12 Days of a Jane Austen Christmas

 

We have Winners!

Winner of the book set is: Max

Winner of the Mrs. Darcy Mug is: Michelle @ The True Book Addict

Please email your mailing address to:
Newroyalreviews at yahoo dot com

Many of you may know that Pride & Prejudice is my absolute favorite Jane Austen novel. There is something about Lizzy, Darcy, and even wicked Wickham that calls out me making me want to read the novel over and over again. I  constantly find myself randomly quoting bits from the novel and I eagerly devour adaptations, spin-offs, add-ons, and retellings.

Although surprisingly Pride & Prejudice is not my favorite novel, Jane Eyre is. When comparing the two I constantly refer to Newton’s Law: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In the case of Pride & Prejudice vs. Jane Eyre it seems that Mr. Rochester is Mr. Darcy’s opposite reaction. Which leads me to wonder what P&P would have been like if Mr. Rochester would have been the leading man.

So, I ask you Dear Readers, what would have happened in Pride & Prejudice if Mr. Edward Rochester replaced Mr. Darcy? 

To feed your Pride & Prejudice craving I have three books to giveaway. 2 Copies of Misconceptions by Doris Nieves and 1 copy of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star by Heather Lynn Rigaud.

I have two more giveaways today!

First Giveaway is

Misconceptions by Doris Nieves

Thanks to the generosity of Doris Nieves, I have two copies to giveaway. One copy is Worldwide & the other is US only, so please mark your comment accordingly.

Love and marriage abound as we revisit the delightful world of Pride and Prejudice. Become enchanted once again with familiar beloved characters brought back to life through this lighthearted version of a classic tale. Misconceptions begins where Jane Austen left off, with the undaunted Mrs. Bennet continuing her search to find rich and
refined husbands for her unmarried daughters, Kitty and Mary. Meanwhile, Lady Catherine renews her duty to find a husband for Miss Anne de Bourgh. Will the girls cooperate with their mother’s plans or will their hearts lead them elsewhere?

Second Giveaway:

Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star by Heather Lynn Rigaud.

Mr. Darcy is skin-tight leather pants and no shirt…YES PLEASE!!!!!

Fast music, powerful beats and wild reputations on stage and off have made Slurry the band of the year--and the media's newest bad boys. Described as temperamental by their kindest critics, they've just lost their latest opening act and their red-hot summer tour is on the fast track to disaster.

Fitzwilliam Darcy, Slurry's tall, dark, and enigmatic virtuoso guitarist, knows that this is no time to be picky, but he never expected what was waiting when he, Charles Bingley and Richard Fitzwilliam crashed the Meryton Public House.

Elizabeth Bennet, the fiercely independent and talented lead singer of Long Borne Suffering has serious reservations about joining such a trouble laden tour with the bad boys of Rock and Roll, but the opportunity is just too good to pass up!

On the Slurry tour, the music's hot, but backstage is an inferno.

I would also like to thank Heather for donating this copy!

12 Days of a Jane Austen Christmas Giveaway.

Ok, I got a bit behind in posting the giveaways due to some unforeseen events. Thankfully as has been taken care of and the giveaways will continue.

I am giving away  two different prizes today to two different!

The winner of  A Darcy Christmas was Max. Please email your shipping address to:
newroyalreviews at yahoo dot com.

The novel’s of Jane Austen are classics they are printed worldwide in just about every language imaginable. You can even download them for free to your computer or e-reader, yet when I passed around a questionnaire at the local library I volunteer at, I was alarmed by the number of people who did not know who she was. Out of 400 plus people, only 153 could name all 6 of her novels. 172 people didn’t know who she was and the majority of the 18 and under group could only name Pride & Prejudice because, in their words, it had that girl from the Pirate Movies in it.

Sadly classic literature is falling by the wayside as novels like the Twilight  saga take the lead. According to the statistics in my local libraries database, books in the Twilight saga are the primary books checked out by those from the age of 13 to 35. In fact they have had such a demand for the saga that the library has ordered 6 sets of books just to be able to meet the demand.

