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Searching for Captain Wentworth - the Cover! plus: Jane Odiwe at The Jane Austen Festival 2012.

Searching for Captain Wentworth by Jane Odiwe
I'm very excited to show you the cover of my new book, Searching for Captain Wentworth. As you all know, I absolutely love this portrait of Jane Austen, so when Anne Rice very kindly granted permission for the painting to grace the front of my latest novel, I couldn't have been more thrilled or delighted!

Searching for Captain Wentworth
Who was Jane Austen's real Captain Wentworth?

When aspiring writer, Sophie Elliot, receives the keys to the family townhouse in Bath, it’s an invitation she can’t turn down, especially when she learns that she will be living next door to the house that Jane Austen lived in. But, Sophie’s neglected ancestral home is harbouring more than the antiquated furniture and nesting mice, though initially Sophie tries to dismiss the haunting visions of a young girl. On discovering that an ancient glove belonging to her mysterious neighbour, Josh Strafford, will transport her back in time to Regency Bath, she questions her sanity, but Sophie is soon caught up in two dimensions, each reality as certain as the other. Torn between her life in the modern world, and that of her ancestor who befriends Jane Austen and her fascinating brother Charles, Sophie’s story travels two hundred years across time, and back again, to unite this modern heroine with her own Captain Wentworth. Blending fact and fiction together the tale of Jane Austen’s own quest for happiness weaves alongside, creating a believable world of new possibilities for the inspiration behind the beloved novel, Persuasion.

I've loved writing this book - I think if you follow my blog you'll know how much I love Bath and Lyme Regis where the book is set. I find both places very inspiring, but spending a lot of time in Bath has been particularly wonderful! 

I wanted to write something a little different from my usual sequel - this time I've indulged my fantasy of going back in time where my heroine meets Jane Austen and her brother Charles. Sophie is mad about Captain Wentworth in Persuasion; it's her favourite book. However, her hopes of meeting anyone quite like him have proved to be fruitless so far - in fact, she arrives in Bath with a broken heart! She thinks she will take some time to pen the book she's always wanted to write, but her plans for a quiet life are soon completely disrupted by some very strange goings on!   

This year I am speaking at the Jane Austen Festival 2012 - so I hope you will be able to come and join in the fun. It would be lovely to see you there! 

Here's the info below from the Jane Austen Centre website:

Meet the Author – Jane Odiwe – 10.30am (duration 1 hour)
Popular, published author and illustrator ofEffusions of Fancy,  Lydia Bennet’s Story, Willoughby’s Return and her latest book  Mr Darcy’s Secret talks to us about her writing and also reads to us from her new novel Searching for Captain Wentworth.
Venue: Duncan Room, BRLSI 16-18 Queen Square BA1 2HN
The Jane Austen Festival, Bath