Cover Reveal - Angel of the Centerfold by Michaela Robertson

Today I have a cover to share with you. This is the cover of a new book which is due to be published by Meryton Press on 1 October, 'Angel of the Centerfold' by Michaela Robertson. Drumroll please....

Sketching Mr Darcy by Lory Lilian - Review and Giveaway

Today I am joined by author Lory Lilian who is offering to give away an ebook of her latest book ‘Sketching Mr Darcy’ to TWO lucky readers here.  I will hand you over to Lory, and then you can see what I thought of the book.

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"Sketching Mr. Darcy" is different from my other books because it is the first one that takes a big step away from the original – it moves from the day after the Netherfield Ball into a forced marriage scenario.

For some reason, all the time as I wrote this story, I had in mind Elizabeth and Darcy’s dance at Netherfield: a battle of wills, with two powerful characters trying to stay strong in a situation which they could not control entirely, struggling to discover the person next door – literally next door, as they slept in separate rooms smile emoticon – and to deal with their own feelings. In a certain way, the entire story is a dance – whose steps none of the characters knew well enough - lasting two weeks and almost 400 pages!

Hope you will enjoy following it to see how the dance ends – and I am sure Ceri’s review will be an excellent guidance through it!

Thanks everyone and good luck with the giveaway!

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Winner of 'Yours Forevermore, Darcy'

Hello everybody. I am so sorry for taking a while to post the winner of the giveaway of the ebook copy of 'Yours Forevermore, Darcy' by KaraLynne Mackrory. The winner was randomly selected a few days ago, and she is....

Dung Vu!

Congratulations, Dung Vu, I will be in touch.

Many thanks to KaraLynne for her guest post, to Meryton Press for providing me with an e-ARC of the book to review and sponsoring the giveaway, and to the lovely Jakki of Leatherbound Reviews who arranged the blog tour.

Though the blog tour has now finished some of the giveaways may still be open, and a full list of them is at the bottom of this post.

If you'd like buy a copy it's available to purchase now:

ISBN: 978-1-68131-000-8 

Buy links: • Amazon US • Amazon UK • 

Author Bio:

KaraLynne is an amazing mother who never makes mistakes, never gets upset with her children and never ever has a dirty house. Ever. She always has her dishes done and the floors spotless and dinner is always prepared and ready on time. Her kids are always clean, polite, respectful and loving, especially to each other. She never gets irritated with her husband when he doesn’t turn his socks right side out for the laundry and they always agree on everything. She delights in nothing else but to serve her family and never wants or needs time for herself. She takes great care to shower every day and put make up on so that she is always beautiful and presentable. She never wears her pajamas all day or for days in a row and she is the epitome of womanhood. Most of all, she has a great sense of humor and loves to write.

Okay, in all honesty –  KaraLynne Mackrory is no newbie to the writing world.  She made her debut as an author at the tender age of 13 when she wrote her first set of bad poetry. Angsty and emotional – teenage-drama filled – they were unbelievable disasters.  Such contributions to the literary world were deemed so terrible that today they are kept behind lock and key to protect others from their awfulness.  As a young adult she steered clear of soap opera drama inspired works and achieved a degree in Social Work.  It was not until her late twenties that she returned to her roots in writing.  Since then she has published three Austen inspired novels so full of romantic sensibilities as to give you a toothache and a grin and hopefully a few contented sighs.  She is thrilled to report that Falling For Mr. Darcy, Bluebells in the Mourning and Haunting Mr. Darcy: A Spirited Courtship are a mite better than the bad poetry.

Connect with the Author: • Blog • Facebook • Twitter • Pinterest • Goodreads •

Blog Tour Schedule:

7 Sep: Guest Post & Giveaway at My Jane Austen Book Club

8 Sep: Review at Babblings of a Bookworm

9 Sep: Excerpt & Giveaway at Laughing with Lizzie

10 Sep: Review at Half Agony, Half Hope

11 Sep: Guest Post & Giveaway at Babblings of a Bookworm

12 Sep: Review at My Kids Led Me Back to Pride and Prejudice

13 Sep: Excerpt & Giveaway at My Love for Jane Austen

14 Sep: Guest Post & Giveaway at More Agreeably Engaged

15 Sep: Review at Wings of Paper

16 Sep: Review at Margie’s Must Reads

17 Sep: Guest Post & Giveaway at Songs and Stories

18 Sep: Guest Post & Giveaway at So Little Time…

19 Sep: Excerpt & Giveaway at Best Sellers and Best Stellars

21 Sep: Review at Austenprose

Blog Tour - Yours Forevermore Darcy - Guest Post and Giveaway

Today the 'Yours Forevermore, Darcy' stops by with a guest post from KaraLynne Mackrory. She has a guest post for us, and there's an opportunity for one of you to win an ebook copy of the book. I'll pass over to KaraLynne for some insight into how this book came into being

