Jane Odiwe Jane Austen Sequels

I'm over at Austen Variations today to launch my new book, Mr Darcy's Christmas Calendar! I hope you'll join me - there are links to chapters one , two and three , plus prizes to be won - paperbacks, e-books, Advent calendars and more, to get you in the festive spirit. I've loved writing this book and hope you enjoy it - I'd love to know what you think. There's a chapter for each day including Christmas Day - it's a bit of a fairytale with all our favourite characters from Pride and Prejudice. Lizzy Benson visits Jane Austen’s house in Chawton, and buys a special advent calendar in the gift shop, but strange things start to happen when she opens up the first door and finds herself back in time with all the beloved characters from her favourite book, Pride and Prejudice. As she finds herself increasingly drawn into an alternate reality, Lizzy discovers not only is Mr Darcy missing from the plot, but also that Jane Austen has never heard...

Jane Austen with her father George Some years ago, I painted a little picture of how I imagined Jane and her father would look when she was about five years old. I thought about this painting whilst I was writing a little scene in Project Darcy when Ellie goes back into the past and becomes Jane Austen, and tied it in with what seem to be Jane’s own recollections that she wrote about in Northanger Abbey . Although she is writing about Catherine Morland when she says her heroine was ‘ noisy and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green slope at the back of the house’, I have a feeling she was referring to a memory of doing that herself. If you’ve ever been to Steventon to see the site where the rectory stood, the back of the garden has a pronounced slope! Here’s how I imagine Jane and her beloved brother Henry playing at the back of the rectory. I hope you enjoy this little excerpt from my latest novel,  Project D...

Happy Valentine's Day! We're celebrating over at Austen Variations with some writing - excerpts from our books and a poem by Diana Birchall, plus there are links to authors' websites for their special contributions! Here's an excerpt from Project Darcy which follows on from my piece at Austen Variations - I hope you enjoy it. Jane Austen and her friend, Tom Lefroy, are falling in love at the Manydown Ball! My spirits were dancing in silent rapture just as much as my feet when Tom escorted me to the dance floor. I think something of the joy we felt on the occasion pervaded the whole room like the fragrance lingering on the air as the atmosphere lightened. There was laughter and movement and flurries of white muslin as dashing young men spun their partners round, satin slippers kicking up the chalk. As the musicians played faster the handclaps and boot stomping grew louder. Everywhere looked a blaze of colour and sparkle under glittering chandeli...