Hi, everyone!
Hope you’re having a lovely and sunny morning.
I’m Joana Starnes, this is my first post at Austen Variations and I’m 
honoured and super-excited to join the team!
I might as well have started the post with ‘Hi, I’m Joana Starnes, and I am a JAFF addict. I hope to stay a JAFF addict forever and a day.’
It started a fair while ago. Like many of us, I discovered Jane Austen’s novels in my teens and fell head over heels in love with them. Decades down the line, I’m still hooked, and I’m still reading and re-reading them, some more than most. First love (and last): Pride and Prejudice, with Persuasion as a very close second.
There’s no need to explain the fascination, you’re hooked too, so you’ll know. We all have our own special reasons for loving Pride and Prejudice, but we must have a fair number of reasons in common. The love story, the humour, the delicious social commentary, Elizabeth Bennet (bright, witty, undaunted and unwilling to compromise), the beauty and poetic justice of seeing Mr Darcy eating his words with an extra helping of custard (‘She is not handsome enough to tempt me’ – Oh. Right.) which of course brings me to one of the main reasons for the fascination: Mr Darcy, Mr Darcy, Mr Darcy.
The day when I discovered there were literally hundreds of websites dedicated to P&P was a brilliant day. The day when I discovered JAFF was even better. I’m hugely grateful to the fabulous JAFF authors, some of whom are here at Austen Variations, for their creativity and their awesome books that have kept me spellbound for hours, have given me many sleepless nights because I simply could NOT put the book down, and inspired me to start writing my own Austen plot-twists.
I’ve written eight so far, and from what I’ve noticed, there seems to be a pattern: I drift a lot towards torturing Mr Darcy (deep down, I probably feel that he has to go through a lot to make up for the ‘She’s tolerable, I suppose…’).
I think the beauty of JAFF is that it gives us more of what we love. The book, the TV adaptations – they don’t have to end. We can still imagine our favourite characters and stay with them as they fall in love over and over and over again.
“But it’s the same characters, it’s the same ending,” friends from outside the world of JAFF keep saying to me. “Don’t you ever get bored?” they ask.
How can we get bored of a beautiful love story? How can we get bored of a slow-paced and calmer time (at least on the surface), of courtship and Regency manners? What’s not to like when, in a busy world that keeps chasing its tail, we can sit back and dream about a couple that is meant to be – about two people who unerringly find each other, despite all the obstacles set in their way?
So far, I haven’t managed to get bored of Elizabeth and Mr Darcy and their love story, and I keep looking for glimpses of Pemberley wherever I go. Gardens where Elizabeth and Mr Darcy might have strolled, either courting or sparring…
Drawing rooms where Mr Darcy might have sat silently watching the object of his fascination from a distance…
Dining rooms where they might eventually entertain their relations and friends once they are married…
I love squirreling Regency titbits from here and there, and it’ll be a pleasure to share them with you. And if you don’t mind a wink and a nod at Captain Poldark and his Cornish beaches now and then, so much the better!
I hope to amuse you with my future posts or share a few things that might be useful in a Regency Trivia pub quiz. 😉
Thanks for reading, all the best and have a lovely day!
76 comments
Skip to comment form
Hi Joana, so excited that you have joined Austen Variations. I look forward to hearing from you on a more frequent basis. I have read all of your books and enjoyed them all. I too love to escape into the Regency world after a stressful day. I love Captain Poldark so feel free to share stories about the Poldarks too although Robin Ellis will always be my favourite Captain Poldark.
thanks
Michelle
Hi Michelle!
So happy you liked my books, thank you, it’s so wonderful to hear that! And the Regency world, if there’s any better place to go to after a stressful day, I haven’t found it yet. But no wonder, because I’m not looking :))
Oh, I love Robbin Ellis too, I think he might have been my very first crush. And I’m in awe of his coming back to play Rev. Halse, after owning the heart-throb role and the limelight for years. But I do like the way the new series has brought the story out in the fresh air and gorgeous locations rather than indoor sets. Same with P&P, I was hooked on the 1981 adaptation for ages, and then – WOW! Gents tearing across fields, swimming in lakes, out and about in the pouring rain. They had me at hello 🙂
Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you’ll like my posts.