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Review of Yours Forevermore, Darcy by KaraLynne Mackrory

Today the blog tour for 'Yours Forevermore, Darcy' stops here with my review of the book. Read on to see what I thought of KaraLynne Mackrory's latest release.

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Having thoroughly enjoyed KaraLynne Mackrory’s last couple of books (‘Haunting Mr Darcy’ and ‘Bluebells in the Mourning’) I was all anticipation for her latest ‘Pride & Prejudice’ variation, ‘Yours Forevermore, Darcy’. The premise of this book is that Mr Darcy has taken to writing letters to Elizabeth Bennet, to clear his mind and get things off his chest. He began the day after the Assembly in Meryton, and continued for some months. Obviously, he writes them with the intention that not a single soul will ever read them. But what if somebody did?

Planned Reading for September 2015

Hello everybody, and happy September! How is it September already?! Where is the time going? I have to say though, I love September. I am not a big fan of summer usually, and if you've seen my colouring you will understand why, so most years the autumn comes as a bit of a relief, though this year the summer in the UK has been pretty non-existent. The autumn always makes me think of that line from 'You've Got Mail' because I, too, always feel the urge to buy stationery. Here is a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils for you :)

You may be wondering how my August catch-up went. Well I will tell you; not very well! I worked less days each week so I could spend time with my children during their school holidays but this didn't allow any more reading time. I hope to continue my catch up this month, or more accurately, begin it :) So what else do I have planned?

Winner of Mr Darcy to the Rescue by Victoria Kincaid

Last week I welcomed Victoria Kincaid to the blog with an excerpt from her new book, 'Mr Darcy to the Rescue', where Elizabeth has become betrothed to Mr Collins to ensure the future of her family after Mr Bennet's health seems precarious (shudder!). Victoria kindly answered some of my questions too, and you can see the post here if you missed it.

So without further ado, let's announce the winner of an e-book of 'Mr Darcy to the Rescue'.

The winner is....

Excerpt and Giveaway of Mr Darcy to the Rescue by Victoria Kincaid

Today I am welcoming author Victoria Kincaid to the blog. Victoria has written three ‘Pride & Prejudice’ variations: ‘The Secrets of Darcy & Elizabeth’ which sees our couple first meet after their painful encounter in Hunsford Parsonage in Napoleonic France; ‘Pride & Proposals’, where Colonel Fitzwilliam is quicker than his cousin to propose, and gets accepted by Elizabeth; and Victoria’s new book, ‘Mr Darcy to the Rescue’ where Elizabeth accepts Mr Collins’ proposal (ewwwww!) in order to provide a home for her family, as Mr Bennet is ill and Mr Darcy has the dilemma of how to save somebody who doesn’t want to be saved.

Victoria has kindly offered to answer some of my nosey questions, and she’s offering an international giveaway of a paperback or an ebook of ‘Mr Darcy to the Rescue’ to a commenter here. So let’s get on with the questions!

Giveaway Winners - Jane by the Sea and Poldark Blog Tour

I am very happy to be announcing some giveaway winners. Recently author Carolyn V Murray was kind enough to offer two ebook copies of her novel 'Jane by the Sea'. This is an imagining of Austen's seaside romance around the year 1800. You can read more about it on the giveaway post, where Carolyn shared an excerpt with us, and you can see my review of it here.  So without further ado, the winners are...

Jane by the Sea by Carolyn V Murray

Jane Austen is possibly the world’s best known romantic novelist (not that I would call her a romantic novelist, but that label is often applied to her). We know that she didn’t marry but that she did have some brushes with romance herself. There was an attraction towards Tom Lefroy, who was the nephew of Jane’s close friend and neighbour, Madame Lefroy which came to nothing after his family intervened, wanting him to marry higher.  There was a seaside romance that again came to nothing. I have read such different accounts of this as to puzzle me exceedingly :) The gentleman in question is either said to be a sea captain, or a Reverend Blackall, and the reason for the romance not ending in marriage differs too.  A couple of years later there was a marriage proposal from a family friend that Austen accepted and then drew back from, presumably because she didn’t love the gentleman. Marrying only for love was a big theme of Austen’s novels, and so it seems safe to assume that it was something she personally believed.

