Riana Everly's Blog, page 9

The Game is Afoot!

I am thrilled to announce the publication of my newest novel, and the first of my mystery series Miss Mary Investigates – Death of a Clergyman: A Pride and Prejudice Mystery.

Elizabeth Bennet is accused of murdering her odious cousin Mr. Collins. All evidence points to her, from her blood-stained clothes to the lethal knife that everyone knows is hers. But her sister Mary cannot believe this of Lizzy, and is determined to prove Lizzy innocent.

Mr. Darcy, too, has heard this awful news and he rushes back to Meryton from London with a private investigator in tow. Alexander Lyons sets about his business, but before he discovers a single clue he runs afoul of Mary.

Can the two set aside their differences and combine their efforts to discover who is really responsible for the death of this clergyman?

Here is an excerpt:

From Death of a Clergyman: A Pride and Prejudice Mystery
(c) Riana Everly 2020

The sixth lady, the one sitting by the window, shifted, catching Alexander’s attention. He blinked in surprise. He had observed her, but after the briefest of glances, he had quite forgotten her existence. She was not flushed and florid, nor silly or vexatious, nor perfection or abject misery. In contradiction to the others in the room, each so vivid in her own way, this sixth lady quite blended into the background. He allowed himself to take her measure now. His initial instinct was that she was rather plain, younger than Miss Elizabeth but older than the two girls attacking the bonnet. He looked more closely to assess her age and decided she must be about eighteen. He also decided that she was, when one looked at her properly, really rather pretty, as were all the sisters. Her beauty was quiet, though, not drawing attention to itself, but sitting there silently until one might take the time to discover it for oneself. Her hair was a dark and unremarkable brown, and it curled delicately over a wide and intelligent forehead, and her eyes, while ordinary in their shade, were delicate in shape and sweet to behold, and their expression was one of deep reflection.

Mrs. Bennet cleared her throat, awaiting a response from the men, and Darcy nodded. “Very well. Miss Mary, may we count on your complete discretion?”

The quiet lady replied in a soft voice, “I will swear it upon my Bible.” She held up a small volume of that book.

“Then I thank you.” Darcy bowed and waited for the others to depart the room. Elizabeth now sat alone on the sofa, eyes downcast, hands twisting a linen handkerchief this way and that, body otherwise perfectly still. Whereas before she had been surrounded by the other women of her family, she now seemed very small and forsaken. Even Mary, who alone remained with her sister, had stayed in her nook by the window, all but concealed, her presence providing the merest pretence at propriety. Darcy took a deep breath, then moved with measured steps across the room until he stood before the sofa.  “How do you fare? Are you well?” His voice was soft, his regard intent.

Elizabeth looked up at him with anything but pleasure in her anguished eyes. Her voice was raw, but her tone was not weak. “Why do you come here?” she taunted. “Do you come to revel in my misery, to congratulate yourself on having avoided my fate within your own exalted family? To watch as my mother and sisters suffer for my supposed sins? Go back to Miss Bingley and to your high and mighty friends in London and tell them of the pathetic girl you so despised, who ended up so low. You have never looked at me except to find fault. Well, Mr. Darcy, here is your prize. Please leave me.”

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Death of a Clergyman is available at your favourite bookseller:
mybook.to/deathofaclergyman
https://books2read.com/deathofaclergyman

Miss Mary: Sleuth

[image error]Mary Bennet,
sleuth

Once upon a time there was a young woman, the middle child in a family of five daughters, who felt that there was no place for her in the world. She was not beautiful or witty or spirited or flirtatious. Rather, she was quiet and studious and no one ever seemed to notice she was there. But while she was not noticed, she noticed everything.

Then, one day, something dreadful happened. Her dear sister was accused of murdering their obnoxious cousin, and every piece of evidence seemed to point that way. This would never do, and this young woman decided to step forward and do what she could to save her sister’s reputation – and her life!

And that is how Mary Bennet began her adventures as a sleuth.

Mary’s first adventure with her friend and sometime-antagonist Alexander Lyons will be released on September 14, 2020. Watch for a link soon!

Isaac Nathan: A New Composer (to me)

One of the delights of writing historical fiction is the research.

Yes, really.

It can make the writing process that much longer, because for every line of text, I can spend an hour researching some little detail, like what cribbage boards looked like in 1800, or whether a certain word was in common use. But there is a particular joy to it as well. Besides getting the little details as accurate as I can, I enjoy the chase and I often become very interested in what I find. My sojourn into cribbage boards, for example, led me to some old books on card games. Another search had me reading old legal cases for hours, and yet another sent me down the rabbit hole of eighteenth-century cookbooks and recipes.

[image error]The Rabbit Hole of Research
Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com



Lord Byron, c. 1813 by Thomas Phillips

One of my more recent discoveries was the English-Australian composer Isaac Nathan. It started like this. I had a character who needed a scandal. And who, in 1814, was better to provide a scandal than that lord of scandals himself, George Gordon Lord Byron?

So I started doing a bit of reading. One of Byron’s more famous collections of poetry is his Hebrew Melodies, published in 1815. The poems were written in response to a proposal by Nathan to set new poetry to what he claimed were ancient Hebrew tunes, dating back to the Temple. And thus, my introduction to Nathan and his works.

c. 1820, artist unknown

A very quick biography is as follows:

Isaac Nathan was a composer, singing teacher, musicologist, and journalist. He was proudly Jewish and never attempted to convert to the Church of England or to otherwise assimilate. He was born in 1790 or 91 in Canterbury, England. His father was a synagogue cantor, Menehem Monash, born in Poland, and his mother was English-born Mary Goldsmid. He showed great talent as a child and studied with London maestro Domenico Corri to learn singing and composition.

