A Little Whimsical in His Civilities Blog Tour - Guest Post & Giveaway

 Today the blog tour for 'A Little Whimsical in His Civilities' stops by and I have the honour of hosting the author, J. Marie Croft for a guest post & giveaway. This story is a humorous tale, looking at how things may have seemed from Mr Darcy's perspective when he returns to Meryton after Lydia's marriage. I have enjoyed the other stories that Ms Croft has written, the gender-swap P&P 'Love at First Slight', and she wrote a really funny story, 'Spyglasses and Sunburns' in the anthology 'Sunkissed; Effusions of Summer' which was one of my favourites of the collection so this new book is a definite on my TBR list. Without further ado I will pass over to J. Marie Croft.

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Jane and the Waterloo Map - Blog Tour and US Giveaway

Today the blog tour for Stephanie Barron’s ‘Jane and the Waterloo Map’ stops off here for my review. If you are unfamiliar with her work, Ms Barron has written a whole series of books with Jane Austen as the investigator of murders and foul play. Read on for my review, and for the chance to enter a US giveaway of some wonderful prizes.

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Amateur sleuth Jane Austen returns in Jane and the Waterloo Map, the thirteenth novel in Stephanie Barron’s delightful Regency-era mystery series.

Award winning author Stephanie Barron tours the blogosphere February 2 through to February 22, 2016 to share her latest release, Jane and the Waterloo Map (Being a Jane Austen Mystery). Twenty popular book bloggers specializing in Austenesque fiction, mystery and Regency history will feature guest blogs, interviews, excerpts and book reviews from this highly anticipated novel in the acclaimed Being a Jane Austen Mystery series. A fabulous giveaway contest, including copies of Ms. Barron’s book and other Jane Austen-themed items, will be open to those who join the festivities.

When Mary Met the Colonel by Victoria Kincaid - Review

Many years ago, when I first read 'Pride & Prejudice' I really identified with Elizabeth. Although she is more outgoing than me, I felt a kinship with her due to her sense of humour and philosophical attitude, as well as her hasty temper, but like many introverted bookworm types, I also have some level of kinship with Mary. She is definitely an interesting secondary character, and one who has had quite a lonely time of it, with her sisters divided into twosomes. I love to see Mary get a chance to shine in her own right so I was very interested to read this new novella from Victoria Kincaid, ‘When Mary Met the Colonel’.

When Mary Met the Colonel by Victoria Kincaid - Excerpt, Guest Post and Giveaway

Today I am welcoming author Victoria Kincaid to the blog. Victoria has just released a new novella, a Mary Bennet story called 'When Mary Met the Colonel', and she has been so kind as to drop by here with an excerpt, a very interesting insight into what prompted her to write this story, and a giveaway of a kindle version of the book for one of you. Read on for more details!

Undeceived by Karen M Cox - Blog Tour & Review

Today the blog tour for Karen M Cox’s latest book, ‘Undeceived’ has a stop here for my review of the book. I’ve enjoyed my previous reads of Karen’s stories (here are my reviews of ‘Sunkissed; Effusions of Summer’, which features a 'Northanger Abbey'-inspired short story by Karen M Cox, ‘Find Wonder in All Things’ which is a modern version of ‘Persuasion’ and my favourite story by her, the US-Depression era 'Pride & Prejudice' retelling, ‘1932’) so I was keen to sign up to read this one.

Planned Reading for February 2016

Well you may wonder what happened to me in January 2016 as I have been here so little. Life has just been overwhelming me a little, I seem to be either constantly busy or comatose! So I apologise for my absence and thank those of you who have stuck around!

I have the enjoyment of joining in some blog tours in February, so I thought I'd tell you about those.

Winner of the Reader Appreciation Giveaway

Thank you to everybody who commented with a book or an author suggestion for bumping up my 'To Be Read' list. Since my reading time is less than it was (sob!) I have a lot more books than I have time to get through so it's good to get some ideas to help me prioritise. I hope the suggestions were helpful to any of you with a bigger TBR list than you can get to!

Without further ado I will announce the winner, who was selected at random:

Winner's Choice Book Giveaway!

I am not generally a fan of January. Everybody is grumpy, most people are dieting, people are complaining they have no money because they overspent on Christmas, and the weather is rubbish. What is there to celebrate? You might not realise it, but this month marks the anniversary of when I started to blog and to celebrate I would like to have a little giveaway to say thank you to all of you who join me in my love of books.

Giveaway time!

Since I live in the UK I am not able to give away an ebook, as unfortunately Amazon UK still doesn't support gifting, so instead I am proposing to give away something which many of you would like better anyway, a paper book of your choice from 'The Book Depository' up to the value of £10 (you can change the currency to UK pounds on the top right of their website so you can see how much a book would be in pounds).

To enter, all you need to do is comment on this post, suggesting a book that I should add to or bump up my to be read list. Please comment by the end of the day on Saturday 16 January and leave a way for me to contact you in case you are chosen as the lucky winner. This contest is open internationally, to anybody who lives in a country The Book Depository ships to - list here.

Thanks again for dropping by my blog. I appreciate all of your page views and comments so much. Good luck in the giveaway!

Manga Classics: Emma by Jane Austen, Po Tse, Crystle S Chan and Stacy King - Review

I downloaded this Manga version of Jane Austen's 'Emma' with a sense of real curiosity – I love Jane Austen’s works and if I try to analyse why I like them one of the the things that jumps out most is her style and humour. To me, the most important things about an Austen story is not so much what happens but the enjoyment I get from how she describes it, so I was interested to see how well this enjoyment would translate to a graphic novel with far fewer words, particularly as (by the highly scientific method of glancing at my hard copies), ‘Emma’ is one of Austen’s longer novels.

My Planned Reads for January 2016

Happy New Year everybody! I will get on to my planned reads for January presently, but firstly I thought I'd give you some idea of what I have planned for this year. As ever in January, I am hoping for good things from the year to come and to become more organised in general.

Have you ever heard of the word 'Tsundoku'? Well, I have a bad case of it, both in hard copy and electronic form. It's so enjoyable to buy new books, but despite my best intentions I buy more than I read. I have some books that are supposed to be excellent reads just languishing on my shelves. This year, this is something that needs to change, so I have decided to set myself a little challenge of reading one book from my hard copy pile, and one from my ebook treasure trove to try and reduce some of my Tsundoku problem.