Welcome! So excited and happy to have you here. Love your stories.
Thanks so much! A pleasure to be here, and so happy that you love my stories!
Joana, Welcome to Austen Variations! I look forward to reading your posts here.
Thanks so much, Jen! I hope I’ll find some fun things to say 🙂
Best of luck with your beautiful Melody and I hope you’ll have something new for us soon!
I believe I have enjoyed reading all of your P&P novels. I agree I never tire of new spin offs as long as the characters remain true to the original i.e. I passed up one that has Lizzy and Georgianna in a high stakes gambling game. That’s just not their characters. Likewise if there is one disaster after another, I dislike them because for me I want to know more about their feelings not hoe they solve too many implausible disasters.
Thanks so much, Meg, I’m so happy you liked them! I know the feeling, I like it better when characters stay true to themselves if they possibly can. I love reading and writing about our dear characters second-guessing and misunderstanding each other or, as a dear friend said, hurting each other’s feelings in a rich variety of ways 🙂
[I LOVED that, Jami!! Such a great way to put it. Says it all, doesn’t it?]
Hello Joana, I too have read most of your books. You do love to torture Mr. Darcy! I often wonder about the authors, where the inspiration for certain points ,etc, come from when I am reading these addicting P+P variations. I applaud all the JAFF authors for their work and for giving me hours of escape into another world with Elizabeth and Darcy.
Thanks, Sharon, you’re so kind! I’m so glad to hear you’ve read most of my books, and I hope you liked them although yes, the sad truth is that I do love to torture Mr Darcy 😉 . Can’t say why, other than he was such a sanctimonious prig while he was trying to distance himself from true love and from Elizabeth.
Hear-hear, I’m so grateful too for the amazing JAFF authors and their great works who keep us in a world full of Elizabeth and Darcy! Whatever inspires them, may it long continue to! In my case, it’s all sorts of little things, a phrase from P&P, a landscape, a room in a National Trust house, someone playing a particularly moving song. But if it gets me to spend the following weeks or months with Elizabeth and Darcy in my head while the rest of the plot spins into place, then I’m good 🙂 . Thanks for stopping by to say hi, much appreciated!
Well, here’s a thing, a lady whose acquaintance I gave yet to make. Good day, dear lady, I look forward to gadding with you!
Good day, kind sir. May I say (or will you think me forward?) you look exceedingly handsome in your regimentals!
I just threw these old things on… but I thank you!
Your charming modesty becomes you, sir. Au revoir!
Welcome Joana… I am so excited you are here at Austen Variations. Now that America is wading up… you shall be inundated with many shouts and cheers, exclamations of welcome, and various ‘so glad you are here’ slogans. I was so excited to see your first post. The above pictures were amazing and I loved your commentary. You always have the best photos. I love your work [as you well know] and look forward to reading more. So relax and enjoy our adulation… ’cause we love you my dear. Enjoy and blessings on this new venture.
Jeanne, you’re so wonderful! Thanks SO MUCH, you’re ever so kind!! It’s a pleasure and an honour to be here, and it’ll be fabulous to chat more often with great friends like you. So glad you like my photos, I think I’m gearing up to 5000 on my hard drive by now. Shame that it’s usually 300 photos of the same thing from marginally different angles 😀 . I’ll try not to post all 300 at the same time! Thanks again and have a lovely morning!
Congratulations! I can’t wait to read what you’ve got coming next, my friend! XO
Thanks, Christina! Best of luck with the Rational Creatures, my friend, and what wonderful creatures they are!
Welcome, welcome, welcome Joana. I’m so pleased to see you here and look forward to the occasional 😂😂😂😂 ? photo. I know you don’t take many 🙂
I’m certainly with you on wondering how anyone could ever get bored of Darcy and Elizabeth stories. Yes they always get together but I am amazed at some of their journeys to that HEA (and I certainly wouldn’t read it if they didn’t get there!)
