Monica Fairview's Blog, page 61

Wedding gowns in Jane Austen’s Day

Though nearly all of Jane Austen’s works end with a wedding, she does not spend much time detailing the weddings themselves, much less the wedding dresses.

Modern brides often spend a great deal of effort and money on the wedding dress and expect to wear it only once. Honestly, it is hard to imagine another event where wearing one’s wedding dress might be appropriate. Not exactly the sort of thing you’d wear to dinner, right?

In the regency era, though, the cost of textiles was so prohibitive t...

The Travails of Mr Charles Bingley, Part 3

Hello everyone! I’m back with part 3 of my short story. It’s long, and I did not get in everything I originally planned for it. The consequence is that the story will now be five parts, not four. However, I’ve finished some other work, giving me more time to work on it, so I’ll be posting the remaining parts weekly rather than every two weeks.  I hope that all sounds okay to you!

The August monthly theme is “Finery and Frolics”, which I have tried to work in just a little bit.

If you’ve missed t...

Celebrating the Audiobook of “Colonel Brandon in His Own Words” with a Giveaway!

The past six weeks were busy ones for me, launching Colonel Brandon in His Own Words and then tagging along with him on a whirlwind, 10-stop book tour. If  you missed any of the festivities, look here for more book info, an excerpt, and a full list of tour stops with links. But now for the final event on Colonel Brandon‘s itinerary. Ta-da! THE AUDIO BOOK IS HERE!

As the title implies, Colonel Brandon tells his whole story …in own words – in his own voice, you might say. So when I went looking f...

Finery and Folly: a Lydia Story by Diana Birchall

Lydia is introduced to Mr. Wickham (Brock)

“When Lydia went away, she promised to write very often and very minutely to her mother and Kitty; but her letters were always long expected, and always very short. Those to her mother contained little else than that they were just returned from the library, where such and such officers had attended them, and where she had seen such beautiful ornaments as made her quite wild; that she had a new gown, or a new parasol, which she would have described more...

Dragon Persuasion on Sale Now!

I’ve never done this before, and may not doing it again! Kellynch: Dragon Persuasion is on sale for .99 for a limited time. Get it before the sale ends!

The post Dragon Persuasion on Sale Now! appeared first on Jane Austen Variations.

Something Persuasion-ish

Talk of Persuasion is all the rage these days.

Whereas P&P calls to mind grand estates and balls and long walks in the prettyish wildernesses of private gardens, when I think of Persuasion, I think mostly of rugged seascapes and of Bath.

A few years ago, I wrote a duet of second-chance loves stories that are stand-alones in my Mirabelle Harbor series. That book (Coming Home) contains 2 novellas — Rocket Man & Someone Like You — and it was my gift to commenters here when my most recent novel, T...

The Travails of Mr Charles Bingley Part 2

Hi everyone!

Thank you all for the warm reception to part 1 of my silly little summer story. If you missed it, you can it here. https://austenvariations.com/the-travails-of-mr-charles-bingley-part-1/ Today, I present part two of what I have decided will be a total of four. As I mentioned last time, the inspiration came from both the monthly theme—“When One Travels in Summer”—and a quote from Nancy Drew about calling ahead before driving to call on someone. Bingley ought to have heeded that advic...

The Carriage Awaits

 

Would you like to have a closer look at the sort of carriages that our favourite characters might have used to travel around town or dash up and down the country?

Then let’s stroll through the Carriage Museum at Arlington Court in North Devon.

There are around 50 vehicles in the collection, the oldest dating back to 1698, but you won’t be surprised to hear that it was the ones from the first half of the 19th century that I lingered around and photographed from every angle.

 

Some have...

The Greatest Risk- Chapter 2

“I am not at all in a humor for writing; I must write on until I am.”

~Jane Austen

So here we are again, readers. Another day, another chapter. Once again, here is 2nd chapter of my work in progress, The Greatest Risk. I’ve thought about your comments and they’ve really helped me identify some weaknesses in the writing. Granted, the story is still unedited, but I’ve just surpassed a huge ‘speed bump’ in chapter 5!

I will say, my goal of August 1st might have been a little aggressive, but I’m st...

It’s a Sneak Peek!

Well! I’ve debated on how to explain this just a little without giving away the entire plot. This is just the first chapter. There is a great deal of Regency Period involved in this book, but I’m not telling you how we get there . And as you can see by the last bit, there is a fantasy element as well. It’s with my first beta reader at the moment and hasn’t been edited so please excuse any mistakes you see. While writing, I’ve called it Mr. Darcy’s Mirror, but the title will, no doubt, change be...