Back to Top

Tag Archives: Pride and Prejudice

How can someone who reads or writes romance have not read Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice?

Particularly writers. Not because these books are the “first romances ever written” (questionable on so many levels, and Jane Eyre was actually the first Gothic Regency, but never mind that) but because they are part of our cultural heritage. And by our I mean the community and mindset of romance readers and writers. And by of I mean…

And no, the movies do not count. There are specific areas of the brain that deal with language and hence with reading and writing. Movies are something else entirely besides being a collaboration of people other than the author pooling their talents and vision and creating something that is (if they’re lucky) another work of art.

To play devil’s advocate to myself, does anyone actually need to read the books? Popular culture has given us all the clues. We all know what they’re about, so why is reading them so important? You read, you absorb, you stow bits and pieces away in your writer’s toolbox, and it seeps out in a good sort of way in your work. I firmly believe that reading well written books is the only way to become a writer.

And you’ll enjoy them, which is why we read what we read, isn’t it?

So what do you consider essential reading?–outside of romance as well as within the genre.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 19 Replies

A Terrible Secret… When she departs for her wedding tour, Elizabeth Darcy is the happiest woman alive—until she sees the look of torment on Mr. Darcy’s face…

A Test Of Love That Will Take Them To Hell And Back… A vampyre, cursed for eternity, Darcy thought he could marry Elizabeth and never tell her the truth… but as he carries her across the Alps to visit the one person he hopes can advise him, Elizabeth’s terror grows, until the Darcy family curse threatens to tear both of them apart… Starting where Pride and Prejudice ends, international bestselling author Amanda Grange delivers a brilliant vision of Austen’s brooding hero in a delightfully thrilling, spinechilling, breathtaking read.

Welcome Amanda! Amanda’s offering a signed copy of her book to one of our commenters today, so please join the discussion–and she’ll mail to the US or UK. We’ll announce the winner here tomorrow.

Hi! It’s great to be here on the Riskies blog so thanks for inviting me!

This book is something of a departure for you from your previous books. What prompted this new direction?

I wanted to write a sequel to Pride and Prejudice because I adore the characters and I wanted to read more about them, but there are so many sequels that I wanted to write something different. I’d had an idea of Darcy as a vampyre a long time ago when watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer but I couldn’t see what to do with it, so I just tucked the idea away at the back of my mind and got on with other things. Then, when I was reading a lot of Regency Gothics as research for Henry Tilney’s Diary – because his book, Northanger Abbey, is a Gothic – the idea just came to me: what if I started the sequel on Lizzy and Darcy’s very romantic wedding day, and what if I then sent them to Europe on their wedding tour, and what if Lizzy slowly discovered that Darcy was a vampyre? It immediately felt right and so I decided to go with it.

Did you find it intimidating channelling Jane Austen?

ALol, I’m not sure about chanelling Jane Austen! I just love her books and, as a reader, I want more. As no one else writes Austenesque books that satisfy me, I write my own. I try not to think about the fact that I’m reworking or extrapolating some of the best novels ever written, otherwise I would never dare put pen to paper – or finger to keyboard!

What sort of research did you do?

I’ve done a lot of research into the Regency period over the last ten years or so, reading letters and novels from the time, studying fashion plates, visiting stately homes and learning about the political and economic situation. Most of this doesn’t go into my books, but I find it helps me to know about these things so that I get the background right. For Mr Darcy, Vampyre I researched the histories of Paris and Venice as well as researching the landscapes of Regency Europe, complete with travel arrangements. I’m lucky because I’ve been to most of the locations used in Mr Darcy, Vampyre and as the cities like Venice are so old, large parts of them are still the same today as they were two hundred years ago, so I had all that experience to draw on.

What’s your favorite part of the book?

It’s difficult to say. Like all authors, I suspect, I love every bit of my books, and if you ask me on another day I would probably choose a different bit! But I’m very fond of this bit, where Lizzy and Darcy are in Paris, attending a salon. It’s a very romantic part of a novel which is full of romance but also full of fantasy and horror as well.