Yet, when doing the inventory, I noticed that the library has only one Jane Austen novel and that happens to be Pride & Prejudice, which has not been checkout in over a year. When I was discussing this with a friend of mine who is a High School English teacher, she said that only 2 of her students knew who Jane Austen was. I ask her if they teach the classics anymore and she said that schools curriculum only requires one week of classical novels and they rarely go beyond Shakespeare.

I think that it’s a shame that classic literature is dwindling. So as this is the season for giving a friend of mine has generously donated 2 sets of The Barnes & Noble Jane Austen Collection. You will receive one set to keep and another to gift to a friend!

As I mentioned before there will be 2 winners the second prize is a Mrs. Darcy’s Mug shipped straight from the wonderful people at BBC Shop America.

Today’s giveaways  are:

 

(These are my copies & mug you will receive your own I just could not get the other pictures to load)

 

2 Sets of Barnes & Noble Jane Austen Collection

1 Mrs. Darcy Mug.

Today’s Rules:

1. Leave a comment with your name and an answer to the question:
What is your favorite Classic novel?

2. Giveaway is Worldwide.
3. You do not need to leave your email address as the winner will be announced the next day. The winner will also be announced on the right side of the blog under the Winners banner. You have until the 23rd to respond with your shipping address. You may want to
subscribe via feed burner which is located on the right side of the blog.

4. Followers will receive an extra entry, so make sure you let us know if you follow us. You will also receive an extra entry if you help spread the word about this giveaway.

12 Days of a Jane Austen Christmas Day 2

Day 2

A Darcy Christmas

Day 1 winner is Sophia Rose, please send your shipping address to:
newroyalreviews at yahoo dot com.

A few years ago we had horrible ice storm that covered most of Southern Ohio. It came on quickly and without warning. It was nice and warm, 50 degrees when I headed to church for play practice, by the time practice was over a freezing rain had coated the streets. That night tree limbs were coated with ice so thick they were snapping off the trees. Power lines were down, the whole town was a block of ice. It just so happened that this storm arrived four days before Christmas.

Luckily I live within a block from the hospital, which meant that my house would be among the first to have the power back on. Friends and family piled in, luckily my house was large enough to accommodate them. The power did come on rather quickly, unfortunately it didn’t stay on for very long and we were without power for Christmas. I had the fireplace going, a few dozen candles lit, and a constant supply hot tea and cocoa filling almost every teapot I owned.

It was a very different Christmas, and we constantly refer to it as “Our Jane Austen Christmas”. While it was bit chilly, we were reminded of the simple things in life. My younger cousins were able to experience something more than cell phones, video game and television, they learned to sew and to draw silhouettes. They wrote and preformed their own plays. They used their own imagination! They experienced the joy of being with family.

Although we were without power for 7 days, it is still my favorite Christmas and I will always cherish being able to spend that time with my Great-Grandfather.

*****

Today’s giveaway is a novella collection entitled:

A Darcy Christmas: A Holliday Tribute to Jane Austen 
By Amanda Grange, Sharon Lathan, and Carolyn Eberhart  

Today’s Rules:
1. Leave a comment with your name and an answer to the question:

What is your favorite Christmas memory?

2. Giveaway is Worldwide.

3. You do not need to leave your email address as the winner will be announced the next day. The winner will also be announced on the right side of the blog under the Winners banner. You have until the 23rd to respond with your shipping address. You may want to
subscribe via feed burner which is located on the right side of the blog.

4. Followers will receive an extra entry, so make sure you let us know if you follow us. You will also receive an extra entry if you help spread the word about this giveaway.

12 Days of a Jane Austen Christmas Giveaway Day 1

Day One

For me, Christmas and Jane Austen go hand-in-hand. My Great-Grandmother had a first edition of Pride & Prejudice and she would read it to my older cousins on Christmas Eve after baking cookies. I would curl up on the chair drinking my tea in what I referred to as a big girls cup and saucer, (I was five at the time so an English china cup and saucer was a special treat, especially since the older girls had one) and listen to the tale of Lizzy and Darcy.

