Loving Miss Tilney by Heather Moll - Excerpt and Giveaway

Today Heather Moll is dropping by with an excerpt from her new Austenesque novel. I am always especially pleased when an Austenesque book isn’t Pride & Prejudice-inspired, as although that’s my favourite Austen book, most JAFF is based on P&P so it makes a nice change to have one that comes from another story. As you may well have guessed from the title, Loving Miss Tilney has its roots in Northanger Abbey.

I’ve been lucky enough to read this book already, and I’ll share my review with you in the next few days.

Let’s look at the blurb and then I’ll hand over to Heather Moll for an excerpt of the book. Heather has also brought a worldwide giveaway with her!

Book Description

She’s forbidden to wed a nobody. He’s nothing in society’s eyes. Will their desperate schemes backfire before they find a way to be together?

Northanger Abbey. Eleanor Tilney can’t bear her lonely life any longer. Distraught when her tyrannical father throws her friend out of the house because the girl lacks an inheritance, the long-suffering general’s daughter decides anything is better than a future all alone. So in a frantic bid for freedom, she puts aside her tender feelings for a man of no standing to pursue a wealthy husband.

Philip Brampton understands that fortune is against him. And he tries gallantly to bury his distress and support his lonely beloved, even after she starts pursuing an arrogant buffoon. But when he catches the fellow about to kiss her, their resulting harsh words cause a heartbreaking rift.

Stiffening her spine in a world that refuses to acknowledge her value, Eleanor attempts to navigate the impossible situation without quashing her desires. And though his shy nature abhors a scene, Philip braces himself for a confrontation with her cruel and abusive patriarch.

Do these childhood sweethearts have any hope of achieving lasting happiness?

Excerpt from Loving Miss Tilney, Introduced by Heather Moll

Thank you for welcoming me back to Babblings of a Bookworm! I’m here with an excerpt from my Austen variation Loving Miss Tilney, all about how Eleanor Tilney gets the happy ever after she deserves. This scene takes place after General Tilney has thrown out Catherine Morland and banished Eleanor’s brother Henry. Eleanor is desperate to escape her controlling father and she’s talking to her friend Alice about how she had hoped to live with Henry and Catherine after they married. Since Henry isn’t allowed be to marry Catherine, Eleanor’s one hope of leaving Northanger Abbey is ruined.

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Her father would never value her as mistress of his board, never allow her to fully direct his household; and she would always be subject to his morose, tyrannical temper. Living with Henry and Catherine was now out of the question, and she was certain that she would not like to live with whatever woman her eldest brother Frederick eventually chose. What hope for her happiness could she have now?

“I shall have to marry.”

“Of course you do, we all do, but I, for one, intend to put it off for as long as possible,” Alice said, laughing. “I would have to give up writing to take care of a husband’s house and children. Now, be serious; what can you mean by wanting to marry?”

“It is the only way to be free of my father,” she said firmly.

“You must be joking.”

“Do you not see? The only contentment I ever have is the satisfaction of acting right by my father according to the best of my abilities. I am so weary of it, Alice!” she cried. “All endeavours to please are ineffectual, and my father seems determined to find fault with everything I do. It requires a more than common degree of patience and resolution to forbear, and I cannot do it any longer.”

She could not seek as much individual enjoyment if she had a husband, but what happiness did she even have now in her father’s house? Finding a husband was the only way forward.

“But when I am married,” Eleanor continued, “as a wife I could command respect. A husband would be more obliged to invest some power in his wife, much more so than a father to his daughter.”

“And I suppose any gentleman with enough money for your father will do?”

Eleanor nodded. “Sullenness, I could cope with. Obstinance, I could perhaps manage well. Dullness, peevishness, even infidelity I could cope with so long as I had the freedom of a married woman, and my husband’s respect.” It was not the union she had imagined for herself, but she must sacrifice those girlish hopes to escape Northanger and grasp what little independence she could have. “So long as he is not a fool or a rake, or has a temper like my father’s, I will do what I must to marry the first eligible man I see.”

