Grange, I've picked up the name of the lucky winner of a paperback copy of Pride and Pyramids provided by Sourcebooks for the giveaway contest. The winner is ...

Margaret


Congratulations and thanks for taking part!

Many thanks to Amanda Grange for granting me the interview and to her publishers for the free copy to give away

Read my interview with Amanda Grange about Pride and Pyramids

Read my review of the book

AUTHOR INTERVIEW & GIVEAWAY - AIMEE AVERY, HONOR AND INTEGRITY

My Jane Austen Book Club welcomes Aimée Avery, co-author of the book Honor and Integrity: A Collection of Pride and Prejudice-Inspired Short Stories. Thanks for coming by today, Aimee.

Thank you for having me.

What made the three of you decide to write a book together?

Enid thought it would be fun to challenge June and me to write stories that contained the words “honor” and “integrity.” It seemed an easy idea since those two words are the perfect words to describe Mr. Darcy.

Is this the first time the three of you have written anything together?

More or less. The three of us have belonged to the online JAFF community for years and read each other’s stories and comment. But other than scribing drabbles/flash fiction with the same theme, this is our first attempt at a joint publishing project.

Did you find it difficult to work together?

Not at all. I think because we’ve known each other within the community for so long and read each other’s works that this was just an extension of that. Our biggest problem was the time difference between California and Sydney.  If you ever get to California, Maria, we’d love meet and visit with you.

JANE AUSTEN AND THE ARCHANGEL - INTERVIEW WITH PAMELA AARES & GIVEAWAY

First of all, welcome to My Jane Austen Book Club, Pamela. I'm very glad to introduce you to all the friends and Janeites who visit here. As a start I have to ask:  How’d you come to write about Jane Austen?

I have always loved Austen’s work-she’s a genius! But I have to admit that I didn’t set out to write a book about Jane Austen. Moments after sending my first book, The Lady and the Patriot (coming Fall 2012), off to my editor, I got waylaid by an angel. Yup, an angel. And not just any angel, but the archangel who had fallen in love with Jane Austen. And heaven’s bad boy wouldn’t let go until his love story was told. And so, JANE AUSTEN AND THE ARCHANGEL  came to life. The tagline is “Every Life deserves one great love…” I think Jane fans will find it to be an intriguing and uplifting story.

Michael Grace, the archangel who falls in love with Jane Austen, and his sidekick, Lord Gabriel, put a fun and charming spin on angels. They bring a dimension to the angelic that includes humor and uncertainty, and a very sexy charm.

And I’m giving away a copy of the book to one lucky reader who comments on this blog post!

PRIDE AND PYRAMIDS BLOG TOUR - INTERVIEW WITH AMANDA GRANGE & GIVEAWAY

Do you want to get a chance to win a papeback copy of Pride and Pyramids (my review's here)? Read my interview with Amanda Grange, leave your comment + e-mail address and ... fingers crossed for you! This giveaway contest is open internationally and will end on July 16 when the winner is announced. Good luck!

First of all welcome back to My Jane Austen Book Club, Amanda. It’s an honour and a pleasure to feature such a talented writer and a fond  Janeite here at my blog.

Hi, it’s good to be back!

My first question is: your story in Pride and Pyramids takes place after 15 years from Darcy and Elizabeth’s marriage. What is their menage like after all those years?

Darcy and Elizabeth have six children, all with very different personalities. The oldest, fourteen-year-old Elizabeth – who is always called Beth – is like her aunt Jane in temperament, being calm and seeing the good in others. The second child is William, who takes after his father. He’s honourable and serious, inclined to be arrogant and haughty at times, but the other children don’t let him get away with it! Then comes John – names after Mr Bennet -  who takes after Col Fitzwilliam and longs to join the army. After John come the terrible twosome of Laurence and Jane, who are both inclined to wild behaviour and take after their aunt Lydia. Last, but not least, is little Meg, who at six years old is the youngest.

DATING IN COLLEGE? WHAT JANE AUSTEN'S NOVELS CAN TEACH US ABOUT COURTING - GUEST POST BY ANGELITA WILLIAMS

As one of the most famous female novelists of all time, Jane Austen is ardently admired and adored by women, both young and old, throughout the world. Her poetically written novels have firmly tugged at the heartstrings of millions since her books' first appearances in the late 1700s and early 1800s, and her societal and cultural influences only continue to grow as the years pass.

Thousands of books have been written about the modern wisdom the antiquated Jane can impart to those ladies who long to be romanced, wined, dined, and wooed like the leading ladies in her novels. We live in a time – however – when men would rather text a silly heart icon than handwrite a letter; where subtle romantic gestures have been replaced by obnoxious proclamations on Facebook; where men are pressured to believe that scoring on the first date makes them as suave as Johnny Depp; and where patiently waiting for love to mature and blossom is a thing of the past.

PRIDE AND PYRAMIDS BY AMANDA GRANGE AND JACQUELINE WEBB - MY REVIEW

Fast paced and with the exotic charm of Egypt added to the appeal of the Regency world, Pride and Pyramids is a delightful surprise.

Mystery, legends, superstitions enter the lives of the pleasing and proper Darcy family on visiting the land of the Pharaohs.

Defying a magician’s wrath as well as the legend saying magical plagues affect archaeologists , the Darcys  seek the tomb of Hammon and Husn to uncover its hidden treasure.

Elizabeth and Darcy have been married 15 years now and have 6 children. Their life at Pemberley is quiet and comfortable but lacks adventure. This is why they can’t resist the proposal of Edward Fitzwilliam, Colonel Fitzwilliam’s younger brother, and join him in his intriguing expedition to the exotic land of the Sphinx with their family and friends. Not only immeasurable riches await them but also danger and betrayal.

Familiar characters from Pride and Prejudice and new lovely ones enliven this novel, which  is the result of the combined efforts of Amanda Grange - best-selling