Dangerous to Know: Jane Austen’s Rakes & Gentlemen Rogues Anthology Edited by Christina Boyd - Blog Tour and Giveaway

The blog tour for Dangerous to Know: Jane Austen’s Rakes & Gentlemen Rogues stops by here today. This is an anthology focusing on the 'bad boys' in Austen's works rather than her heroes, written by some fantastic authors: Karen M Cox, J Marie Croft, Amy D'Orazio, Jenetta James, Lona Manning, Christina Morland, Beau North, Kate Oliver, Sophia Rose, Joana Starnes and Brooke West, brought together by editor Christina Boyd. The tour joins us for a closer look at one of the stories in the book, written by Joana Starnes, who is one of my favourite Austenesque authors. Joana's story focuses on the breaker of Marianne Dashwood's heart, John Willoughby. I have an excerpt of this story to share with you. Also, if you've been following the blog tour you will know that there are two fantastic prizes up for grabs, details of which are below. Let's read the blurb first:

Book Description:

“One has all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it.” —Jane Austen

Jane Austen’s masterpieces are littered with unsuitable gentlemen—Willoughby, Wickham, Churchill, Crawford, Tilney, Elliot, et al.—adding color and depth to her plots but often barely sketched. Have you never wondered about the pasts of her rakes, rattles, and gentlemen rogues? Surely, there's more than one side to their stories.

It is a universal truth, we are captivated by smoldering looks, daring charms ... a happy-go-lucky, cool confidence. All the while, our loyal confidants are shouting on deaf ears: “He is a cad—a brute—all wrong!” But is that not how tender hearts are broken...by loving the undeserving? How did they become the men Jane Austen created? In this romance anthology, eleven Austenesque authors expose the histories of Austen’s anti-heroes.

Dangerous to Know: Jane Austen’s Rakes & Gentlemen Rogues is a titillating collection of Georgian era short stories—a backstory or parallel tale off-stage of canon—whilst remaining steadfast to the characters we recognize in Austen’s great works.

What say you? Everyone may be attracted to a bad boy…even temporarily...but heaven help us if we marry one.

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Dangerous to Know: Jane Austen's Rakes & Gentlemen Rogues is available to buy now - Amazon US / Amazon UK. It's at a reduced price while the blog tour is on, so if you want it at a reduced price snaffle it up now!

You can also add it to your shelves on Goodreads or listen to the Spotify list.

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Excerpt from Dangerous to Know: Jane Austen’s Rakes & Gentlemen Rogues - “Willoughby’s Crossroads” by Joana Starnes

The knocker, a pretentious urn, falls repeatedly and loudly into place as I employ it with uncommon force but to no avail. There is still no answer. I knock again. No gentlemanly tap-tap-tap, but the sustained pounding of the bailiff come to collect his dues. And, just like the aforementioned bailiff, I am not above bringing the door down, if it comes to that.

It does not, which is just as well. I might have needed more than my roiling anger to prevail over the solid oak and should have brought the bailiff’s men as well. The door swings on its hinges revealing Tom, the second footman, and behind him the butler, fixing me with a censorious stare.

“Mr. Willoughby, sir,” the butler drawls. “Begging your pardon, but her ladyship is not receiving at such an early hour.”

On a different day, I might have laughed at his shameless hypocrisy, to stand there and deliver such words with a blank face. As though he had not admitted me to her presence at far less sociable hours.

I do not laugh. Instead, I grind a warning through my teeth:

“Stand aside, Higgins,” I growl. “I will not be trifled with today. Where is she?”

Neither man answers, but Tom—younger and less versed in the base arts—flashes a glance towards the marble staircase. I neither request nor need further clarification and I push past the servants, disdaining to acknowledge the butler’s cries of protest as I take to the stairs at a run.

I know my way of course, and all too well at that. Her townhouse and country residence are as familiar to me as my own home. Or rather as the seat of my ancestors, for no one in their right mind would regard that sad and mouldering old pile, Coombe Magna, as a home.

It had been very far from welcoming, even when my mother was alive. My “saintly mother” as my sire would invariably refer to her, and with the same inflection, both before and after her passing. I never asked him why. Speaking to him was something I have always been as eager to avoid as spending too many nights under his roof. Just about anybody’s company was preferable. But this is neither here nor there. As a rule, I never ponder on Coombe Magna, my boyhood, my departed mother, or the late John Oglivie Willoughby. At this point in time, I could not give a damn at all, and likewise for philosophising. What I seek—nay, demand—is a direct answer to a simple question: Is it true, the report?

