Books and Readers and a Writer, Oh My!

Greetings, you wonderful readers, you!

This is a smorgasbord of a post, so I’ll try to break it up into three parts. (Appetizers: Free Books! Main Course: Jane Austen Summer Program! Dessert: Part 8 of On Air…)

Appetizers: Free Books!

If you haven’t yet heard, there’s a JAFF Book Bonanza happening today (July 14)! Over forty authors, including Austen Variations authors Nicole Clarkson (Alix James), Amy D’Orazio, L.L. Diamond, Monica Fairview, Lucy Marin, Melanie Rachel, Anngela Schroeder, and MJ Stratton, are offering one of their e-books for free!

Seasons of Waiting is my free e-book offering. If you’ve been thinking of picking up the audiobook, narrated by the fabulous Elizabeth Grace, now would be a great time to do so! When you “purchase” the e-book for free, you can also purchase the audiobook for a discounted price!

Whatever you end up snagging, happy reading (and listening) to you!

Main Course: The Jane Austen Summer Program (JASP)!

Last month, I had the privilege of attending the Jane Austen Summer Program, held this year in the coastal town of New Bern, North Carolina. I had never attended a Jane Austen gathering before, and let me tell you, I was incredibly nervous! I did not know a single soul—and yet, within hours of arriving, I was playing Sense and Sensibility charades, singing happy birthday to Jane Austen, and debating Colonel Brandon’s character. (Wait, there are people who don’t like Colonel Brandon? Shannon Winslow, I needed you there at my side to defend our dear Colonel!)

There were far too many fun events to recount, so here are the first four that come to mind, along with a few photos:

Examples of filigree, shared at a JASP lecture by Professor Jennie Batchelor of the University of York

1. Amazing lectures! I learned so much from several great scholars. I can’t name a favorite lecture, but I’ll tell you what: after Jennie Batchelor, a scholar from the University of York, discussed the intricacies of filigree, I had a bit more sympathy for the dreadful Lucy Steele! (See Chapter 23 of Sense and Sensibility, when Lady Middleton essentially guilt-trips Lucy into working into the night to finish a filigree basket for her spoiled little daughter.)

The dear, lovely couple who knew far more about Regency costumes than I did! (Note my period-appropriate sandals and Apple watch tan…)

2. The Regency Ball! All right, confession time: I hate getting dressed up. Hate it! But I love English country line dancing (as well as contra dancing, which is the New England version of it). So I went to the costume rental rack and pulled off the first dress I thought would fit me. When I got back to my room, I had no idea how to put it on, and no real safety pins or other means of making it fit right. The shoes I borrowed didn’t fit, and I had no idea how to do my hair. Whatever. I joined the procession to the ball (a five-minute walk through New Bern, from our hotel to the conference center, with onlookers from a motorcycle bar wondering what the heck was going on) and decided not to care how very un-Regency I looked. Still, when I arrived at the ball, I fell into conversation with a very nice couple who looked fabulously well-dressed! They said nice things about the color of my dress, but I admitted I had no idea how to wear it. The lady in the couple — the costume expert in her local JASNA organization — leaned forward and whispered, “I think you’re wearing it backward.”

OMG.

“But you wear it however you want, dear!”

“Um, would you help me?”

“Shall we go to the restroom together?”

With my dress no longer backward, I joined the grand march — and danced every single dance! (There were, as might be expected, many more ladies than gentleman at this affair, but thank goodness that doesn’t matter in the 21^st century!)

Here I am, with the boats of New Bern behind me, wearing the awesome t-shirt a fellow JASP attendee gave me, just because I complimented her on her t-shirt! (She created the design on the t-shirt herself!

The lovely and generous Meredith of Austenesque Reviews!

3. Meredith at Austenesque Reviews! She didn’t attend the conference, but she drove several hours to meet me for brunch just before the conference began. We spent several hours talking about anything and everything…so much fun! What a generous and lovely soul!

4. Spending three days with intelligent, kind, and fascinating Austen fans! Speaking of generous and lovely souls, I met so many amazing people at JASP! I’ve already mentioned above the kind couple who helped me at the ball. Consider also the woman who, after I complimented her “More Pride, Less Prejudice” t-shirt, reached into her bag and said, “Here! I made one for anyone who came up to me and said they liked my shirt!” Then there were the five teacher scholars I met: these women were bringing Austen—and a love of reading and learning—into high schools classrooms everyday. Woohoo! There were the many people who danced with me when I was without a partner, the discussion-group leader who encouraged everyone in our group to have a voice, the snarky dance instructor, who was so very patient with us newbies…so many wonderful people! If you ever have a chance to attend JASP — an event like it — I highly recommend it!

Dessert: On Air!

So, a while back I promised to bring a close to a story, set in 1939 New York, which I began on Austen Variations many, many months ago. (See Part I here.) I’m almost there, patient readers! I’ll post the last chapter on Thursday, but here’s a teaser, just to prove that I’m (belatedly) fulfilling my promise:

On-Air (Part 8)

(An Elizabeth and Darcy Short Story)

Was it possible, in only two weeks, to fall in love?

