Story Connections – Page 9

Portrait of a lady in a white dress (Marie Wandscheer)

This young lady looks ready to spend the evening at some soiree, but her expression is not one of delight. I think both of those things are fitting to pair with my book A Scandal in Springtime.

In this book, Kitty is spending time at her aunt and uncles home in town and attending some of the events of the season with her sister, Elizabeth (aka Mrs. Darcy). As she goes through her short season in town, Kitty is not always cheerful — mostly due to the excessive amount of talent that the always-proper-until-he-met-her Mr. Linton has for saying or doing something wrong. 🙂 (The poor man has Darcy beat in the how to offend a Bennet lady category!)

The excerpt I chose to share below is one of those times when Mr. Linton is making Kitty irritated, to say the least. I chose this time of his doing that because the lady in the painting is holding a rolled up paper, and Kitty has just attended a literary reading.

Oh, and one more thing before you read the excerpt: The Mr. Crawford who is mentioned is Henry Crawford (from my Other Pens series), who happens to be engaged to Mr. Linton’s sister.

Enjoy!

The Next Ten Minutes Ago (Jeremy Jordan and Laura Osnes)

Yesterday, I was talking with a couple of people about Finally Mrs. Darcy, and afterward, the song “Ten Minutes Ago” from Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella popped into my mind as I was thinking about Darcy and Elizabeth’s whirlwind reunion to married story in that little novella of mine. It seemed to be a good pairing, and I decided I would share that song and novella today as my story connections post.

As you can see (and hear), between making that decision and creating this post, I changed my mind about what song I was going to share.

I went to YouTube, typed in my search info, listened to a recording studio sort of video of the song I was looking for, and then saw the title for this song. I suffer from excessive curiosity at times — today was one of those times. 🙂 I clicked on the video and by the time the song was half over, I had changed my mind that this song might be an even better fit for Finally Mrs. Darcy, since both the song and the story play with the idea of time — looking forward and back.

And I think it still captures the elation and hope that Darcy and Elizabeth feel mere moments after meeting again at a ball and beginning, though never finishing, a dance.

Archers (after a drawing by Adam Buck)

“Archers”, an April 1799 “pin-up” type print, engraved after a drawing by Adam Buck, and with a dedication to the Prince Regent. At the time, archery was one of the few competitive sports that adult women of the “genteel” classes could respectably engage in (others were battledore/shuttlecock — a precursor to badminton — and for a tiny social elite, old-fashioned “court tennis”). Engraved after a drawing by Adam Buck, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Do you know what was one of my most favourite times of the day back when I was in elementary school? No, it wasn’t recess or lunch. It was when we would come in from lunch recess and our teacher would read a chapter or two from a book while we settled back into our desks and got our minds ready to finish our classes.

When I was teaching, reading to my class, like my teachers had done, was one of the things I loved to do.

With that in mind, let me tell you that I have been working on a reading project which taps into memories of that loved activity from years gone by. It’s a project that I have wanted to do for some time, but then, right after I began it, I got long covid and had to abandon it for a while.

Scenes and Soirees

Some time ago, when Enticing Miss Darcy was just being published, I created a set of “scrapbook” pages for a post I did about it at Austen Authors. I came across those pages in my computer files and thought I’d share them here today. Sorry, there is no excerpt, but I think each page will give you a good bit of information about the story.

This book, as well as all my other Dash of Darcy and Companion books are on sale this month because next month, they are going to become exclusive to the Kindle store so they can be enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. (Links to the series on several stores and info about prices can be found on my Current Book Promotions page by clicking here.)

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

At the end of Enticing Miss Darcy, you will find a short story sequel included in the book. 🙂

*whispers* The hero of the story is a Fitzwilliam brother. The third and youngest.

And a bonus image

Jack is one of the original characters I have created, so I’m going to include his “Meet the Main Character” card here for you to get to know a little about him. 🙂 (Oh, and in case you are wondering, Alistair is the fellow who married Anne in Becoming Entangled and another original character. 🙂 )

Remember this book and all the other Dash of Darcy and Companion books are on sale now and moving to Kindle Unlimited in April. I really do hope you’ll take a chance on this book and meet Jack.

A Travelling Coach and Pair (Henry Bunbury)

Travelling Coach and Pair, Henry Bunbury, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

This drawing is the sort that will make me enlarge the image just to look at all the little lines that comprise the details in it. I also enjoy that it almost looks as if it could be moving.

I chose to share it today because Pretending to Love Mary begins in travelling coach, and I wanted to share the first few paragraphs of that story with you.

If you’re on my mailing list, you may have already read this story because I sent out an email with a link to download a copy yesterday. If you’re a Booksprout reviewer, you might have picked up a copy of the novelette to review. (Twenty out of the thirty-five review copies were claimed the last time I looked.)

If you’d like to join my mailing list, and you do so before March 7th (which is the release day for Pretending to Love Mary, you could also get a copy of this story for free.

If you’d rather just purchase the book, it’s on pre-order now.

With all that said, here’s the beginning of the book to pique your curiosity. 🙂