Darcy was at once welcomed by four women who walked up to him with lithe movements and lingering glances. Their dresses were rainbow hued, in the colours of gems, and flimsy, like all the Parisian dresses. Their hair was dark and their skin was pallid.
‘You will have to be careful,’ came a voice at Elizabeth’s shoulder.
She turned to see a man with fine features and tousled hair. He had an air of boredom about him, and although Elizabeth did not usually like those who were easily bored there was something strangely magnetic about him. His ennui gave his mouth a sulky turn which was undeniably attractive.
‘They will take him from you if they can,’ the man continued, watching them all the while.
Elizabeth turned to look at them and as she did so she was reminded of Caroline Bingley and her constant efforts to catch Darcy’s attention. He had been impervious to Caroline and he was impervious to the Parisian women as well, for all their efforts to enrapture him. As they talked and smiled and leant against him, flicking imaginary specks of dust from his coat and picking imaginary hairs from his sleeve, they looked at him surreptitiously. When they saw that he was oblivious of their attempts to captivate him they redoubled their efforts, one of them whispering in his ear, another leaning close to his face, and the other two walking, arm in arm, in front of him, in order to display their figures.
‘It is not right, what they do there, he being so newly married,’ said a woman, coming up and standing beside the two of them. ‘But forgive me, I was forgetting, we have not been introduced. I am Katrine du Bois, and that is my brother, Philippe.’
There was an air of warmth about the woman which was missing from many of the salon guests, and Elizabeth sensed in her a friend. And yet there was something melancholy about her, as though she had suffered a great disappointment from which she had never recovered.
‘It is not right, no,’ said Philippe. ‘But it is nature. What can one do?’
He turned to look at Elizabeth with sympathy but Elizabeth was only amused.
‘Poor things!’ she said.
Darcy wore the same expression he had worn when she had first seen him at the Meryton assembly; and despite the difference in the two events, the noisy vulgarity of the assembly and the refined elegance of the salon, he was still above his company. His dark hair was set off by his white linen and his well moulded face, even in such company, was handsome. His dark eyes wandered restlessly over his companions until they came to rest on Elizabeth. And then his face relaxed into softer lines, full of warmth and love.
‘I wish a man would look at me the way that Darcy looks at you,’ said Katrine.
‘I am very lucky,’ said Elizabeth, and she knew that she was.
She had not married for wealth or position, she had married for love. She wished that she was not in company, that she and Darcy had stayed at the inn where they could have been alone, but she knew they would not be in Paris for ever. The calls and engagements would come to an end and then they would have more time to spend, just the two of them, together.
‘You are,’ said Katrine. ‘I have many things, I have jewels and clothes, carriages and horses, a fine house and finer furnishings, but I would give them all for one such look.’
Darcy’s companions claimed his attention and he turned reluctantly away. As he did so his hand moved to his chest as though he were lifting something beneath his shirt, pulling it away from his chest and then letting it drop again.
‘What is it he does there?’ asked Katrine. ‘Does he wear something round his neck?’
‘Yes, I bought him a crucifix yesterday. The shops in Paris are very tempting,’ said Elizabeth. ‘He refused to take it at first, but he had given me so much and I had given him so little that I insisted and at last he allowed me to fasten it around his neck.’
Katrine’s voice was reverent. ‘He must love you very much,’ she said.

Great excerpt! What’s next for you?

I’m writing a Darcy and Elizabeth story for a Christmas anthology and I’m also starting work on a prequel to Mr Darcy, Vampyre, which explores Darcy’s early life as a vampyre and reveals a lot more about the other characters in the novel, as well as putting a new slant on his early relationship with Lizzy.

Thanks so much for crossing the Atlantic digitally to be with us today, Amanda. Chat away–and have your name entered into the pot to win a signed copy!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 29 Replies


Like Janet, I don’t remember precisely when I started reading Jane Austen. I do know it was early on, because I’m pretty sure I read Pride & Prejudice when my family was living in New Hampshire, and we moved away after sixth grade.

I was lucky enough to be raised in a household filled with books, and with a person–my dad–who loved language and wordplay. And consequently I had a huge vocabulary for my age, as well as an appreciation for Austen’s wry, witty commentary on society and life in general. I specifically loved her portrayal of Mrs. Bennet, whose machinations I saw through because of Austen’s inciteful skewering.

Plus it had a love story! And even though I read the book multiple (MULTIPLE!) times, I was never quite sure it would end up happily ever after. I saw the movie with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier, and loved that, too.

At the same time, I was reading and re-reading Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, and in hindsight I can see those three books completely defined me as a writer and a reader. I read other Austens, too, but Pride & Prejudice had–and continues to hold–a special place in my heart.

When I was 15, I dated the captain of the football team (yes–really!) and made him watch that version of Pride & Prejudice with me (and what does it say that he actually watched it?). My husband puts up with me sighing over men in cravats, and promises to read Austen someday himself (he read Emma in college, but his teacher does not appear to have understood Austen’s wit).

Austen’s legacy to me, and to romance writers in general, is that it is indeed possible to write a fantastic, heart-wrenching love story that nonetheless disperses a wider commentary on society, offers clever writing, and can surpass its tag of ‘romance.’

Thanks, Jane.

What do you think Austen’s best legacy is? Is your favorite part the wit, the love story, the characters, the setting or something else?

Megan

Like many romances, my passion for Jane Austen had a rough beginning. From third grade or so, I’d been reading my mother’s Georgette Heyer novels and selected traditional Regencies, so you might think I was prepared for Jane, but it didn’t actually work out that way. I read PRIDE & PREJUDICE sometime around age 11 or so after having seen “in the tradition of Jane Austen” on many Regency covers. But I found it hard going.

