Monica Fairview's Blog, page 75

A Good Harvest

Hello again!

Well, ’tis the season to pick apples and blackberries and plums and make jams, cakes and crumbles, but this post is about a different sort of harvest.

This summer, my family and I went walking in Derbyshire again.

While we were there I did my best to keep my camera in my pocket for some of the time at least, and not take pictures of every tree, shrub, and rocky outcrop.

 

I did try, honest to goodness, but I still came home with 565 photos. That’s the harvest I squirreled away for ...

So Material a Change-Chapter 2, part 2

Its hard to believe its already the end of September (cold weather is coming, boo!) but then comes my favorites time of the year, the holidays! So hopefully you won’t be too tired of me after So Material a Change because I have a holiday novella coming along as well. Heart Enough is now on preorder and will release on October 25, by itself as well as part of a larger anthology (‘Tis the Season) of Pride & Prejudice based novellas.

But for now, another little tidbit of So Material a Change!  For ...

A Longbourn Entanglement: Release day + challenge + giveaway

The novella is now live on Amazon, and I really can’t wait to share it with all of you. I’m dying to know what you think!

If you’ve read Fortune and Felicity, you’ll discover quickly that the two stories are pretty different. For one thing, A Longbourn Entanglement is quite absurd. For another,  a great many characters inhabit its pages, wandering in and out and disrupting everyone. Darcy and Elizabeth are the centre of the action, of course [as they jolly well should be, since this is a romant...

Chapter 1 – His Perfect Gift

Happy Friday! I’ve been busy fixing up my house as well as proofing the audiobook for Rain and Retribution, which is extremely close to being submitted for approval. In the meantime, I hope you’re ready for the holidays because I have a Christmas story I’m prepping to come out next month. I don’t have a cover yet, but I’m about to start working on it. For now, let’s just check out the first chapter I hope you’re ready! Don’t forget to tell me what you think afterwards!

 

Chapter 1

December 16th...

Mary Crawford’s Harvest by Diana Birchall

 

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Henry and Mary Crawford, British stamp 1975

The only mention of the word harvest in Jane Austen’s major novels, as far as I can discover, takes place in Mansfield Park.  Not surprisingly, her “harvest scene” provides us with another opportunity to observe the cleverness and deliberation with which Jane Austen reveals her characters through subtle details. Each of the two paragraphs in which the harvest is mentioned, focuses on one of the two heroines (or heroine and anti-heroine) of the book, ...

We Have Mary King to Thank – Part 8

We Have Mary King to Thank – Part 8, by Jack Caldwell

Greetings, everyone. Jack Caldwell here.

So, we had a surprise visitor last time. How about another one? Much information is revealed. Enjoy! Thanks goes to my lovely Beta Babe, Debbie!

Part 7 may be found HERE.

Back to our story:

Part 8

FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS, Mr. Bingley proved a faithful visitor to Gracechurch Street. His company was so pleasant and his attentions to Jane so constant, it earned him an invitation to dinner. This he accepted...

A Longbourn Entanglement: Now available for pre-order!

Finally it’s here: my short and sweet Pride and Prejudice comic variation!!!

I’ve been wanting to release this novella for some time now. I started writing it before I began Dangerous Magic, but then I got side-tracked with the magic and put this one on the backburner.  I’ve been working on it in-between writing Book 2 of Mr. Darcy’s Magic. I originally thought it would be very short, but it ended it up being 150 pages. Still, it’s just the right length for a fast 2-3 hour read.

Despite the roll...

Harvesting Friendship

There are numerous jokes in the Jane Austen on-line world about Mr. Collins’ affinity for potatoes. Although I’m ‘Team BBC,’ I still love any P&P fix I can get, and enjoy the way Janeites pay homage to this root vegetable in the most obscure ways.

Maybe it was that, or maybe I had too many French fries at In N Out that night for dinner, but before writing my 2nd complete JAFF novel “The Goodness of Men,” I had a dream.  Actually, dream might not be the correct word…it was more of a vision.

As I ...

End of summer, school year musings, and a dusty WIP to share with you

I’ve been a bit quiet here lately! I realized it’s been an obscenely long time since I last posted, but I’m planning to remedy that. My apologies, my dear friends. I’ve missed you! I’ve just been having a tremendous time soaking up sunshine with my family lately, and now we’re back to that thing called “routine.” Since it’s been a while, I’ll bullet point a few highlights of our summer.

We went camping! Oh, and we celebrated a big anniversary. Twenty years ago, I married a man who loves riding ...

We Have Mary King to Thank – Part 7

We Have Mary King to Thank – Part 7, by Jack Caldwell

Greetings, everyone. Jack Caldwell here.

This is a nice long post. Enjoy! Thanks goes to my lovely Beta Babe, Debbie!

Part 6 may be found HERE.

Back to our story:

Part 7

MR. GARDINER PLACED A GLASS of sherry before Elizabeth before settling back in his armchair with his brandy.

“Do you think I will need this, Uncle?” asked Elizabeth.

“We shall see,” was his cryptic response.

Elizabeth took a small sip and allowed her eyes to wander about the...