Unfortunately, many of the letters and other documents that Jane Austen wrote were destroyed by her sister Cassandra. However, if you read what are remaining of Jane Austen’s letters you get a sense of her quick wit and mischievous, acerbic sense of humour (think Elizabeth Bennet’s humour, but with more of a bite to it!). This story is loosely based on the seaside romance that Jane Austen is said to have had around 1800, before she moved to Bath, where her writing ceased for some years. Some of the details are changed from what I had read previously of that seaside romance, which surprised me a little when I realised it, but the flip side of the changes was that I had less idea of where the story was going. I learned afterwards that there appears to be more than one interpretation of the truth of it and I am not sure whether the real truth of the episode has been established.

We first meet with Jane here in the heyday of her romance with Tom Lefroy. I always feel a little melancholy when reading books based on Austen’s life as we know where they are headed, so you know straight away that this romance is doomed and I just had to wait for the hammer to fall. I thought the author did a nice job of capturing her wit and cheekiness, though I wonder if Austen was ever as naive as she seems here. Although a romantic, I think Jane Austen was also a realist, and such a keen observer that she would have known very well how the world of marriage worked at the age of 21. So although she might have hoped for a different outcome I don’t think she would have been as surprised by it as is shown here. When themes like this are discussed in Austen’s novels the only character who seems surprised by the general customs around marriage appears to be the über-romantic Marianne Dashwood, and I got the impression when I read that story that Austen wasn’t that sympathetic towards her, though of course that could have been just the bitterness of looking back. Once Jane has gone through this, and other, painful experiences, she resolves to learn from them, and not to be hurt again.

‘If only it had been explained to me from an early age... my lack of value in the marriage economy. Then I should be quite reconciled by now to a long, unending, solitary future.’

But then she goes to the seaside, where there is both a clergyman and a seaman, and she will find her resolve tested...

I very much enjoyed this book. I have my doubts whether Austen’s speech was so shocking in real life, though I am confident she was capable of thinking every one of the cheeky thoughts attributed to her here! One thing that I found particularly enjoyable in this book was spotting the inspiration for many of the characters and situations that found their way into her books (all of which were yet to be published at this time of her life). There is a clear Mr Collins, lines from her books, a situation reminiscent of Louisa Musgrove’s behaviour on the Cobb at Lyme and so on.

“And do these compliments spring from the moment?” I inquired. “Or are they the work of previous rehearsal?”

Jane is working on more than one book during this novel, and we see her passing on the lessons she has learned to her characters Elinor, Marianne, Elizabeth and Jane. The melodrama of the situations she puts them in are more in the line of her juvenilia than the finished articles, but it’s worth bearing in mind that they were a decade off being fully polished.

The language usage in this book was pretty good on the whole, although there were some American and modern words that I noticed, but I am particularly distractable by such things so other readers might not notice them too much.

As I said above I usually find books about Austen’s life melancholy as we know they are heading toward spinsterhood and a premature death but this book is saved from that by the amount of humour in it. There were some real laugh out loud moments, and the end particularly is pretty funny, which is quite an achievement! The below quote is Jane’s plan to get her dear friend Martha (potentially the model for Charlotte in ‘Pride & Prejudice’) invited to live with the Austens if Martha’s mother should die:

‘I laid out my plan. Mama was already fond of Martha, and with just a little exertion, Martha could make herself even more agreeable. During her visits, she could offer cheerful assistance with chores. Humour Mama’s medical complaints. Make herself indispensible. When Cassie was called away to play nursemaid to our expectant sister-in-laws, Martha would be there to fill the void. I should do my own part by becoming more and more useless, so that Martha’s assistance would grow to be essential.’

I’d certainly recommend this book to people who like books based on Jane Austen’s life. I felt it had a real flavour of the author’s wit and character, and managed not to be too sad a read. This is Carolyn V Murray’s debut book and I hope she writes more. I’d rate this as a 4 star read.

If my review has whetted your appetite to read this book, there is still time to enter the international giveaway for an ebook copy! Comment on the giveaway post to enter, and comment on this post for a bonus entry.