Perhaps as a pre-teen, I was more able to appreciate the glitz of Regencies featuring members of the haut ton and including exciting events such as duels and elopements. Maybe I needed to mature to properly appreciate Austen’s brilliant characterizations and what she could do with “three or four families in a country village.”

But I also think the period language itself was a stumbling block, between the occasional long, convoluted sentence structures and some of the vocabulary. Of course, I’d already learned many new words from Georgette Heyer, yet with Jane they mattered more. I realized why this past summer, when I read P&P with my own 11 year old. In Heyer’s books, context could help one understand the longer words (e.g. the “diaphanous gown” or the “ubiquitous footman”). However, in Jane Austen, the difficult words are often central to the meaning.

Consider this bit of Darcy dialogue:

“When you told Mrs. Bennet this morning that if you ever resolved on quitting Netherfield you should be gone in five minutes, you meant it to be a sort of panegyric, of compliment to yourself — and yet what is there so very laudable in a precipitance which must leave very necessary business undone, and can be of no real advantage to yourself or any one else?”

To make sense of it for my daughter, I had to explain “panegyric”, “laudable” and “precipitance”. I also found it helped when I read to her aloud with loads of expression.

But she hung in there with me, enjoyed it very much and laughed in all the right places. Now we’re planning some Austen activities over the holidays. We’re going to watch the 1995 P&P together and start reading NORTHANGER ABBEY. I am now looking forward to years of shared Austen obsession. I expect she’ll soon want a Regency gown of her own. : )

Has anyone else tried introducing Jane Austen to friends, family or offspring? How did it work out? Have you ever tried reading Jane aloud?

Comment for a chance to win assorted Austen-related prizes!

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

Today we welcome Marsha Altman, whose book The Darcys and the Bingleys: A Tale of Two Gentlemen’s Marriages to Two Most Devoted Sisters was released this month.

Marsha, big congrats on the book and thanks for coming to visit today! Marsha is offering a signed copy of the book to a lucky winner–your comment or question enters you in the drawing.

We’ve seen a lot of Austen sequels lately. What makes yours stand out?

Every author has their niche, the story they want to tell within the niche of Pride and Prejudice sequels. Some people want to speculate on the sex lives of the married Darcys – all well and good of it’s done well – some want to focus on marrying off the remaining cast, and one person writes cozy mysteries. I value uniqueness very much, which is why I’m attracted to the stories that haven’t been told yet. Georgiana’s gotten married in numerous sequels, Elizabeth and Darcy have a great marriage life but the kid is slow in coming – I wanted to do something about the Bingleys, and about the friendship of Darcy and Bingley.

Also my book has some fight scenes. I like swords. Also guns, wooden legs of chairs, candlesticks – whatever works.



How did you come to write this book?


It started as a short story meant to be between Darcy and Bingley about their pre-wedding jitters and expanded from there. Some people take offense to the idea that Darcy would be experienced upon entering his marriage, which is historically improbable (he is roughly 29 when he marries, depending on when his birthday occurs, which is never mentioned in the book). But Bingley, who’s more sweet and innocent, could be a virgin. So he goes to his best pal for awkward advice. I found the notion amusing. Everything that came after that was just more ideas I had. I told myself I would stop writing when I ran out of things to do with the characters or they died, and I haven’t had it in me to kill any of them yet.

How did you feel about taking on Jane Austen?


I think I could take her. I’m probably taller than her, and I have martial arts experience. On the other hand she was a good dancer and got plenty of exercise, and we’re both pretty sickly, so it might be an even match. I wouldn’t underestimate her.

Now for the serious answer, in terms of “taking on” the length and breadth of her work by attempting to continue it, I don’t worry about it because it simply can’t be done. I’m not one of the foremost novelists in the British language and I wouldn’t be even if I changed my citizenship. I’m trying to have fun with her characters. As to whether she would mine, Miss Austen has posthumously endured her nephew and extended family publishing all of her unfinished writing and personal letters for profit, numerous sequels and adaptations, books analyzing her personal life, and even movies about her starring actresses wearing heavy lipstick. So, if she’s been spinning in her grave, she’s probably tired by now and may well have gotten over it. That or she understands imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, if that phrase existed in the Regency period.

What sort of research did you do, and did you discover anything 
surprising?


