Silver Buckles by Grace Gibson - Blog Tour - Guest Post and Giveaway

Today I’m happy to be welcoming a new author to Babblings of a Bookworm from Meryton Press. Grace Gibson has joined us with a guest post as part of the blog tour for her Pride & Prejudice variation book Silver Buckles. Let’s look at the blurb and then I will hand over to Grace for her post.

Book Description

She staggered a great man. He was reeling. She was overwhelmed. 

Fitzwilliam Darcy, standing irritably at the edge of the Meryton assembly, declines to dance with Elizabeth Bennet. In a mood of revulsion, he rejects her without concern of being overheard. Country pretensions are always in need of squashing, and what better way to make clear he would not partner anyone outside his party? However, when he looks over at her, she does not appear humbled at all. She is secretly laughing at him!

Elizabeth is perversely delighted to encounter such an outrageous snob as Mr. Darcy. When he approaches her with a stiff, graceless apology, she coolly brushes him off, believing that, like most annoyances, he will go away when properly snubbed. But no! The man then puts out his hand and, not wishing to create a scene, compels her to stand up with him.

They go through the steps of the dance mutually disdainful and intent upon wounding each other. But by the time the musicians end their tune, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy have traded barbs with such accuracy, they are unaccountably amused and engaged. Will this most inconvenient flirtation drive them apart—or, like silver buckles, are they a matched pair?

Guest Post from Grace Gibson

I’d begun to write Pride and Prejudice variations for my own amusement when I discovered, through reading hundreds of variations, that Jane Austen’s characters had come alive to me. Darcy and Elizabeth were living personalities that began to have a life of their own in my imagination. I then began to explore myself through my relationship with—of all people— Jane Austen’s immortal characters. Ah well, some might say, what better place to start?

Silver Buckles is first and foremost, a humorous, low-angst retelling of Jane Austen’s beloved Pride and Prejudice, but I also love to observe and sometimes write about the complexities of personality. In this variation, Elizabeth Bennet is the sparkling, intelligent young woman we’ve all come to know, but as the story unfolds, she begins to show us a little of the insecurity that lurks beneath her confident, saucy demeanor.

The overarching insecurity of simply being a female in Jane Austen’s time is canvassed beautifully by so many authors of historical fiction. In my story, Elizabeth grapples with this too, as in her reflections after a most dissatisfying evening at Mr. Bingley’s ball.

I did not read, for I was not inclined to do so. I fussed the fringe on my shawl and thought of Charlotte and Jane and the dark truth of being a woman. We have no power. We have no safety to call our own unless we are independently wealthy and living in seclusion. We are kept like objects, and we must be careful—exceedingly careful—to find a man who treats his possessions well.

My mood darkened, my posture slouched, and the edges of my shawl turned into tangles. Then who should happen to appear abruptly in the doorway to see me this way but Mr. Darcy!

Elizabeth also reveals some of her deeper vulnerabilities in her attentions to her middle sister Mary.

Not only had I helped Mary with her playing, I also cut my sister’s hair and put it in a more flattering style, and when we visited friends, I brought her forward and included her in conversation. I somehow convinced her that looking into the mythology of the Greeks would complement her Christian education, and we read of Mythos and Pathos, of the kings of Ithaca and Athens, and of Poseidon and Apollo. I sat patiently as I listened to her assessments of their moral failures and lightly pointed out the lessons we could take away from these tales in a more practical, less critical light.

The lesson I learned was this: attention will do what lectures will not, and while my youngest sisters remained giddy and empty-headed, my middle sister I salvaged from the dung heap. Let Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst see us now, and they would have to amend their impression to say the three eldest Bennet girls, at least, were presentable.

That I continued to let the opinions of our elegant visitors of last fall goad me in my private thoughts was a nuisance I could not seem to conquer.

As this story unfolded, I was quite amazed to see that the only obstacle Elizabeth ever faced was that of her own insecurity! She did, in the end, transcend the limitations in her deep psyche and in doing so, she found an entirely new life. What is possible if we aren’t hampered by our unspoken vulnerabilities?

If Elizabeth’s little spell on the analyst’s couch is interesting to you, I will reveal a little more about her insecurity and her heroine’s journey to see her way out of it, tomorrow on my next stop, Interests of a Jane Austen Girl. I hope you’ll join me there.

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Author Bio - Grace Gibson

In addition to mosaic art, which Grace creates at Studio Luminaria, her home-based glass shop in El Paso, Texas, she enjoys writing regency romance and Pride and Prejudice variations. You can contact Grace on Facebook.

Buy Links

Silver Buckles is available to buy now for Kindle and in Kindle Unlimited.  

• Amazon US • Amazon UK • Amazon CA • Add to Goodreads shelf

Giveaway Time!

 Meryton Press is giving away 8 ebooks of Silver Buckles by Grace Gibson! To enter, please use the rafflecopter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Note about comments: If you have any problems adding your comment please contact me and I will add your comment for you :)

Silver Buckles Blog Tour Schedule

16 Oct Austenprose

19 Oct Babblings of a Bookworm

20 Oct Interests of a Jane Austen Girl

22 Oct Diary of an Eccentric

23 Oct Austenesque Reviews

24 Oct Donadee’s Corner

26 Oct From Pemberley to Milton

27 Oct My Vices and Weaknesses

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