Retrospective & Anticipation by Jack Caldwell

Retrospective & Anticipation – Jane Austen’s Fighting Men, by Jack Caldwell

Greetings, everyone. Jack Caldwell here.

This month, we Austen Variations authors are doing retrospectives of our work, focusing on 2020. A lousy year, to be sure, but I did publish TWO books and an audiobook!

PERSUADED TO SAIL, a sequel to Persuasion, came out in print and ebook in May and in audiobook in December. ROSINGS PARK, a sequel to THE THREE COLONELS (which in turn is a sequel to Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility), was released last month in print and ebook.

PERSUADED TO SAIL is Book 3 of my JANE AUSTEN’S FIGHTING MEN series, and ROSINGS PARK, Book 4, is the concluding chapter of this epic tale of Waterloo and the late Regency period.

So, here we are, with THE THREE COLONELS (Book 1) and THE LAST ADVENTURE OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL (Book 2):

Nice grouping, isn’t it?

What? You think I messed up the grouping, that there is a book missing? Yes and no.

ROSING PARK is indeed the end of the tale. I will not continue onward with the series into the 1820s and beyond. That doesn’t mean there will not be a fifth book—because I’m writing it now. It will slot in right after PERSUADED TO SAIL. I have entitled the novel BROTHER OF THE BRIDE.

As you can see from the timeline above, BROTHER OF THE BRIDE is set mainly in 1816. The book serves as the connection between THE THREE COLONELS and ROSINGS PARK. It’s the story of Georgina Darcy’s engagement and wedding to Lord Algernon Woodhouse, Viscount Llewellyn. Woodhouse, you ask? Yep—he’s a second cousin to Emma Woodhouse Knightley! See—I finally got the cast of Emma into this series!

(See the relationship chart for JANE AUSTEN’S FIGHTING MEN HERE.)

Fitzwilliam Darcy has enough to concerns, having to give his beloved sister away. But then complications arise! The Darcys end up taking in Chloe Wickham, the spirited 3-year-old daughter of the late George Wickham, as Lydia has remarried and sailed for India. Elizabeth is expecting their second child. And Georgiana insists on having the wedding at Pemberley in September of 1816, only two months after the baby’s expected arrival. The burden of preparations falls to Mr. Darcy.

Or so he thinks. Do you believe the ladies of the families involved will stand by and do nothing? Of course not. But what happens when Lady Matlock, Lady Wakeford (Llewellyn’s mother), Mrs. Bennet, Emma Knightley, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh all insist on having their share of the conversation? All while Chloe is wreaking havoc all around Pemberley? Hilarity ensues!

Look for BROTHER OF THE BRIDE sometime in the fall of 2021 (I hope). The cover above is just a placeholder. The real one will be much nicer. Trust me (and Ellen Pickels)!

Once the five books of JANE AUSTEN’S FIGHTING MEN are done, I will turn my pen to other plots that have percolated in my brain over the years, most of them variations on Pride and Prejudice. Among those might be my take on a FMS (forced marriage scenario), Darcy badly courting Elizabeth from almost the get-go, Mrs. Bennet trying to match Jane with Darcy when he wants Elizabeth, and perhaps a non-Austen modern murder mystery. And we’re not counting out a continuation of my CRESCENT CITY series of Louisiana history.

Lots of work ahead. I appreciate your support and hope you continue reading!

Until next time, this has been the Cajun Cheesehead Chronicles.

It takes a real man to write historical romance, so let me tell you a story…