I’m a historian by nature. It was my undergraduate degree and I almost went for a PhD in it but got fed up with graduate academia. Therefore I had some initial trouble navigating the Regency fiction waters. This a culture you’re far more familiar with than I am, as I’ve not read much Regency romance outside of Jane Austen and Austen fanfic, but the world as it is portrayed in Regency fiction and Regency romance in conventional, modern publishing seems to be a world contrived from actual history and some assumptions about history based on writers from the period, Austen being the main one. Some people don’t realize that Jane Austen wrote contemporary fiction; I’m writing historical fiction. They’re two different things. I can’t write the story I think she would have written. I can only write a story set in that period of history using characters that resemble hers. I decided to rely on historical accuracy over Regency writing traditions. While certainly not true of everything (especially “Risky” Regencies!), the Regency period is presented in fiction as this very sanitized, rule-bound world. This is the world Jane Austen wrote about. It doesn’t mean it was the world that actually existed during the Regency period.

Roger Sales wrote a very interesting book, Jane Austen and Representations of Regency England. In the 1995 edition he included a postscript about the BBC adaptation and what was altered to match people’s perceptions of what the Regency period was over what it actually was. Earlier in the book, he comments that when Jane Austen’s letters were first published, it was during the Victorian period, and they were edited. Not that there was anything scandalous in there, but references to mundane things like bedbugs and illness were removed for a Victorian audience, that wanted to see Jane Austen in the sanitized world of her fiction.

To do the things I really wanted to do in the story, especially the later half where there’s more drama and violence, I decided to take a more historical route, which means people getting shot and having gruesome surgeries and some people dying. I saw no reason to focus on the mechanics of sex – plenty of more competent romance writers have done that – but I didn’t feel a need to leave out some of the other un-polite parts of Polite Society. It was too limiting to do otherwise. The characters still act appropriately (most of the time), but they encounter the gritty parts of their world whether they like it or not. It’s not very “Austen-esque” but it was a decision on my part and I’ve stuck with it ever since.

You tell the story of two characters who aren’t wholly sympathetic– 
Bingley himself and his sister Caroline. How did your perceptions of 
them change?

First off, Bingley. Despite the fact that he was inspired by Simon Wood’s portrayal of him in the 2005 movie, where his lines were a bit dumber than the lines given to the BBC Bingley (Crispin Bonham-Carter), I had to give Bingley some intelligence, just not in the realm of social intercourse.

Bingley is a foil to Darcy. He’s comfortable in social situations but not a great wit; Darcy is uncomfortable before strangers but always has something intelligent to say. They make a great pair in terms of dialogue, and you could see how one would rely on the other for their perceived deficiencies. Eventually it becomes a very brotherly rivalry, and Bingley actually bests Darcy a few times, though largely at things beyond his control. His father was a brilliant businessman, so I gave Bingley a head for numbers and languages, which plays a bigger role in future books. But he remains lovable and affectionate Bingley, which is key to the Caroline story.

I wanted to work with Miss Bingley because it’s territory very few people have done and I don’t think in any published work. There’s a few scattered fanfics I can name, but mostly in sequels she’s either not there, still scheming, or outright psychotic. While all of Austen’s writing on her would lend itself to that, it was more challenging to do the opposite. Besides, why would she pursue Darcy after he married? She’s too calculating for that. What would she do with her time? She makes some bad decisions, but Bingley is good enough to know she’s in trouble and Darcy is good enough to know he should help. Portraying the Bingley siblings affectionately, after they’ve lived their whole lives together even after the marriage of the eldest sister, has been something I’ve enjoyed doing. I want to make people love these characters. I want to give them a chance to be redeemed.



How did your perceptions of Elizabeth and Darcy change? Are they 
still the ultimate, perfectly matched couple?


It’s a difficult act to make Darcy and Elizabeth partners in every sense of the word without betraying their essential characters. Elizabeth is too self-assured, Darcy is too distant and uneven. Their love transcends it, and they learn the lessons of Pride and Prejudice and don’t repeat them, but upon their marriage they have to learn to lean on each other when both are used to being very independent. I had no interest in writing a story where they fight for any extended period of time, but there are still subtle battles for dominance and understanding in the relationship. Most of it is expressed quickly or unexpressed but still present. In a marriage, as two couples move towards each other physically and emotionally, it’s a bit like a battle even if it isn’t one – there are advances and there are concessions, however minor, that cause the forming of a stable and lasting relationship. The foundation is there but it still takes work to build on it, and even when caught up in other plotlines, Darcy and Elizabeth are still working towards the ultimate companionship a true marriage can bring.

What’s next for you?


Several books in this series. They get increasingly dramatic – there are only so may wedding one-liners you can do – but I hope to maintain the undercurrent of humor to ease the burden of the challenges the characters face. There’s more on the Darcy family history that takes awhile to be fully revealed, the other characters get a bit caught up in some of the political things going on around them without being political themselves, and of course there’s kids. Lots of kids. I really need a good genealogy chart.

Also I write sci-fi, so I’ll probably get back to that when I’m done with the series.

How do you intend to end the series?

They all get eaten by dinosaurs.

Follow
Get every new post delivered to your inbox
Join millions of other followers
Powered By WPFruits.com