Jane Odiwe Jane Austen Sequels

I have such a treat in store for you today-I'm delighted to welcome the author Maria Grace to the blog! She's celebrating the release of her new novel, All the Appearance of Goodness and I'm so glad she's had time to stop here on her blog tour. Over to you, Maria! Thanks for hosting me Jane. I’m so excited to be able to share an excerpt from my latest book, All the Appearance of Goodness .  It is the third volume of the Given Good Principles series, the long awaited volume where Darcy and Elizabeth finally meet. Maria Grace Though their experiences in the first two books have helped them to overcome their pride and prejudice, all is not smooth sailing for Darcy and Elizabeth. What is a young woman to do? One handsome young man has all the goodness, while the other the appearance of it.  How is she to separate the gentleman from the cad? When Darcy joins his friend, Bingley on a trip to Meryton, the last thing on his mind is finding a w...

I've got a bit of a thing about Elizabethan stone-built manor houses, especially those with mullioned windows and so when I decided to invent my own for inclusion in Searching for Captain Wentworth - Monkford Hall in Somerset - you can imagine that I had a lot of fun doing the research. The photo above shows Owlpen Manor  - a stunningly beautiful house in the Cotswolds which is the epitome of the type of house I love. You can visit virtually here , read all about its history and even stay in cottages on the estate . I wanted to include a knot garden or parterre in my novel where I could place a sundial that held a special motto for my heroine, Sophia, to find. They were usually laid out in formal designs with aromatic herbs and plants like marigolds, pansies, rosemary, thyme, lemon balm etc. A later addition enclosed the planting with low box hedges.  My heroine Sophie goes back in time to visit the house her ancestors lived in before they travel on to Lyme. It's ca...

The White Gate - Sydney Gardens If you've read my latest novel, Searching for Captain Wentworth, you will know that the white gate in Sydney Gardens plays a very important part. At the start of the book, my heroine Sophia is invited to Bath by her aunt who understands that she is in need of mending a broken heart and also has a dream of becoming a writer. Sophia sees her neighbour, the mysterious Josh Strafford, drop a glove outside the house where she is staying (which just happens to be next door to Jane Austen's Sydney Place address) and when she follows him in an attempt to return it, she finds herself at this gate and with no sight of Josh who seems to have disappeared. Here's a little from the book:  The only way he could possibly have gone seemed to be screened by hedges but, as I approached, I saw a white cast-iron gate hidden in the greenery. I must admit to feeling a little uneasy at this point. The gardens were deathly quiet a...