Music Monday: Desire (Denise Young)

“And poor Mr. Clayton.” She sighed. “I quite like him. I did from the time we arrived at Heathcote. However, as Felicity pointed out, she is older, and so it is she who should marry first.”

Roger stopped walking. “And you gave him up for her?”

Grace shrugged. “I had not lost my heart to him.” She glanced back at the library door. “And I thought my sister had.” She shook her head. “But apparently, she has not, for she is at the rotunda with Mr. Ramsey likely letting him kiss her.”

“But I thought you thought Mr. Ramsey was of interest.”

Again, Grace shrugged. “I did, but…”

“Your sister is older?”

Grace nodded.

“She deserves to be an old maid,” Roger muttered. “Is she at the rotunda alone with Mr. Ramsey?”

“No. Miss Hamilton and Mr. Carlyle are with them.”

Roger pulled Grace across the drawing room in his hurry to reach the window. “I do not see them.”

“That is because Felicity wished to see the far side of the rotunda.” She blew out a breath. “So, she can kiss him,” she whispered.

[from His Darling Friend, A Touches of Austen Novella, and the current Sweet Tuesdays story]
Published to YouTube by Denise Young – Topic on August 22, 2015.

There are no pictures with this ‘video’ today, but the song title and tone seemed a very good fit with the small excerpt from tomorrow’s story. The song, “Desire,” is one that is on my ever-growing list of Music to Write By, and I am actually listening to this album on Spotify as I write this. 🙂

I have learned how to listen to share the music on my Spotify phone app with the Spotify app on my tv. It wasn’t hard, but I didn’t know you could do that. 🙂 So I have been listening through the tv in the room where I write. I would call it an office, but it isn’t just an office. It is more of a multipurpose room which was traditionally designed to be a living room. My house is not huge. 🙂  Continue reading Music Monday: Desire (Denise Young)


Music Monday: Say Something, Violin and Piano Cover (Daniel Jang)

“If you are not able to dance, there is always the chance of a stroll in the garden,” Mr. Carlyle said.

Felicity ducked her head and blushed but not before Victoria saw her cast an uneasy glance at Mr. Clayton. “I do enjoy gardens.”

“Indeed,” Mr. Clayton muttered. He turned and looked back towards the house. “They will likely start playing games soon. We should head back.”

“But I had hoped to see the far side of the rotunda,” Felicity said with a small pout.

“You do not need me for that,” Mr. Clayton said. “I find I have had my fill of gardens.”

Victoria’s eyebrows rose. It appeared Mr. Clayton had reached his limit for endurance. She could not help but feel somewhat happy for him.

[from His Darling Friend, A Touches of Austen Novella, and the current Sweet Tuesdays story]
Published to YouTube by Daniel Jang on November 22, 2014.

That Felicity! She’s a piece of work! In His Beautiful Bea, she was the character who was supposed to have touches of Maria Bertram in her, and she has not left those unsavoury details behind just because we are in a different book now. Oh, no! As you will see in tomorrow’s story, her unpleasant personality is flourishing.

And while we are talking about tomorrow’s story… Continue reading Music Monday: Say Something, Violin and Piano Cover (Daniel Jang)


Music Monday: You Are (Aaron Goodvin)

Lucy’s hand flew to her heart and her eyes grew wide. “So much? Surely, that was not necessary.”

Philip took the items from her and placed them on the desk before taking her hands and drawing her to her feet and into his embrace. “For you, Mrs. Dobney, there is no price too high.”

“But…”

He placed a finger on her lips to stop her protest. “I have already had this argument with Darcy, and I assure you that neither he nor you will convince me that the money was spent in vain, for it has bought back your things and, I hope, something far more valuable, your peace. From this day forward, there is nothing left of what your uncle did which can harm you.”

She squeezed him tightly. “How can I ever thank you for such a thoughtful gift?”

He looked down into her eyes, which were peering up at him. “Love me, always, just as you do now.”

She shook her head and smiled at him. “I cannot promise not to love you more with every passing day, but I will always, always love you.”

[from And Then Love, book 1 in the Willow Hall Romance Series]
Published to YouTube by Aaron Goodvin on October 4, 2018.

This song was an earworm for me last week, and so I decided to share it with you. So thoughtful of me, I know. LOL It’s a sweet song with a catchy tune that I heard played a couple of times on the radio as I was making supper last week, and it stuck.

Above the video is an excerpt from one of my already published books, And Then Love. The excerpt is from the ending but had the right feel to go with the song today. If you have read that story, you might remember that Lucy approaches Phillip to ask him to marry her so she will not have to go live with a horrible uncle. He decides to help her, and over the course of the book comes to realize that marrying her is the best decision he has ever made.

[A little side note: When I say horrible uncle here, I mean nearly as bad as they come. I tapped into my dark side for a couple of characters in the Willow Hall Romance series, and Lucy’s uncle was one of them. As bad as they come is reserved for another despicable character in this series.]

Along with humming or singing the above song throughout last week, I also managed to get a good bit of writing done.

Tom: To Secure His Legacy is not quite finished, but it is so close to being done. I’m hopeful that three more chapters will complete it. Therefore, it should be done by the end of Friday. I hope to get three chapters of this story posted at Patreon this week instead of the two chapters I have been doing.

(Oh! You might be interested in the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Darcy, as well as Mrs. Darcy’s sister Kitty, showed up in one chapter of what I wrote for Tom’s story this week. The Mr. and Mrs. Darcy here are the ones from Two Days Before Christmas. I figured I should clarify that since I have several stories which end with a Mr. and Mrs. Darcy.)

Roger’s story now has three chapters, and if I get one more written this week (which is the plan), then that story will begin posting on Tuesdays here on my blog. If you look at the menu options, you will see that Sweet Tuesdays has been added as a choice. However, there are no posts there yet. I just needed to set up the link so I could tag it at the beginning of each chapter for those who might need to go back and read previous chapters.

