Leenie Brown fell in love with Jane Austen's works when she first read Sense and Sensibility followed immediately by Pride and Prejudice in her early teens. As the second of five daughters and an avid reader, she has always loved to see where her imagination takes her and to play with and write about the characters she meets along the way. In 2013, these two loves collided when she stumbled upon the world of Jane Austen Fan Fiction. A year later, in 2014, she began writing her own Austen-inspired stories and began publishing them in 2015. Leenie lives in Nova Scotia, Canada with her two teenage boys and her very own Mr. Brown (a wonderful mix of all the best of Darcy, Bingley and Edmund with healthy dose of the teasing Mr. Tillney and just a dash of the scolding Mr. Knightley).
This is a black and white clip art version of the image in the ad below. The ad is said to have been from 1890. I found both images on olddesignshop.com.
Rycroft drew in a deep breath and released it as Georgiana took his arm. She looked up at him with a brow raised and a scolding look. “Do not,” he said.
“Do not what?” She fluttered her lashes and smiled sweetly.
“You know very well, but since I must clarify, do not chide me. I know I have insulted her once again and must apologize, although I doubt she will forgive me.”
Georgiana hugged his arm tightly. “She will if you are sincere. Miss Mary is quite agreeable and sweet.”
Shall we begin the final Monday in February with the final Love Song of the month and an excerpt from one of my books?
I heard this song while wandering a grocery store aisle a week or so ago. I had not heard it for some time and had forgotten about it, actually. However, while choosing a bottle of salsa for my youngest son and singing along with the radio, I decided it would be a good song to share today.
Later, I listened to it again at home to pick a story to go with the song. The story that came to mind first was So Very Unexpected because that is a story where the hero stands next to the heroine and protects and guides her into their happily ever after. The hero also has a wonderful model of marriage to use as his guide — that of his mother and father.
In fact, the line below is spoken by Marcus’s father, who falls in love with the idea of having Lydia for his daughter.
Yes, this Lydia is a very different sort of Lydia, but then, when do I write standard-issue characters. 😉 LOL
So Very Unexpected, Lydia and Marcus’s story, is book three of my Pride and Prejudice variation series Willow Hall.
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From the book The Quiver of Love: A Collection of Valentines Ancient and Modern, a collection of love poems published in 1876, illustrated by Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway (source) . The illustration was created for “The Surprise”, a translation of a German poem by Heinrich Heine (source: Google Play eBook edition page 44, 45) . It reads:
THE SURPRISE I dreamt I saw you yesternight, And claspt my hands about your eyes, Nor dared to venture in your sight Until you pardoned the surprise. So take my letter, Valentine, My name and mission quickly guess — I fear to offer word or sign; I wait until you whisper “Yes.”
(Public domain via Wikimedia Commons)
“You knew she was behind me?” There was a bit of venom in Darcy’s whisper.
Fisticuff might not happen in the garden, but Bingley was not certain he was going to survive this bit of trickery without some damage to his person.
Let’s begin our week with a love song and story pairing, shall we? The moment in the story I’m pairing with this song has been a long time in coming. Both Darcy and Elizabeth wanted this moment to happen five years earlier than it did, but in this variation of their story, it did not happen that way.
The snippet below is from the proposal that happens in chapter one. Yes, you read that correctly. They are going to start this story out with a proposal and then work their way through the reason they had to wait five years for this moment.
Finally Mrs. Darcy is the first book in my Dash of Darcy and Companions Collection and is a stand-alone short and sweet novella.
It is currently free in ebook format at all retailers.
Click to find all of Leenie’s books at your favourite retailer.
Microcosm of London Plate no. 021, House of Commons. Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827) and Augustus Charles Pugin (1762–1832) (after) John Bluck (fl. 1791–1819), Joseph Constantine Stadler (fl. 1780–1812), Thomas Sutherland (1785–1838), J. Hill, and Harraden (aquatint engravers)[1], Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
“Do you truly love me?”
He held her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. This woman, who lay beneath him, whose hands had slid from his hair to rest on his jaw as a finger traced his ear, was all he wanted. Not a seat in parliament and definitely not some lady of the ton even if she had bags of money. “Yes, very much. Marry me.”