My opportunity to demand the answer comes sooner than expected. I imagined I would find her in the morning room or still at breakfast. Finding her reclining on a chaise longue, in her bedchamber, has me speechless. This vexes me quite as much as her languorous pose, doubtlessly assumed for the occasion, for she could not claim that my tempestuous entrance had surprised her from her rest; the din I caused to gain admittance could have roused the dead.

She rearranges the lace of her dressing gown with slow deliberation, which cannot fail to provoke me all the more, as does the casual greeting, delivered without looking up.

“John. This is a surprise.”

“Is it? Did you not imagine I would come as soon as Lady Susan told me of your engagement?”

“Ah,” she says. Just that and nothing more.

And then, she does raise her head and look at me. I blink, staggered to discover my anger mellowing and melting. Struth! Is that all it takes? A mere glance to tame me? Love’s fool, Captain Tilney called me not long ago, and I grinned and shrugged, dismissing it as envy. Perhaps the man had the right of it after all. Love’s fool. Perhaps I am.

Still tongue-tied, I simply stand there, watching her, and she holds my gaze without blinking. And also without guile. There is none, and no shifty dissimulation either, in those hazel eyes. No change. No artifice. The report is false. It must be.

I find myself on one knee beside her. How did I get there? I could not care less. The question I stormed in here to demand an answer to comes out in a whisper:

“It is a falsehood, Isobel, is it not?”

She runs her fingers through my hair and smiles like a cat.

“Oh, John! My tempestuous, dear boy.”

The caress irritates me—I never was one for having my hair stroked—and the tone and appellation vexes me even more. Her dear boy! There was I thinking I was nobody’s “boy” but my own man, even before the late Willoughby’s passing. And she can drop the matronly act, too. She is not that much older. Six years, seven maybe. I never asked, of course. What gentleman would, and what did it matter?

What mattered now was her reply. I toss my head back, away from the caress, and press my point.

“Is it a falsehood?”

“Of course not. When has Lady Susan ever spoken an untruth?”

Her misplaced archness revives my forgotten fury. She jests. My world has just collapsed around me—and she jests!

I know not what I am about to say, too many words are fighting to come out at once, and before any of them do, she speaks, and her countenance sobers.

“Yes, John, I am to marry Camborne. He asked and I accepted.”

“Why?”

She shrugs.

“Why not? His title and estate have much to recommend him. He is worth well-nigh thirty a year, I am told.”

“He is a dithering, old fool in his late forties.”

She laughs again.

“Oh, for the charm of youth that finds late forties old! What would you say if I told you the marquess is, in fact, nearing his sixtieth autumn?”

“Oh, plenty!” I snap back. “To begin with, I would ask you to cease speaking of my charming youth with the vexing condescension of a matron. And then I would ask if you had lost your mind. Sixty? Good Lord in Heaven! Did you not say that you loathed your first marriage of convenience? What madness would prompt you to enter into a second one?”

“I loathed Heston and my marriage to him because he was a miserly, little man, and I should have known better than to accept him simply to please my father. This time, I only seek to please myself. Frankly, I think I did rather well. Camborne is liberal, wealthy, and oh-so-easily guided. As for his age, if anything, I find it highly recommends him. The settlement is exceedingly handsome.

Incomparably better than Heston’s pitiful provisions. The little that Heston left is nearly gone already. Camborne’s settlement is a wholly different matter. I think I shall enjoy being the dowager marchioness rather well…”

I stare aghast as she calmly speaks of a better-placed second widowhood before she has even wed her second husband. Who is this cold and calculated harpy? I knew she had resented her first husband and blamed her first marriage on her youthful inexperience and her parents’ persuasion. But to sell herself thus for the second time to a higher bidder–and what for?

Granted, one cannot live on air. I know that all too well. My late sire left behind a dark, old pile, staggering debts, and very little else. Yet, I would not contemplate selling my favours like a common trollop or else I would have offered for the waspish and insipid Miss Grey a twelvemonth ago! The very thought that Isobel is more than contemplating it—that she has already consented to sell herself to Camborne after all we shared—sends my blood boiling.

