MOIRA BIANCHI, AUSTEN LOVE FROM BRAZIL - GUEST POST, EXCERPT & GIVEAWAY

Moira Bainchi

Hello there!

Thanks for having me here, Maria Grazia!  I love Italy and everything Italian, including my hubs who has half-Portuguese-half-Italian heritage. I’m Brazilian, love and live in Rio de Janeiro, have a healthy fixation with Darcy and Lizzy since I first read Pride and Prejudice.

It was love at first line. When Austen told me exactly what was going on in Darcy's head I fell for him. What I like most in P&P is their imperfection, how real they seem. She is stubborn, strong-willed; he is haughty and conceited. Well, he is also stubborn, she is also conceited… I can never tell who is more prejudiced and who is more proud.

I spent years reading fanfic, silently at first and then commenting and making friends until I gave in to a particular scene that looped in my head constantly. From the barbecue sequence from ‘Friendship of a special kind’ to today, it’s been four years, countless short stories and drabbles and six books; I can’t seem to leave Ms. Austen’s characters alone. Neither they leave me… They talk to me in the wee hours of the night, right before falling asleep and sometimes I dream a whole scene, a whole plot even! A friend teases me saying I’m slightly crazy, I call it inspiration.

MR DARCY? HE'LL JUST STAY A JERK. MR KNIGHTLEY? YES, PLEASE! TALKING JANE AUSTEN WITH ... KATIE HEANEY. WIN DEAR EMMA PAPERBACK.

Hello and thank you for joining us at My Jane Austen Book Club, Katie! It’s awesome to have you as a guest and  to celebrate the release of your Austen-inspired,  “Dear Emma”. Ready for my questions? 

First one is a “twitter game”: How would you present your book in 140 characters?

Harriet, a tender know-it-all, gets her heart broken, makes an enemy, makes an unexpected friend, and learns she doesn't know everything.

How did the idea for “Dear Emma” come to your mind?

I was inspired by Jane Austen’s Emma, but also by friendships formed between women who’ve dated the same man, or been interested in the same man, which is a situation I found myself in several times when I was younger.

How much does your heroine, Harriet, shares with Emma Woodhouse?

She would think nothing, but they are both very absolutist in their views of other people, and what’s “right,” and how people should behave. But she shares more with Harriet Smith (her namesake) in her sort of underdog-ness, and tendency to act passively, or as a sort of sidekick sometimes.

JANE AND THE WATERLOO MAP BLOG TOUR - TALKING JANE AUSTEN WITH ... STEPHANIE BARRON

Stephanie Barron

Award winning author Stephanie Barron has been touring the blogosphere since February 2nd and will go on till February 22nd, 2016 to share her latest release, Jane and the Waterloo Map. Twenty popular book bloggers specializing in Austenesque fiction, mystery and Regency history are featuring guest blogs, interviews, excerpts and book reviews from this highly anticipated novel in the acclaimed Being a Jane Austen Mystery series. The tour started right here at My Jane Austen Book Club and I'm so glad to have the opportunity to have Stephanie as my guest again today to talk Jane Austen with her.  The fabulous giveaway contest, including copies of Ms. Barron’s book and other Jane Austen-themed items, which I linked to the previous post is still running and will be open  till the end of the tour.  Now, please,  enjoy our chat and join the discussion in the comment section, if you wish.

Hello and thank you so much, Stehanie, for taking the time to answer my questions. First one is, do you remember your first encounter with Jane Austen and her work? What were your first impressions? Have they changed over the years?

SPOTLIGHT ON ... A LITTLE WHIMSICAL IN HIS CIVILITIES BY J. MARIE CROFT - EXCERPT & GIVEAWAY

Hello there! I'm really glad to open J. Marie Croft's Blog Tour for the release of her new humorous novella! Good luck to her and great success to her new book and, of course, good luck to all of you in the giveaway below. Don't forget to read and enjoy the excerpt before you try your luck! 

MG

Excerpt

It’s the third evening following Darcy and Bingley’s return to Hertfordshire,

and they’re attending another Meryton assembly in the hopes of winning their hearts’ desires.

For Darcy, old habits die hard.

Already on tenterhooks and made increasingly impatient while awaiting the Bennets’ arrival,

he has become a tad testy, to put it mildly.

KATIE OLIVER, JANE AUSTEN - REGENCY SHOPAHOLIC? AUTHOR GUEST POST & GREAT GIVEAWAY!

"Chick lit is genre fiction which addresses issues of modern womanhood, often humorously and lightheartedly. Although it sometimes includes romantic elements, chick lit is generally not considered a direct subcategory of the romance novel genre, because the heroine's relationship with her family or friends is often just as important as her romantic relationships." - Goodreads

"[Romance] books are about the celebration of falling in love and emotion and commitment, and all of those things we really want." - Nora Roberts

Jane Austen blazed the trail that every writer of romance and chick lit ever after has followed. Her popularity is still strong after 250 years. Numerous film adaptations of her novels, including the recent Austen-meets-horror film mashup, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, continue to be produced, watched, and admired, and discussed. 

JANE AND THE WATERLOO MAP BLOG TOUR - STEPHANIE BARRON ON LOVING AND WRITING JANE AUSTEN + GRAND GIVEAWAY!

Award winning author Stephanie Barron tours the blogosphere February 2 through February 22, 2016 to share her latest release, Jane and the Waterloo Map.  Twenty popular book bloggers specializing in Austenesque fiction, mystery and Regency history will feature guest blogs, interviews, excerpts and book reviews from this highly anticipated novel in the acclaimed Being a Jane Austen Mystery series and I'm proud and honored to open the festivities here at My Jane Austen Book Club!  A fabulous giveaway contest, including copies of Ms. Barron’s book and other Jane Austen-themed items, will be open to those who  will enter the contest.   

I discovered Jane Austen when I was twelve, trapped by a gale of rain in my aunt’s paneled library. Cass—yes, my aunt’s name was Cass, just like Jane Austen’s sister—was an anglophile and a horticulturalist who spent long hours in her Westchester County garden or ambling with her beagle, Biff, down graveled back country roads. She raised prize daffodils, an occupation short on season that I hope was long on gratification. She had a matched bound set of Austen but for some reason my fingers pulled out the spine of Pride and Prejudice first. As it ought to do, when one is twelve.

I am the last of a family of six girls. The story of Mrs. Bennet desperately trying to marry off her daughters made immediate sense to me. The varying temperaments and allegiances among the Bennet sisters, the shifting cabals and jealousies of a family of women, were instantly familiar. And my discovery of duplicity—Wickham’s lies, Darcy’s unsuspected generosity—was the beginning of a lifelong education in the subtleties of relationships.

BLOG TOUR & GIVEAWAY - UNDECEIVED, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE IN THE SPY GAME BY KAREN M. COX

Hello everyone! Welcome to the Undeceived blog tour. Thanks, Maria Grazia, for inviting me back to My Jane Austen Book Club!

It’s been over two years since my last full-length novel was released. That’s partly because my life has been very busy with some major changes and transitions: My youngest is graduating high school and heading off to college this year. My job as a pediatric speech pathologist became a full-time gig. And I’ve been busy adoring my first grandchild, who is just about to turn one.

But another big reason it’s been so long since my last book is because of what I chose to write: a spy novel variation of Pride and Prejudice set during the last few years of the Cold War. It was a project that required a lot in terms of research, writing and re-writing, but wow! What a ride it has been!

One of the first questions people ask me about this book is: “What on earth inspired you to write a Pride and Prejudice-themed spy novel?” It’s a valid question, given that my work to date has been mostly character-driven Austenesque fiction.