“You are in earnest? Eleanor, no!” Alice cried. “What about Mr Brampton?”

The mention of Philip’s name brought fresh to her heart the most excruciating and intolerable pang. “He is a friend, and friend enough that he would be happy to see me removed from Northanger.”

Alice gave her a disbelieving stare, and Eleanor looked away in silence, her heart beating fast.

“Mr Brampton is merely the son of your mother’s cousin, then?” Alice’s voice raised sceptically. “A childhood friend, the intimate of Mr Henry Tilney’s? That is all he is to you?”

She could hardly say that he could be everything to her if only he had the courage to speak and if her father would ever agree. If General Tilney disdained Catherine Morland, he would never consider Philip. Philip Brampton had connexions her father could value, but not near to the fortune.

Whatever our feelings are for one another, Philip has enough pride not to ask when he knows the general would never consent to our union.

Eleanor, endeavouring to collect herself and speak with firmness, went on. “Mr Brampton and I are connected by the bonds of common friendship, no more, and he knows what I suffer at Northanger. Mr Brampton would, of course, wish a happy union for me—”

“With himself!”

“With a gentleman my father approved of and whom I respected.”

“He might say that, but he won’t feel it in his heart.” Alice gave her a long look. “How can you marry a man you don’t love?”

She felt a calm resolve settle over her. “I am not interested in captivating a man’s heart. There are men who need wives with fortunes, with good connexions, a wife to keep his house and tend to his children, a wife who requires nothing more than respect and the authority due to any married woman.”

“You might be made so unhappy if you choose poorly.”

Eleanor gave her a sad smile. “How happy do you think I am now? My happiness will come from my freedom from Northanger. It will arise from sharing the peace of a husband who is made happier by my presence in his house.”

Alice was now standing over her with her arms crossed over her chest. Alice had parents who, while comparatively absent, treated her kindly. She could never understand the constant anxiety of living under someone who ruled absolutely, of whom you could never be certain if you were to be shouted at or ignored for days.

* * *

Life’s not great at Northanger, and now Eleanor is going to do something about it. But will it work out the way she planned when her childhood love Philip shows up at the same house party where she’s determined to find a husband her father will approve of?

Author Bio

Heather Moll writes romantic variations of Jane Austen's classic novels. She is an avid reader of mysteries and biographies with a masters in information science. She found Jane Austen later than she should have and made up for lost time by devouring her letters and unpublished works, joining JASNA, and spending too much time researching the Regency era. She is the author of An Appearance of Goodness, An Affectionate Heart, Nine Ladies, and Loving Miss Tilney. She lives with her husband and son, and struggles to balance all the important things, like whether to clean the house or sit down and write. 

Social Links

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Buy Links

Loving Miss Tilney is available to buy now in Paperback, Kindle and Kindle Unlimited. It’s also available in audio, narrated by Stevie Zimmerman.

• Universal Buy Link• Add to Goodreads shelf

Giveaway Time

Heather Moll is offering a worldwide giveaway to accompany the blog tour for Loving Miss Tilney.

The winner can receive a signed paperback copy of Loving Miss Tilney and Mrs. Tilney's Pearls and Northanger soap from Northanger Soapworks.

To enter, please use the rafflecopter. The giveaway is open from 1 August to 12am EST on 12 August 2023 and is open worldwide.

One winner will be chosen at random and notified via email on 12 August 2023. The winner has 24 hours to reply and claim their prize or another winner will be drawn. 

Entrants must leave a comment on the blog, tweet about the blog post, or subscribe to Heather Moll's newsletter to enter. Entrants can leave a comment at every blog and tweet once a day.

Rafflecopter

Note about comments:  Unfortunately, due to spam comments I've had to turn on comment moderation, so I will approve your comment as soon as possible. 

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

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