“But what about the interim?” I ask with a cold sneer. “How will you enjoy taking him to your bed, until he obliges you by dying?”

To my utter shock her bare arms wind around my neck, and she kisses me. Not one kiss but a dozen, breathless and burning. She draws me to her, lies back on the chaise longue, and I follow. I ask no further questions—who the devil would feel inclined to talk just now? Of anything at all, much less Camborne?

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Biography

JOANA STARNES lives in the south of England with her family. Over the years, she has swapped several hats—physician, lecturer, clinical data analyst—but feels most comfortable in a bonnet. She has been living in Georgian England for decades in her imagination and plans to continue in that vein till she lays hands on a time machine. She is one of the contributors to The Darcy Monologues anthology, and the author of seven Austen-inspired novels: From This Day Forward—The Darcys of Pemberley, The Subsequent Proposal, The Second Chance, The Falmouth Connection, The Unthinkable Triangle, Miss Darcy’s Companion and Mr Bennet’s Dutiful Daughter. You can connect with Joana through her website www.joanastarnes.co.uk and on Facebook via her timeline and her author page, All Roads Lead to Pemberley.

Giveway Time!

There are two amazing prizes up for grabs so its well worth entering. Enter the giveaway for Grand Prize 1 by using the rafflecopter, and enter to win Grand Prize 2 by commenting on the blog tour stops. A list of stops is at the bottom of this post so follow the tour and comment to increase your chances of winning.

Grand Prize #1.

Enter Rafflecopter to win fifteen books from the anthology authors! One winner. Fifteen books! Contest ends midnight, December 30, 2017. One “Grand Prize #1 winner” will be announced January 2, 2018.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Grand Prize #2.

Follow our “Dangerous to Know: Jane Austen’s #RakesAndGentlemenRogues” Blog Tour and comment on each stop to be eligible for #RakesAndGentlemenRogues Pleasures prize pack:

• ‘Pride & Prejudice’ Print, autographed by Colin Firth & Jennifer Ehle; 
• Bingley’s Teas (Willoughby & The Colonel);
• Jane Austen playing cards; 
• set of 6 Austen postcards; and 
• ‘The Compleat Housewife’ notecards set. 

(All guest comments will be entered in drawing to win. Comment at each site to increase your odds.) Contest ends midnight, December 30, 2017. One “Grand Prize #2 winner” will be announced January 2, 2018.

Blog Tour Schedule:

THE #RakesAndGentlemenRogues BLOG TOUR

💗Monday, November 6: REVIEW: Margie's Must Reads

💗Thursday, November 9: REVIEW, Obsessed with Mr. Darcy 

💗Monday, November 13: REVIEW, Austenesque Reviews

💗Tuesday, November 14: REVIEW, Olga of ROSIE AMBER team

💗Wednesday, November 15: (release day) REVIEW, Just Jane1813

💗Thursday, November 16: REVIEW, Diary of an Eccentric  

🎩Monday, November 20: FEATURE w/Katie Oliver (George Wickham), From Pemberley to Milton

🎩Wednesday, November 22: FEATURE w/Joana Starnes (Willoughby), Babblings of a Bookworm

🎩Friday, November 24: FEATURE w/Sophia Rose, (General Tilney), Herding Cats & Burning Soup

🎩Monday, November 27: FEATURE w/Amy D'Orazio (Captain Tilney), My Jane Austen Book Club

🎩Wednesday, November 29: FEATURE w/Brooke West (Henry Crawford), VVB32 Reads

🎩Thursday, November 30: FEATURE w/Lona Manning (Tom Bertram), Lit 4 Ladies

💗Friday, December 1: REVIEW, Lit 4 Ladies

🎩Monday, December 4: FEATURE w/Beau North  (Colonel Fitzwilliam), Obsessed with Mr. Darcy

🎩Thursday, December 7: FEATURE w/J. Marie Croft (John Thorpe), Harry Rodell blog/ROSIE AMBER team

💗Friday, December 8: REVIEW, From Pemberley to Milton 

🎩Monday, December 11: FEATURE w/Jenetta James Hannah McSorley (William Elliot), Austenesque Reviews 

🎩Thursday, December 14: FEATURE w/Karen M Cox (Frank Churchill), Darcyholic Diversions

🎩Monday, December 17: FEATURE w/Christina Morland (Sir Walter Elliot), Of Pens & Pages