I want to let you know about my published novel, Prideful & Persuaded. I read all of Jane Austen’s works twice in the space of about six months (we were in another lock-down, it was dark). Anyway, this just fell out of my brain. I took six characters from five novels who were unmarried (I left out Emma, Jane Austen married off everyone!) and threw them together.
The candidates for marriage are: Caroline Bingley, Elizabeth Elliot, Anne (Nancy) Steele, Sir Walter, Captain Frederick Tilney, and Tom Bertram. Everyone is as they were at the end of their novels, silly, scheming, vain, and proud. The only one reformed is Tom Bertram. They all have their own reasons for marrying, and marrying fast.
What I wanted to explore in this book is that less-than-perfect people can marry and be happy too. Caroline, the main female character, doesn’t reform at all. She’s the same old Caroline, a mean girl, ambitious, and very willing to flatter to get ahead. But as in canon, she’s not evil or one dimensional, she’s a person with clear goals and a slightly off moral compass. And she knows what she deserves, a fortune of 20k entitles a person to a pretty good marriage.
The novel is set as a sequel, mostly to Pride & Prejudice and Persuasion, and yes, your actual favourite characters all have cameos (How could I resist writing in Henry Tilney?!) It’s a fun, light, romance that honours the characters that Austen wrote by mocking them all.
You can find it on Amazon and KU here
