A Longbourn Entanglement: Release day + challenge + giveaway

The novella is now live on Amazon, and I really can’t wait to share it with all of you. I’m dying to know what you think!

If you’ve read Fortune and Felicity, you’ll discover quickly that the two stories are pretty different. For one thing, A Longbourn Entanglement is quite absurd. For another,  a great many characters inhabit its pages, wandering in and out and disrupting everyone. Darcy and Elizabeth are the centre of the action, of course [as they jolly well should be, since this is a romantic comedy], but the other characters insist on having their say, and that is what made writing this novella particularly enjoyable for me. I love Jane Austen’s humor, and I relished the opportunity to bring some of the more playful aspects of Pride and Prejudice into the story.

In a radical departure from my usual practice, I won’t be offering an excerpt today, though you can check out an excerpt here. Instead, I’m issuing a challenge.

For a chance to win, I’m challenging you to a little exercise that fits with the spirit of the novella and will make the comments fun for everyone.

[Note: any comment counts on as an entry, but it would be nice if you tried the challenge}.

A Longbourn Entanglement begins with one of my favorite quotes by Mr. Bennet which I’m sure you all know very well.

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn? 

I love that quote because it fundamentally reflects Mr. Bennet’s attitude towards life. It illustrates Jane Austen’s remarkable ability to capture the essence of her characters in a few words. Which brings us to:

The Challenge

What do you think is the funniest quote in the novel that sums up each of the characters who appear in A Longbourn Entanglement? You can pick one character or several, it’s up to you, as long as you can bring a smile to our faces.  [PS: some of the characters are probably much funnier than others, so if you don’t think a character is funny, you can just pick a quote that makes you smile}.

Once you’ve picked the quote, please provide a single word or short phrase that sums up who that person is. Have as much fun with this as you can! You are allowed to use quotes from the movies as well as the book.

I’ll start off with an example from the same character:

Mr. Bennet

Quotation: “I will sit in my library, in my nightcap and powdering gown, and give as much trouble as I can; — or, perhaps, I may defer it, till Kitty runs away.”

Word that summarizes him: Facetious

Here are the other Jane Austen characters that appear in Longbourn Entanglement.  Can you do the same for any of them?

• Lydia
• Mr. Collins
• Mr. Bennet
•  Mary
• Kitty
• Mrs. Phillips
• Miss Bingley
• Bingley
• Jane
• Elizabeth
• Darcy [Is Darcy ever funny? Does anyone dare to laugh at him???]

Good luck with winning a copy!

Note: You don’t have to do the challenge to enter the giveaway. I just thought it might be entertaining to do it. Comments of any kind count as any entry. 

Meanwhile, for those of you who are eager to read the story as soon as possible, here’s the link to Amazon

BLURB

Elizabeth Bennet has a secret. If Fitzwilliam Darcy discovers it, will it spell the end of their fledgling romance?

When Mrs. Bennet falls ill after the Netherfield Ball, Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley postpone their trip to London to offer their assistance.

But things are never what they seem. Before long, Darcy is entangled in a chaotic situation at Longbourn, and Elizabeth is faced with a thorny dilemma that could drive Darcy away from her forever.

Will Elizabeth and Darcy muddle their way through the mayhem, or is everything just too tangled for them to discover their feelings?

If you are looking for a warm, sweet, and short Jane Austen variation, this romantic comedy is just what you need.

Free on Kindle Unlimited