I also find myself listening to songs and thinking how the lyrics would perfectly fit ODC
I will be fascinated to read what your next book is about and hopefully you won’t be torturing poor Darcy too much?
Many photos, moi? Oh no, no worries, Glynis, there’s no risk of that 😀 😀 😀
Totally, how can anyone be bored of Darcy and Elizabeth?? Bless my non-JAFF friends (yep, oddly enough I do have some 😀 ) they’re funny like that, asking such questions. Of course it’s the same ending! D & E HAVE to end up together. OMG the shock, horror and trauma of them not getting their HEA!!! We’d need therapy for weeks! What am I saying, months, more likely!
Love that, you listening to songs and thinking how the lyrics would go with our ODC’s antics. Off on a tangent here, but I loved how the Vanity Fair episodes start and finish with modern songs, and they fit so well! And so many modern songs fit D&E. I had such a great time hunting on YouTube for photo collages from P&P set to some pretty topical songs and lyrics!
You’re so sweet to ask about my new book! Yep, I’m on it, some idea that came from a spectacular scenery in the Lake District. I was shocked to realise I took that photo in 2013, why on earth did it take me so long to get to writing that? But (there’s a but there…) after the Darcy legacy frolicks, the ‘torture Darcy’ genie is prodding me again so I don’t know, it might get ugly…
Thanks ever so much for the lovely message and hope you can put up with what the genie is telling, nay, forcing me to do 😉
Hello! I love your books! I love this page and all its authors!
Hi, Kathy! Thanks so much, so wonderful to hear that! Best wishes and thanks for reading!
Oh, Joana, what a delight to read your post first thing this morning. So many of your words are “ditto” from me: “boring, same ending, P&P with Persuasion a close second” and “Mr. Darcy, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Darcy”. So I add my “lovely to see you here on this site”. Your stories are ones which bear rereading both on page and as audibles. Thank you for your beautiful contributions to my happiness with this obsession. Your prose is lovely. Plus, I, personally, enjoy angst in my stories…as long as HEA is guaranteed.
Dear Sheila, you’re too, too kind!! Thank *you* for your wonderful words, they mean so much to me! I’m over the moon that you like my books so much, and it’s fabulous to share our love of our dear characters and our lovely obsession. Everything’s so much better when we can share things with our kindred spirits. Have a great day, and chat soon.
Welcome for a fellow JAFF addict. I am a low-angst fan, but I read it all! 🙂
Thanks for stopping by to say hi, Cindy! Oh dear, I hope you can put up with the angst in mine. I do love to pull the rug from under our dear characters’ feet when they least expect it. A friend said that some of my books should come with a health warning 😉 and that having chocolate to hand helps. I hope it does, everything’s better with chocolate :))
Thanks for reading the post and all the best!
So happy to know you’ll be a “regular ” here at Austen Variations, Joana! I had to smile reading your response to those who ask “don’t you get bored reading the same story over and again?” As any JAFF fan knows, it’s not the ending, it’s all about the getting there! No better antidote to today’s turbulent times than a journey into Regency times (with a lovely cuppa , of course)!
So true, Regina!! It’s the journey that counts. I need to make a better job of explaining things to my non-JAFF friends, and who knows what closet Austenites I might find? We need more of those in these turbulent times. And plenty of cuppas 🙂 . Thanks and have a lovely day!
I am over the moon to see this! Such a treat to see you more, and thank you for sharing your beautiful pictures and your story!
Over the moon to be working with you, Nicole!! You’re such a star and a wonderful person and I love love love your books!!
I love your stories, and am so glad you’re here! Mr. Bennet’s Dutiful Daughter, is in my top 5, hands down.
Thank you for your lovely post, I’m looking forward to more regency trivia and beautiful pictures.
You’re so kind, Lea! Thanks so much for your wonderful words. I’m so happy you loved Mr B’s Dutiful Daughter so much, it’s great to hear that. Thanks for stopping by to say hi and have a lovely day!
What fabulous news ‘dear addict’ Joana! I’ll be right beside you the whole way! You have succinctly summed up everything I love about JAFF! I am so excited to see you have joined this wonderful group of authors! We never grow tired of another variation, sequel, etc that is created…I don’t think I ever will!