In 1813 he met Lady Caroline Lamb and composed music for a duet she had written. Through her, he met Lord Byron, and convinced the baron to write the poetry for the Hebrew Melodies.

Byron’s famous poem “She walks in beauty” is from this collection. Here is Nathan’s setting.

https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/douglass/music/SheWalks.mp3

In 1812 he eloped with a student, Rosetta Worthington. Unusually for the time, converted to Judaism. She died in 1824, leaving Nathan with six young children. In 1826 he married his second wife, Henrietta Buckley, with whom he had six more children.

Nathan held the position of Music Librarian to George IV, and may have been involved in espionage for the king. Various troubles caught up with him and he found himself in a great deal of debt, and in 1840 emigrated to Australia with his whole family.

Nathan reached Sydney in April 1841 and immediately opened an academy of singing. He also became choirmaster of St Mary’s Cathedral and organized the largest concert of sacred music yet heard in the colony. In May of 1847 his opera Don John of Austria was performed. It was the first opera to be wholly composed and produced in Australia.

He was also the first person to research and transcribe indigenous Australian music, and set to music some of Eliza Hamilton Dunlop. Here is Nathan’s setting of her famous poem The Aboriginal Mother.

Nathan died on January 15, 1864, when he had an accident while alighting from a city horse-tram in Sydney.

The London Jewish Chronicle of 25 March 1864 reported from Sydney:

Mr. Nathan was a passenger by No. 2 tramway car […] [he] alighted from the car at the southern end, but before he got clear of the rails the car moved onwards […] he was thus whirled round by the sudden motion of the carriage and his body was brought under the front wheel.

The horse-drawn tram was the first in Sydney: Nathan was Australia’s (indeed the southern hemisphere’s) first tram fatality.

C. 1860, photographer unknown

Here is a performance of the overture to Nathan’s opera Don John of Austria.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHy5WqCbpM

An Interview!

I was interviewed by the lovely Clare Rhoden on her blog. Have a read – you might learn something new about me (like what colour my hair is these days). And while you’re there, check out what else she has for you.

https://clarerhoden.com/2020/07/24/austenesque-enjoyment-with-riana-everly/

Update from the COVID Cafe

I don’t often write this sort of post. Perhaps I should do so more frequently. As we are all sheltering in our own little pockets around the world, it is more important that ever to reach out to each other just to say hello. So this is my Hello!

[image error]Photo by picjumbo.com on Pexels.com

On a personal note, we are all doing well. It’s a rather busy house these days, but we somehow manage not to always be in each other’s hair. My son is working at his summer job from my den, my husband is doing his job from my dining room table, my daughter is doing summer school to get ahead for next year from the basement, and I am writing wherever I can find a comfortable chair. Sometimes that chair is out on the front deck! With my wifi connection, my laptop, and a tall iced tea in hand, I’m very happy there.

[image error]Photo by Ella Olsson on Pexels.com

We have been using this together-time to explore some new cookbooks we bought. So while the decor gets a bit tired, being the same from day to day, the Covid Cafe is serving some excellent and very interesting food!

I have been keeping busy writing as well. During April’s Camp NaNoWriMo I finished the first draft of The Soldier’s Tale, where our intrepid hero Colonel Fitzwilliam takes centre stage and finds his own Happily Ever After. I hope to start editing that in August, with a projected release date early in 2021.

Alexander Lyons,
Investigator

During July’s Camp NaNo, I’ve been writing the fourth in my Miss Mary Investigates series. This story takes place in the world of Sense and Sensibility. I discovered that Mary Bennet and Elinor Dashwood have a great deal in common, although Mary finds Marianne a little dramatic for her tastes. Furthermore, it seems there is a great deal of rapport between Mrs. Bennet and Mrs. Jennings. In just one meeting they became great friends. Soon enough, though, a man is killed and somebody contests his will, and that is when my investigator Alexander Lyons appears, much to Mary’s dismay – and delight!

There is more good news in the world of Miss Mary Investigates! I am starting the very final edits for the first book in the series, Death of a Clergyman, and hope to release it by the end of August. My cover artist is doing a terrific job on the cover, and she has not strangled me yet with all the tweaks I keep asking for. Keep an eye open for updates!

I would love to hear from you. How have you been managing these last few months? I hope everybody is keeping safe and keeping well. Wear your masks, wash your hands, and be kind.

What ho? A Mystery?

I am doing some final edits on my first mystery in the Miss Mary Investigates series. Who is Miss Mary? Why, Mary Bennet! And her first case is a doozy, because her sister Elizabeth has been accused of murdering Mr. Collins!

But Mary can’t do it alone. She is whip-smart and hears all sorts of interesting things, but there is information she cannot get by herself. Luckily, Mr. Darcy has hired an investigator from London to discover who really dunnit, and perhaps he can help Mary assemble the clues she needs to save her sister.

But what of this investigator? Who is he, that Darcy would trust him so implicitly to solve the case and save Elizabeth from the gallows? Here, in this novella, I would like you all to meet Mr Alexander Lyons!

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The Mystery of the Missing Heiress: A Pride and Prejudice Diversion

You can also read this as an eBook from Smashwords.

Blog Tour – My Love for Jane Austen

On this stop on my blog tour for The Bennet Affair, I have the world’s shortest summary of the Napoleonic Wars, to give context to the story. Check out My Love for Jane Austen.

Blog Post: My Inspiration

For the first stop on my blog tour I visited Interests of a Jane Austen Girl to discuss my inspiration behind The Bennet Affair.

https://interestsofajaneaustengirl.wordpress.com/2020/03/31/the-bennet-affair/