Conceit & Concealment by Abigail Reynolds - Guest Post and Giveaway

As you may know, Abigail Reynolds has a new book out. I love Abigail's stories; she wrote the first Austenesque story I read that completely blew me away ('Mr Darcy's Obsession', if you're curious!), so I am very happy to be able to welcome here today. She has brought a guest post, and an international giveaway. Read on for more details!

Blurb for Conceit & Concealment

Pride & Prejudice meets Alternate History

Six years after Napoleon’s invasion of England…

Fitzwilliam Darcy is a traitor. He even admits to collaborating with Napoleon’s troops. And Elizabeth Bennet despises all traitors.

But Elizabeth can’t make sense of Darcy. He doesn’t act like a traitor. He risks his own safety to save young women from the French. And how can she despise a man who loves puppies? Something about him doesn’t add up – and she finds him far too attractive.

Then Darcy’s carefully constructed world crumbles, and he must entrust his closest-held secret to Elizabeth. To protect that secret, Elizabeth must disappear entirely, leaving her family and Darcy behind, to plunge herself into the dizzying world of fashionable London and the dangers of the Loyalist Resistance. Nothing will ever be the same again.

Darcy is determined to find Elizabeth. Now that she knows the truth about him, there’s nothing to keep them apart – nothing, that is, until the day Darcy is forced to choose between his country and the life of the woman he loves…

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About the Author

Abigail Reynolds may be a nationally bestselling author and a physician, but she can’t follow a straight line with a ruler. Originally from upstate New York, she studied Russian and theater at Bryn Mawr College and marine biology at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole. After a stint in performing arts administration, she decided to attend medical school, and took up writing as a hobby during her years as a physician in private practice.

A life-long lover of Jane Austen’s novels, Abigail began writing variations on Pride & Prejudice in 2001, then expanded her repertoire to include a series of novels set on her beloved Cape Cod.Her most recent releases are Conceit & Concealment, the national bestsellers Alone with Mr. Darcy and Mr. Darcy’s Noble Connections, and Mr. Darcy's Journey. Her books have been translated into five languages. A lifetime member of JASNA, she lives on Cape Cod with her husband, her son and a menagerie of animals. Her hobbies do not include sleeping or cleaning her house.

• Website • Twitter • Facebook • Goodreads • Amazon Author Page •

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By all accounts, this 'Pride & Prejudice' variation is an angsty read. If you've read 'The Last Man in the World' or Abigail's modern P&P-inspired read, 'The Man Who Loved Pride & Prejudice' you'll know that she's no stranger to writing angst, and this is what she is writing about in her guest post for us today.

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Guest Post from Abigail Reynolds - The Black Moment

I recently received a text from my daughter: "I hate you. How dare you. This is ridiculous. You had better fix this." Uh-oh. What had I managed to do wrong from a thousand miles away? Then I realized the problem: she was reading Conceit & Concealment, my new Pride & Prejudice variation, and she’d reached the Black Moment. My plot structure had succeeded!

The Black Moment is the key to a successful story. It’s what turns a romance plot from being a long series of misunderstandings into a memorable story that you can’t put down and that leaves you with that feeling of satisfaction at the end. It’s that dizzying moment in the plot where all hope seems to be lost. 

The Black Moment should happen just when everything seems to be coming together, when the conflict between the characters is resolving and the end is in sight. And then, boom – a disaster, the true test. In Pride & Prejudice, it’s Lydia’s elopement, ruining Elizabeth’s hopes of ever making a good marriage just when she and Darcy seemed to be nearing an understanding. 

The Black Moment can’t be just a misunderstanding, something the reader knows can be resolved if the characters just sit down and talk to each other. It has to feel truly hopeless. It can be challenging to come up with credible problems like that in romances or JAFF without resorting to external problems like kidnapping, floods, or plague, but that risks crossing the boundary into melodrama. 

I’ve been thinking about the importance of the Black Moment because I had problems with it in Conceit & Concealment. I’m a pantster, a writer who plots by the seat of my pants, as opposed a plotster who diagrams it all out in advance. This isn’t a matter of choice on my part; it’s because my characters always make a hash of whatever plot plans I have, so I’ve given up planning. But the problem with being a pantster is that you can end up meandering, and then you have to figure out where you went wrong. 

That’s what happened in my first draft: I got stuck in a meandering dead end. I had sent all my main characters off on a trip to Wales – journeys are usually a good thing to raise the plot stakes and increase reader involvement – and nothing was happening. The scenes were pleasant, the characters were likeable, their relationship was developing – and it was bland and unmemorable. Once I realized I was stuck, I started looking at the plot structure. 

Yes, I’d made a beginner’s error and forgotten to include a Black Moment! It was especially embarrassing as the scenario had enormous potential for Black Moments. Although primarily a Darcy and Elizabeth story, Conceit & Concealment takes place against an alternate history background where Napoleon had conquered England several years earlier. There’s nothing like an army of occupation to get in the way of a blooming romance, especially one where the head of police considers almost everything to be a hanging offense. No need to resort to mere gossip or social manipulation for a Black Moment in this plot!

So I came up with a doozy of a Black Moment. I hauled the characters out of their interminable trip to Wales, stuck in my Black Moment, and the remainder of the plot fell into place like magic. And my daughter isn’t speaking to me. Oh, well. You can’t have everything! 

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Giveaway Time!

Abigail is kindly offering to give away e-books of 'Conceit & Concealment' to two of you lovely people. To enter, all you need do is leave a comment on this blog post, either about angst, or how you feel about this premise, of a French-occupied England. It's a real departure from canon.

Leave your comment by the end of the day on Sunday 11 June 2017, and please, leave a way for me to contact you in case you're the lucky winner. This is open to international entrants.

Thank you so much to Abigail Reynolds for both the guest post and the giveaway!

If you can't wait for a giveaway and need to read the book sooner it's available to buy now - on Amazon US, Amazon UK and very likely other Amazon sites too :) You can also add the book on Goodreads.

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