Welcome & Congratulations!!!
Aww, Carole, so happy to hear that. You’re so kind, I’m going to love having you beside me all the way. It’s so fabulous to find people who love the same things that we love, it makes all the difference. Thank goodness for the www. Miles apart or next door, it doesn’t matter when we’re on the same page 🙂
Dear Joana,
What a delightful surprise to see you here and read your first post!
Like so many others have said,we are privileged and so happy that you’ll be a regular feature in AV and look forward to reading your meandering thoughts on all things Austen and the myriad aspects of daily life that inspire your wonderful,angst filled stories!
Hope you feel the sincere warmth,love and good wishes sent from all our hearts to yours!!!
You are indeed most welcome!!
Kindest regards,
Mary.
Sending lots of love and good wishes back, Mary! You’re ever so kind, and your wonderful words always mean the world to me. I’m SO lucky we’ve met in the Austen world! Have a lovely, happy and cosy day, my friend!
What a wonderful post! I’m really pleased for you, Joana, that you’ve joined this site. Hopefully we’ll hear a lot more from you now. 🙂
Thanks, Elaine, I’m so glad you liked the post! Thanks for stopping by to read it.
So wonderful to see another happy face on the AV site.
Thanks, Donald! A pleasure to be here 🙂
Hello Joana! I love your stories! From one JAFF addict to another. I have fallen down the rabbit hole many years ago. I love visuals! Thank you for the pictures in your post. I am looking forward to your post and more pictures.
Thanks so much, Shelley, I’m so happy you loved my stories and that you love visuals too ! I try to post pics of places that look like something or other that’s percolating in my head 😀 . I do hope you’ll like them! Thanks for the lovely welcome and see you soon!
Hello, Joana, I have seven of your eight books; must check which I’m missing.
I disagree with your friends who say it’s always the same ending. Actually I particularly enjoy authors who look at putting the same ingenuity into the ending as they do into the beginning. Darcy and Lizzy can end up together without it being a cookie-cutter ending.
So true, Beatrice! I don’t think I’ve come across cookie cutter endings, they’re all so imaginative!
Many thanks for stopping by to read the post and say hi and have a lovely day!
So glad to have you joining us here at Austen Variations, Joana, and I look forward to getting to know you better. Welcome aboard!
Thanks so much, Shannon! Lovely to be here, and looking forward to us getting to know each other better too!
Hi Joana. Welcome to Austen Variations, a truly wonderful group of writers.
Many thanks, Mary, and indeed it is!
Although RL is taking up much of my time right now, I couldn’t resist popping in to say Hi! What a lovely and most welcome surprise to see that you’re joing the most amazing group of writers in the Austenesque world, Joana. As Sheila said in her comment, I’m also saying ‘ditto’ to most of what you’ve written in your post! Oh, and I still have my Founder Members card of the ‘Let’s Torture Darcy’ club. One day the stars will align, our diaries will match up and we’ll be in the same part of the country at the same time.
Anji, so kind of you to come and say hi! Thank you so much!
Oh, our dear old club :))). Love it! I still have the Founder Member card and all, and the banners and everything :D. We still need to have the inaugural meeting and a glass of red wine (or a cuppa), and I do hope the stars align soon. With any luck we WILL be in the same part of the country at last, we’ve been missing each other for too long. At one point it was plain ludicrous, how I was on my way up just when you were visiting in the south and the other way around. Lots of hugs and good thoughts for RL and everything x
Hello Joana, I love your books!
It really sounds silly reading time and again the same story and I can’t explain how clever women can do it. We’ll never find the answer to that enigma or maybe one day, a team of scientists will study that phenomenon and find a rational explanation (something to do with neurones and transmission… 🤣).
In the meanwhile, Let’s continue experimenting!
Hi, Rosa!
I’m SO glad you love my books!