Her parents had met on a Sunday and married the following Saturday, a cautionary tale for rapid romance, if ever there was one. Thomas Bennet had been a thoughtful and witty man—so long as a sturdy wall stood between himself and his wife. Without that barrier, his virtues were his vices: his thoughts darkened, and his wit became weapons to wield against Frances Bennet. Her mother, too, had seemed happier when not in her husband’s presence; only when he had died did she bemoan his absence.

So no, Elizabeth had not believed it possible—certainly not advisable—to fall in love after so short an acquaintance. Yet, here she was, rapidly losing her heart to Darcy.

“You have known him for many months now,” Jane soothed, as they rambled the meadow bordering Netherfield.

“But until two weeks ago, I hated him!”

“I doubt you hated him.”

“No, I suppose not—but he was my nemesis.” She thought of “Tales for Tots” and her uncertain fate at PBN. “Perhaps he still is.”

“Well, whatever you feel for him, you have known him longer than I have known…” Jane stopped, hand on the gate that would allow them access to the Netherfield grounds. “Well, you have known him long enough to know your heart. That is what I think, Lizzy.”

Elizabeth placed her hand over her sister’s, their fingers together gripping the cold metal of the gate latch. “And what about you, Janey? Do you know your heart?”

“Oh, Lizzy, my heart is a wild and inconsistent thing.”

“How poetic!”

Jane laughed. “You mean to say melodramatic.”

“Well, I have long wondered how you, serene and patient as you are, could possibly be related to all the rest of us ungovernable women at Longbourn.”

“Perhaps I am the most ungovernable of us all.”

“Jane…”

“I do know my heart, Lizzy, but it does not matter: while I work for at Netherfield—while my livelihood, and Tommy’s too, depends on this job, I cannot give another thought to…well, to what we might otherwise wish.”

“We? Has he—”

“He has done nothing untoward,” she said quickly. “But…”

“But?”

“There was an evening, last week, when he had expected his sister to arrive, only she was delayed, and so when he sat down to dinner alone, he asked—well, he wondered if I would join him? And I did.” She sighed. “Stupid girl that I am, I did.”

“Did he—”

“He did nothing untoward,” she said again, and Elizabeth snorted.

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

“No, truly. We just talked—for hours, Lizzy.”

“What about?”

“Teaching and medicine and Tommy and…oh, everything, Lizzy, everything! And Tommy!” she said again, stopping dead in her tracks, tipping her head back and closing her eyes—against the sun, or her tears, Elizabeth could not tell. “I stayed so late that Mary had to feed Tommy dinner and…what kind of mother am I, Lizzy?”

“A brilliant one,” she replied, placing an arm about Jane’s shoulders. “Just because you stayed at work a bit late—”

“But I wasn’t working! I was talking and laughing and—”

“So you lost track of time.”

“But that’s just it,” Jane whispered. “I saw how dark it had become, I knew how late it was, but I kept listening to his stories and telling my own and”—she opened her eyes, blinking furiously—“then I thought to myself, What if I just stayed the night?”

Elizabeth said nothing, only pulled Jane closer.

“The moment the idea crossed my mind, our eyes met, and—oh, Lizzy!—I think he knew exactly what I had been thinking.”

If he did, Elizabeth supposed it was only because he had been thinking the same thing.

“I jumped up and rushed out of the house before he could say more than my name. The next day, I arrived with every intention of quitting, but I couldn’t find him. He’d left a note, an apology, swearing he would never again put me in such a position again—and he hasn’t. So here I remain,” she added, brushing her fingers along the kitchen door of Netherfield.

“And that’s…good?”

“Yes, good.” She sighed. “No, Lizzy, it’s awful. I haven’t seen him—not in the house—not since that night.”

“Did he leave?”

“No, he must sleep and eat at home. The bed is—well, it’s made, in fact, he always makes his own bed, but there’s laundry and a few dishes, and…he must make sure never to leave before I arrive and return after I’ve left. The only time I’ve seen him”—she managed a weak laugh—“I was at Burt’s General, rifling through the sale bin, looking for a can of peas, of all things, and there he was.”

“What, at the sale bin? Was he looking for peas, too?”

Jane’s smile was sad. “No, he was at the cash register, waiting to pay for a newspaper.”

“Did he see you?”

“He looked right at me, and then—oh, Lizzy, he didn’t even buy the paper! He slid it onto the counter and walked out of the store.”

Elizabeth squeezed her sister’s hand. “What are you going to do, Janey?”

“I…I just don’t know. Every afternoon, when I leave work, I tell myself I will quit tomorrow, but…Longbourn!  I get home and see Tommy on the same board swing we used as kids, or I see Mary pulling weeds in the garden, or Kitty and Lydia, dancing to the radio…”

Elizabeth sighed, thinking of her own memory of dancing to the radio, two weeks earlier. Three glorious minutes, dancing at dusk, Darcy’s lips on her hair, her lips against his cheek. When the song had finished, he had pulled back and looked at her as if he wanted to dance with her forever. Instead, he’d raised her hand to his lips and murmured farewell.

She hadn’t seen him since.

© 2025 Christina Morland

All right, that’s enough from me for today! If you’d like to read more of On Air, come back Thursday! And don’t forget to check out the JAFF Book Bonanza — today only!

Happy reading!