Jane Odiwe Jane Austen Sequels

I recently met up with lovely author Sue Wilkes in Bath. She'd been invited to a gorgeous afternoon out with Tim Bullamore (publisher of the Jane Austen magazine) and some of the ladies at the Jane Austen Centre to see Clare Tomalin's talk at the Bath Literary Festival. Sue and I met for lunch and had a lovely chat - we've corresponded for years ever since we did an article or two together on Jane Austen's Regency World magazine, but this was the first time we'd actually met. Incidentally, Sue had tea at the Jane Austen Centre afterwards - lovely treat. I've been there myself and highly recommend the cheese toasted sandwich! I always enjoy Sue's articles and she has also written some fabulous non-fiction books. Her latest, Regency Cheshire is about that county, but filled with so much more, lots of fascinating stories about the era in general. It was an age of unique style and elegance; the era of Trafalgar and Waterloo. Regency Cheshire explores the scan...

Anyone who stops by to read my blog will know how much I enjoy researching for the books that I write. Willoughby's Return is set in Devon, Dorset and London so I spent a lot of time reading about these places as they were in the 1800's. Marianne is married to Colonel Brandon and they are settled with one child at Delaford in Dorset with her sister Elinor and husband Edward Ferrars living nearby at the parsonage with their children. When Marianne receives news that her husband's nephew is coming home from university, she gets very excited on Margaret's behalf. Marianne thinks a ball will be the very thing to introduce Henry Lawrence to the neighbourhood (and her sister) and so promises to take Margaret shopping to Exeter, the nearest large town to Barton in Devon where Margaret lives in a cottage with her mother on the estate of Barton Park which belongs to Mrs Dashwood's cousin, Sir John Middleton. I found the wonderful painting above on a super site about Exeter w...

One of my favourite walks in Bath starts at Jane Austen's house at no. 4 Sydney Place and takes me through the gardens opposite where we know our favourite novelist walked. Although the gardens do not look the same as they did in Jane's day, they are still a lovely place for a stroll or provide the starting point for something a little more energetic. There is a gate almost hidden amongst the greenery which leads onto the Kennet and Avon canal path and if you turn left after passing through it you can follow the canal for a good twenty minute walk to the village of Bathampton and beyond if you've the stamina! The photos below are a selection of ones taken over time, but I hope they give you an idea of what you might see in Sydney Gardens and on the canal path. In 1819 Pierce Egan wrote about the gardens and canal in his book of Walks through Bath - The Kennet and Avon Canal runs through the gardens, with two elegant cast-iron bridges thrown over it, after the manner of the ...