I know, it’s such a mystery :)) . Goodness knows if some brilliant team of scientists might explain the phenomenon one day. Whatever they do, I hope they don’t mess with it, I’m fine without the cure. But this reminds me of an article that came out in Science Daily some years ago. Hang on, I just googled it: “Pride, prejudice and the ‘Darcin effect'” – about a newly-identified pheromone that attracts females to a particular male. OK, so the article is about mice and the details can be a wee bit much (not to mention the mental picture of tiny female mice wearing tiny bonnets), but now I’m just getting silly.
Thanks again for the welcome and the lovely comment, and hope you’ll like my posts.
Welcome….Your are a perfect fit for Austen Variations….Have enjoyed your stories and look forward to getting to know you better.
Thanks for the ever so kind words, Stephanie! It’s a pleasure and an honour to be here, and I’m looking forward to us chatting more. All the best and have a wonderful day.
I could be lazy and say ‘Ditto’ to everyone else’s welcoming comments, but then I’m not known for brevity when long-windedness feels so much better. I do welcome you to AV and am so looking forward to reading your posts here. Oh Joana, I DO hope and pray you NEVER get bored with Elizabeth and Darcy! I love your books so much. I must enjoy your torturing Darcy, even though it tortures me (oooo, that could be analyzed) it make the HEA so much more joyful. I go through so many tissues! So, let your Torture Muse have free rein.
Getting bored with Elizabeth and Darcy: I know there was a time early on when I thought I might get bored, but back then I would read anything, without reading reviews and I hadn’t yet discovered these great websites and blogs related to Jane Austen. But with those advantages I was steered toward the best authors. And we’ve been gifted with so many new names in JAFF since I got started. Now I can’t imagine ever getting bored. I can’t keep up with all the talented, gifted authors we are so fortunate to read. And I count you among the very best. Next time someones asks ‘don’t you just get bored reading the same, etc,?’ just go ‘mmmwahahaha!!’ Bestest of the best of everything Joana. Hugs and air-kisses from across the pond.
Hugs and air-kisses back, Michelle! You’re so, SO kind!! Huge thanks for your wonderful words and your kind thoughts, they mean so much to me. I’m over the moon that you love my books, and I’m so glad you’re OK with the Torture Muse running riot :)).
‘Mmmwahahaha,’ oh, I love this, it’s just perfect! I can just picture my goggle-eyed friends. I’m guessing they won’t ask me if I’m getting bored ever again. Thanks again, dear Michelle, bestest of the best to you too and have a wonderful day!
It was wonderful to see you post this morning. I am excited to see what you will be sharing with us. I have read most (still have a few to go) of your JAFF. I have enjoyed them all. I appreciate the care you take in crafting your story and the evident editting that is done before releasing your final product. Thank you for choosing this website to connect with us all.
I’m so happy you liked my books, Mary, thanks so much! I’m so excited to be here, and honoured to be invited to join this group of talented authors whose works have given me hours and hours of joy. All the best and have a lovely and sunny day!
Joana, I’m so thrilled to see you join a group that fits you so well. You’ll thrive within the dedicated group of Darcy and Elizabeth lovers that are the authors and the fans of Jane Austen Variations. I love all your books and admire you so much as a writer!
You’re so kind, Suzan, thanks so much! That’s exactly how I feel about you and your books, and I’m so excited about joining the authors and fans of Jane Austen Variations and doing my bit to spread the love for Darcy and Elizabeth and our love of Austen.
I love your stories, re-read them and look forward to more as fast as you can write them. When you “torture Darcy”, you stand up for all the women who have ever been told they are “not handsome enough”, even though they have plenty of wit and brains and love and sparkle! And of course, we want the HEA because everyone wants some HEA in his or her life – that’s why Disneyland is so popular! I did not get “bored” with my Mr. Darcy for the 25 years we had together and I’ve not been “bored” with any of Jane Austen’s stories in the 65+ years I’ve read and re-read them. Thanks for all you create!
