Welcome to the 2025 Austen Variations Advent Calendar, where our amazing authors will bring you a new gift every day from now until December 24th.
I’ve Got a Secret!
At Christmas time and the holiday season (and probably several other times of the year), I am certain we all have a secret or 2. We try to keep the places we have shopped a secret, the charges that appear on our credit card a secret, the visits to websites we visited a secret, and of course, the places in the house where you are hiding all the presents that you have bought a secret! And yes, sometimes I forget where I hid them! I now have a note page on my iPad that I write what I bought for who and WHERE I hit it! Do you know where all YOUR presents are?
We all have other secrets, and in the spirit of all the secrets you keep this time of year, our fun challenge for you today is to try to match the author with the secret. And do we have a few doozies!
So put on your secret thinking caps and try to figure out whose secret is whose! Let us know how you did! I have also asked the authors to explain them if they need an explanation. I know I’m curious about a few of them! Feel free to put your guesses in comments – anywhere from just one you are sure of to all 12!
Here are the secrets:
- I have written a published play.
- I have been to the Kremlin.
- When I was 21 I went to Europe for a 100 day trip with a backpack, BritRail and Eurail Passes, and Travelers checks, only to have my purse stolen in the train station in Birmingham, England 9 days after arriving.
- My college hobby was stage lighting.
- I was once locked in Hampton Court (but sadly not for long).
- When I was 10, I toured Europe as a member of a folk dance group.
- In college, I helped a Air Traffic Controller ‘land’ a plane.
- My first written works were poems that I still have in my closet.
- I used to write very moody poetry as a teenager and had several published, one was even put on an inspirational poster.
- I played softball for my university.
- At one point I simultaneously owned over a dozen swords and over a hundred gowns
- A documentary film is being made about the writing women of my family. Great-grandmother, grandmother, great-aunt, and myself. As I’m the only one still around, I’m doing a lot of the narration!
Some of those are pretty interesting! Below is a list of the authors to choose from:
~Marilyn Brant
~Melanie Rachel
~Elizabeth Adams
~Diana Birchall
~Jack Caldwell
~Anngela Warren Schroeder
~Shannon Winslow
~Kara Louise
~Abigail Reynolds
~Leah Pruett
~Joanna Starnes
~Summer Hanford
I will be posting the answers sometime later today so you can see how well you did! And then the authors themselves can explain some of these! Be sure to ask the individual author’s secret you are most curious about!
Have fun!
Check back tomorrow for your next gift.
To see each day so far, visit austenvariations.com/2025-advent-calendar/
20 comments
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I’m pretty sure 12 is Diana Birchall, but otherwise I’m clueless!
I can easily see several of those being about her!
Pass! Seriously I don’t have a clue so look forward to matching the secrets to the actual authors when I get your next post!😱
I have always had ‘safe’ places to put things which magically made them disappear when I actually needed them, only to produce them when it is too late! 🤔😳
Ha! I don’t have a single clue as to who matches what, but I can it would be fun to play Two Truths and a Lie with you all!
Who had their purse stolen in Birmingham? That was always my worst nightmare when I was similarly traveling the UK and Europe.
Valerie, Two truths and a lie would be great fun! Maybe next year!
And it was me who had my purse stolen. I’m about to post the answers in the comments so you can see. I’ll also explain what happened when my purse was stolen in a comment.
I don’t have a clue on this or even yesterday’s. Maybe if a list of characters had been provided…even though I read so much I am sure I can’t remember all of JA’s character…didn’t even try.
I’m with you on yesterday’s crossword Sheila. Although I have read all the books I only really know the P&P characters so I got a few then gave up!
I have a few the in some of them, but I am clueless on a lot of them. Looking forward to the answers and explinations.
That is what I get for trying to respond, while distracted by kids and dog, It doesn’t make sense. I ment to say I have a few guesses on some of them…
Here are the answers to the secrets:
Marilyn Brant – #6
Melanie Rachel – #10
Elizabeth Adams – #9
Diana Birchall – #12
Jack Caldwell – #1
Anngela Warren Schroeder – #7
Shannon Winslow – #2
Kara Louise – #3
Abigail Reynolds – #4
Leah Pruett – #8
Joanna Starnes – #5
Summer Hanford – #11
When my girl friend and I were waiting for our train at the station in Birmingham, I had my purse sitting next to me on the bench. When we got up to leave, it was gone! Hadn’t noticed anyone or anything! I retraced my steps, going to the bathroom, and then the security office. Nothing had been turned in. We went to the American Express office to at least start the process of getting my travelers checks replaced, when 2 Bobbies came in and called my name. My purse had been found in the men’s restroom at the station. Miracles upon miracles, only my English money had been taken (maybe about 20 pounds or so), my American money had been ripped in half, but everything else was still there! The 2 Bobbies took us back to the station, we told everyone my purse had been found, and the 2 Bobbies tried to talk us into staying and they would take us out. We just wanted to get out of there, so hopped on the next train and ended up in Liverpool. Amazingly enough, I had a surprisingly strong peace about it the whole time, even though I knew that I wouldn’t be able to replace the passes for the trains, and replacing everything else would be a nuisance. When I wrote home throughout our adventures in Europe, I didn’t tell anyone about it until I got home, not wanting them to worry about us over there.
Wow! You were very lucky!
Too bad you didn’t stay to go out with the bobbies. Now it’s one of those “missed chances” stories, instead of a “meet cute”!
I would like to know more about what happened to Joana Starnes and Anngela Schroeder! Do you think they’ll tell us?
The only one I was even going to guess was Summer and her swords and gowns. I thought maybe Abigail did something with theater, but I was not confident. You all have a lot of interesting secrets!
I do love my swords and gowns! (I actually had over 300 dresses at one point but we won’t talk about that…I may have had a problem, lol)
I wish I still had them all. Well, mostly all of the swords. At some point I decided swords were a childish hobby and got rid of about half of them. I kept all the nicest ones, but still… more swords would be better!
Ginna, I was in college and dating a guy who was studying for his pilot’s license. I was waiting at this little airport for him to finish a 6-hour flight so I could pick him up and we could go out to dinner. He was running VERY late, and so I wandered around and found the door to the tower unlocked. I made my way up and introduced myself to the ATC. We chatted about all kinds of things including his wife and kids, and then I heard my boyfriend’s voice on approach. The ATC gave me the mic and walked me through what to say and on which runway to have him land. It was a really fun experience, but probably not one that would happen today with all the safety guidelines. 🙂
~Merry Christmas!
Anngela, that is a cool story!
When I said I’d been to the Kremlin, that was perfectly true in the sense that I travelled to Moscow (on a People to People tour the summer after I graduated from high school), visiting Red Square and Lenin’s tomb among other things. So I visited the site of the Kremlin, but I was not invited inside! 🙂
This was a really fun one! Thank you for sharing the stories.
thank you, Kara, Angela, and Shannon for telling your stories. a few of the others were familiar, those authors must have mentioned them around here sometimes or another, though I couldn’t remember whose stories they were!
It was a fabulous trip, Karen, one that I would appreciate much more now than when I was 18! 🙂