The Crimes of Elizabeth Darcy by Sophie Turner - Guest Post and Giveaway

Today I’m happy to be welcoming Sophie Turner back to the blog with what sounds like a potentially very angsty new book, The Crimes of Elizabeth Darcy, which is already getting some great reviews. Sophie has brought us a guest post and giveaway. Let me share the book blurb and then hand over to Sophie for her guest post. 

Book Description

After a tragic accident, Fitzwilliam Darcy is left for dead. His grief-stricken wife vows to do what is best for their children, including an ill-advised second marriage in the peerage.

Years later, Will Trevills leaves his happy life in Cornwall to discover the truth about his past. Thrust into a strange world after life as a fisherman, he gains a family he cannot recall. Lady Neston becomes Mrs. Darcy once more, and is grateful for her escape. But her husband questions his purpose as a gentleman, and cannot remember the love they shared.

Charged with bigamy, she may face the ultimate punishment, while the family she sought to protect has never been in greater peril.

Part thriller, part romance, and part courtroom drama, this Elizabeth and Darcy story is a long, absorbing read.

Readers should be aware that this story contains scenes of rape and sexual assault as well as a depiction of an abusive marriage and more general physical violence.

Guest Post from Sophie Turner

Thank you so much for having me to visit, Ceri! It’s great to be back here at Babblings of a Bookworm.

I think we all have our favourite tropes in the JAFF world, and one of mine happens to be amnesia. With the rocky path Elizabeth and Darcy have to their HEA, giving one of them memory loss at any point along that path makes for an interesting story, and I’ve read some very enjoyable ones. That misbalance of one person being able to remember more than the other and struggling through that situation, the inevitable falling in love again by the one who has lost their memory, that wait for the hammer drop of the return of the amnesiac’s memory — it can make for a great story, which is why it’s such a good trope.

The Crimes of Elizabeth Darcy did not start out as an amnesia story, though — instead it was a byproduct of my core idea. That was what would happen if a married Mr. Darcy went missing for a long period of time, long enough to return and find his wife had remarried.

Small problem with that, of course. Unless he was held captive somewhere, I couldn’t think of any other means of keeping Darcy away from a wife (and child) he would have desperately wanted to return home to. So in order for it to work, he would have to be unable to remember that he had a wife and child — enter the amnesia plot!

That Darcy cannot remember who he is or that he has a family was necessary to move the rest of my admittedly bonkers plot forward. But I was intrigued by the idea of adding another aspect to the story, and it ended up being one of my favorite elements — to have Darcy be in some way raised by fishermen. He is found by a fisherman and nursed back to health by that fisherman and his wife:

She smiled. “I’m Eseld. T’was Jory who brought you in – me husband. Jory Trevills.”

Ah, yes. The kind man and the kind woman were married. Mr. and Mrs. Trevills. This made sense. She was not supposed to introduce herself to him, but he supposed in the present circumstances there was nothing else they could do. “I am – I am – ”

An overwhelming sense of panic overcame him; it was as though he had reached for something on a shelf fully expecting it to be there, and it was not. That thing was his name. The panic surged still further as he realised that was not the only empty shelf. He tried to rise and the panic mingled with pain.

I used the idea of the shelves as a way to describe what had happened to Darcy’s memory, and his shelves remain empty as he spends years living a quiet life as “Will Trevills” with Jory and Eseld in Mousehole, a fishing village in Cornwall. Afraid that the means by which he was found — floating in a skiff off the coast with a head injury — means he was involved in smuggling, he does not make any attempt to learn more about his identity until an encounter at an inn makes him realise he knows things about the world of the upper class, things that a fisherman or a smuggler would not know.

Mousehole, Cornwall

This sets him on a path to London and ultimately a reunion with his wife, who is freed from a terrible marriage by his return. Of course it would not be an amnesia story without Darcy once again falling in love with Elizabeth, but because he has been living as a fisherman for years, there is an added element of his feeling highly uncomfortable in the life he used to be overly proud of. Although Jane Austen is sparing in her mention of food, I always like to include more references to it in my work to help set the scene for readers, and foodways play a key part in showing Darcy’s discomfort in the world he has returned to. He’s grown accustomed to simple dinners featuring fish and foraged ingredients, to weak tea that has already been used by the people he thinks of as the quality, and to pints of ale in the taproom of the local inn:

As he descended, he heard what sounded like the tap-room. That space held tremendous appeal to him: he longed to be amongst the sort of people who would be within, drinking a tankard of ale. It would have been more appealing if Jory had accompanied him, but even some little portion of the life Will had known would suffice. He was about to go in when the proprietor approached, laughing as he said, “That is the tap-room, Mr. Darcy – you must have lost your way – I know it’s been some time since you’ve been here. Now what may I get for you?”

Will tried to keep his sigh from being visible. “I’d like some ale in my private parlour.”

“Ale? Yes – ale – well – I’ll bring you up our finest, to be sure. I’ll have it right up to ye.”

It’s Elizabeth’s ability to empathise with his discomfort just as he empathises with how she suffered during his absence that forms the foundation of their love story. And it is a mutual love story, for in some ways “Will” is a different man, and she must learn to love him again as well.

There is much to this story, including a courtroom drama and many elements of suspense, but at its heart there are two people who have been torn apart learning to love each other again so that they can weather everything else I throw at them.

Who falls back in love first? Does Darcy ever get his memory back? You’ll have to read The Crimes of Elizabeth Darcy to find out.

But for now I’m curious — what do you think of the amnesia trope? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Author Bio 

Sophie C. Turner worked as an online editor before delving even more fully into the tech world. Writing, researching the Regency era, and occasionally dreaming about living in Britain are her escapes from her day job.

She was afraid of long series until she ventured upon Patrick O’Brian’s 20-book Aubrey-Maturin masterpiece, something she might have repeated five times through.

Alas, her Constant Love series is only planned to be seven – or possibly eight – books right now, and consists of A Constant Love, A Change of Legacies, A Season Lost, and A Generation’s Secrets. The tentatively titled fifth book, A Dangerous Connection, is likely to be out in 2024 or 2025, if it comes out as long as its predecessor. She is also the author of Mistress: A Pride and Prejudice Variation, with Parts Not Suitable for Those Who Have Not ReachedTheir Majority and Less Proud and More Persuasive.

Sophie blogs about her writing endeavours at sophie-turner-acl.blogspot.com, where readers can find direction for the various social drawing-rooms across the Internet where she may be called upon.

Buy Links

The Crimes of Elizabeth Darcy is available to buy now in Paperback, Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

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

Giveaway Time

Sophie Turner is very kindly offering an international giveaway of The Crimes of Elizabeth Darcy in either kindle or paperback. 

To enter, please leave a comment on this blog post by the end of the day worldwide on Sunday 2 July 2023. If you have any problems adding your comment please contact me and I will add your comment for you :)

* * *

If you don’t want to miss any of my future posts, please subscribe

Subscribe to Babblings of a Bookworm 

If you'd like to be friends on Goodreads then please invite me - just say that you visit my blog when it asks why you'd like to be friends with me.