Cheryl, you’re so kind to say that! LOL I do think Darcy deserves whatever’s coming, even if he has *some* excuses for his attitude and prejudices, given his background and his position in a society where merit had only just begun to count for something. Those who aren’t the masters of Pemberley or similar, and still dismiss women as ‘not handsome enough’ regardless of their merit, don’t even have that excuse 🙂 . But Darcy’s reasons and his excuses aside, he’s a man of independent fortune, who doesn’t need to pander to his peers’ sensibilities. Unlike Bingley, he doesn’t have to tread lightly to gain acceptance in society. He already has it, and he’s a law unto himself. His only valid excuse in my book is that he had Georgiana’s prospects to consider (especially with Ramsgate so fresh in their memory), and having Mrs Bennet as a tag-along wasn’t going to help anyone. But still, there’s a huge distance between the London salons and Mrs Bennet’s parlour, so he should have known better and not taken quite so long to value Elizabeth for herself, independent of her family, so I’d say some torture is fair game :).
Thank *you* for the lovely comment, and I hope we’ll keep meeting often in our Disneyland – I mean Darcyland 😉
Hi Joana, Happy to see you join the group and looking forward to your future posts.
Like you never grow tired of all the P & P variations. There was only 3 that I didn’t like . I salute you. I like it when the story has a portion when Darcy is troubled/emotionally tortured, maybe even jealous… I think it is warranted with the way he treated the ladies and esp that rude proposal.
Thank you for posting these lovely pictures.
Ah, a jealous Darcy is a delight! I love to read and write scenes when he could kick himself for not acting sooner. So true, it’s so warranted! Appalling behaviour, and that first proposal!!! We’ll never know exactly what Jane Austen had in mind, she didn’t tell us how long his speech was, but I love it how in the 1995 adaptation Darcy can make such a dreadful hash of it in one minute flat.
Thanks so much for stopping by, Buturot. I’m so glad you liked the post and the pictures and I hope you’ll like the next ones too.
Looking forward to your post. I don’t remember where I saw it but you had a picture which looked like a down slope in spring – lots of colorful plants/flowers.
Hello again, Buturot! Sorry I didn’t see your new comment for a week. I’m so glad you remember that picture! It was taken in the Valley Gardens, in Windsor Great Park, on the northern side of Virginia Water lake. That particular spot where the photo was taken is called the Punch Bowl and it looks absolutely stunning in the spring, when the azaleas are in bloom. The Valley Gardens look fabulous all year round, you can find their seasonal highlights here: https://www.windsorgreatpark.co.uk/en/seasonal-highlights
Hello, Joana!
You’re JAFF royalty! Welcome! You’re a kind and wonderful person based on my interactions with you, plus a fabulous author.
Denise, you’re too, too kind!!! I’ve always had such a fabulous time chatting to you on the blogs and on FB, and I’m looking forward to us chatting more! You’re such a wonderful lady, and I’m so glad we met in this lovely JAFF world! All the very best and chat again soon.
Your love of Jane Austen’s writings is in the proof of your novels. Thank you for sharing with us about this love you have. I love your novels, so please keep writing to keep us entertained.
HugsXXXX
Hugs back, MaryAnn, and thanks so much! I’m so happy that you love my books and that we’ve connected through our love of Austen. Best wishes and chat again soon!
Just typed a comment and it disappeared! Apologies if it shows up twice!
Joana, huge congratulations on joining the Austen Variations team! I know you’re going to be a great asset. Aside from your beautiful story-telling, I know you have a love for and knowledge of history, especially this era, and I’m certain you will be contributing some fascinating pieces to the blog!
Cass
Many thanks, Cass!! I do love this era to distraction, so I’ll do my best to dig up some interesting titbits from what I’ve been squirreling. Chances are that most people will have heard of them already, with soooo much Regency info available, but it’ll be fun to try. Best wishes, and thanks for stopping by!
HUGE welcome, Joana!!!
So delighted to see you here! 💗
Thanks EVER so much, Marilyn!! It’s going to be lovely to do more things together! I’m so looking forward to that!
I have literally read every single word of several of Joana’s books, out loud! And I can tell you they are all beautifully, thoughtfully, charmingly written. Enjoy!
Thanks EVER so much, Stevie, for this fabulous praise and especially for reading every single word out loud <3
The sound of your beautiful voice makes every word so much better!