I have a title for the story, and if you are on my mailing list, you will receive a January update from me that will share that title with you. Everyone else will have to wait until next Monday when I share it here. 🙂 [hint but not a very good one: The title is three words long and is a reference to something that is said in Emma.]

Those are the stories in progress with the most news. The other writing I did was…

I wrote another chapter of Loving Lydia, and a few hundred words of Apple Blossoms got dictated this week. Nothing very interesting or new is happening with those stories right now. (Well, news-wise. Story-wise there is interesting stuff happening with both. But I can’t tell you about that just yet. 😉 )

On quick reminder that the Kobo 40% off boxset sale ends on February 3 at 11:59 PM EST. The promo code to enter at check out is 40JAN. The two box sets which I have in this promotion are

The Choices Series which includes all four novellas in that series: Her Father’s Choice, No Other Choice, His Inconvenient Choice, and Her Heart’s Choice

A Dash of Darcy and Companions Cottage Collection (1) which includes five novellas: Finally Mrs. Darcy, Waking to Mr. Darcy, A Very Mary Christmas, Discovering Mr. Darcy, and Not an Heiress

And now for…

AN EXCERPT FROM Tom: To Secure His Legacy:

(This is from near the end of the story, so read at your own risk as it could contain some spoilers.)  Continue reading Music Monday: You Are (Aaron Goodvin)


Music Monday: Song from a Secret Garden, Hauser

Happy second Monday of 2018! How was your first week? Mine was “interesting.” 🙂 My son and I resumed homeschool classes — sort of.  A winter storm altered our plans. The wind howled and rain (not snow for us) pelted the house. Then the rain stopped and the wind calmed, only to pick back up as the storm wrapped around, and the backside of it passed through. We were very fortunate. We sustained no damage and only lost power for a few hours.  So, I am not complaining. I’m just saying it created a week I wasn’t expecting.

Hauser. “HAUSER – Song from a Secret Garden.” YouTube, YouTube, 24 Nov. 2017, youtu.be/qZSJvyBag8A.

While the wind blew and the candles flickered on Thursday, I found it difficult to focus to write until I pulled out my mp3 player and turned on some music. Music plays such an important roll in my writing process. 🙂 The above song is not one I was listening to on Thursday but is one that I recently added to my Music to Write By playlist on YouTube which I have been using during my writing sessions this week (on days when there is power).

In writing news…

I have gotten One Winter’s Eve back from my first reader, made the necessary corrections, and sent it on to my second reader. I expect to have it back sometime this week so I can start final edits and get a preorder set up for January 15.  Release day is scheduled for January 25, 2018.

I have posted three chapters of Enticing Miss Darcy on Patreon and am halfway through writing chapter 4 (excerpted below). I plan to have that chapter completed and posted on Patreon by tomorrow evening.  I had hoped to get a full chapter written on Friday, but I ended up spending a good bit of time doing some research for the story.  The tentative release day for this book is March 6, 2018. (I did some planning this past week. 🙂 )

As part of my plan, I have switched up my writing schedule just slightly to fit in writing time for Confounding Caroline.  I am now doing Work In Progress writing M, T, W, and F, and giving Th over to my Thursday Three Hundred story writing.  I will say that, while the power was out on Thursday, I finally wrote the part of Confounding Caroline where we will first see Elizabeth.  Those two parts will post on the blog in the second half of February.

That, I believe, is all the writing news I have for you this week.  Now, to share a portion of what I wrote on Friday night.

AN EXCERPT FROM Enticing Miss Darcy:  Continue reading Music Monday: Song from a Secret Garden, Hauser


Music Monday: Rolling in the Deep Cover, Piano Guys

Do you ever just start typing in a URL and when the computer suggests a full address for that site, you just click enter, not caring that when you get to your desired destination, you will have to do a bit more clicking to find what you really want?  I do. Often. Especially when going to YouTube.

ThePianoGuys. “Adele – Rolling in the Deep (Piano/Cello Cover) – The Piano Guys.” YouTube, YouTube, 7 Sept. 2011.

I did that very thing all this past week when sitting down to write.  The suggested address always took me to the above video, and so, each of my writing sessions began with The Piano Guys’ cover of Adele’s Rolling in the Deep.  🙂 I would then hit shuffle and randomly listen to other music from my writing playlist.  This song though seems to have just the right melody, rhythm, and dissonance for the story I am attempting to craft because, while the story will be sweet with a happily ever after, I do hope to stir up some trouble along the way. So far, things are sailing along smoothly for everyone involved in the story. However, I’m 6K words in, so it’s time to start tossing issues at the hero and heroine.  I suppose that will be my “fun” during my writing time this week.

As I look forward to this week of writing, I am planning to continue writing Becoming Entangled, and I’ll likely start editing With the Colonel’s Help as the last post for that story is next week!

I also will be taking my turn on Austen Authors with a look at how I used research about Vauxhall Gardens in Unravelling Mr. Darcy.  This post will, of course, contain an excerpt and a giveaway.  I’d love to have you stop by and say hi!

The launch of Unravelling Mr. Darcy last week went well.  As I am writing this Sunday evening, it is ranking in the top 20 bestsellers in a couple of categories, and it currently has seven five-star reviews! Thank you to everyone who has purchased and read the book as well as those lovely readers that took time to tell others that they enjoyed the book.

If you read Unravelling Mr. Darcy, then you know that Anne de Bourgh’s story is left up in the air.  Becoming Entangled is her story and the one on which I have been working this past week and have excerpted below.

EXCERPT FROM Becoming Entangled:  Continue reading Music Monday: Rolling in the Deep Cover, Piano Guys