  Then I received my first Jane Austen book, Pride & Prejudice for young readers as a Christmas gift two years later.  I simply couldn’t get enough of this book. I loved it. I read it so many times the pages fell out. As I grew older I started reading the original editions of Jane Austen. Now I am an avid Janeite. I read any and everything Jane Austen related.

Every Christmas I pull out my copy of Pride & Prejudice, fix me a cuppa tea  and remember my first introduction to this amazing author.

Today’s giveaway is :

Captain Wentworth Home from the Sea - A Persuasion Novella by Mary Lydon Simonsen

In 1806, Frederick Wentworth returned to the sea in hopes of leaving behind memories of his lost love, Anne Elliot of Kellynch Hall. After eight years serving as the captain of the Laconia, he had failed to jettison recollections of the only woman he could ever love, that is, until a shipboard accident robbed him of his memory. When he is once again thrown into Anne's company, he knows nothing of their previous engagement. With the slate wiped clean, will Anne Elliot be able to secure the love of Captain Frederick Wentworth or will all opportunities to reclaim a lost love be denied her?

If you would like to know more about Mary Lydon Simonsen or her Jane Austen-inspired novels, please visit her website:
Austen Inspired Fan Fiction by Mary Lydon Simonsen
http://marysimonsenfanfiction.blogspot.com/

I would like to thank Mary Lydon Simonsen for her donation as well as allowing this giveaway to be worldwide.

Today’s Rules:

1. Leave a comment with your name and an answer to the question:

What is your favorite Jane Austen novel?

2. Giveaway is open worldwide.

3. You do not need to leave your email address as the winner will be announced the next day. The winner will also be announced on the right side of the blog under the Winners banner. You have until the 23rd to respond with your shipping address. You may want to
subscribe via feed burner which is located on the right side of the blog.

4. Followers will receive an extra entry, so make sure you let us know if you follow us. You will also receive an extra entry if you help spread the word about this giveaway.

12 Days of a Jane Austen Christmas Giveaway

Hello Dear Readers,

To celebrate Christmas this year we are hosting The 12 Days of a Jane Austen Christmas.

That means 12 days of Jane Austen themed giveaways.

To enter the rules are simple:

1. Leave a comment with your name, and if there is a prompt question please answer it.

2. Winners will be only eligible for one prize. You may enter as many giveaways as you wish, but if you have won on the 12 gifts your name will be removed from the drawing.

3. You do not need to leave your email address as the winner will be announced the next day. The winner will also be announced on the right side of the blog under the  Winners banner. You have until the 23rd to respond with your shipping address. You may want to subscribe via feed burner which is located on the right side of the blog.

4. Followers will receive an extra point, so make sure you let us know if you follow us.

Lastly, have fun and remember to spread the word!

Giveaway!

As part of Royal Reviews Black Friday Giveaway Special, We are giving away two copies of Miss Darcy Falls In Love.

To enter for a chance to win click the link below and also enjoy the lovely guest post from Sharon Lathan.

Giveaway & Guest post

Synopsis of Miss Darcy Falls in Love-

Noble young ladies were expected to play an instrument, by Georgiana Darcy us an accomplished musician who hungers to pursue her talents. She embarks upon a tour of Europe, ending in Paris where two very different men will ignite her heart in entirely different ways and begin a bitter rivalry to win her. But only one holds the key to her happiness.

Set in post-Napoleonic Empire France, Miss Darcy Falls in Love is a riveting love story that enters a world of passion where her gentlemen know exactly how to please and a young woman learns to direct her destiny and understand her heart.

Jane Austen & Arsenic?

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

That line from Pride & Prejudice has become the most recognized line Jane Austen ever wrote. Yet, it seems that a single sentence from a letter Austen wrote only a few months before her death is quickly usurping her famous line.

“I am considerably better now and am recovering my looks a little better, which have been bad enough, black and white and every wrong colour.”

Those 25 words have created quite a stir thanks to crime novelist, Lindsay Ashford.

According to an interview with UK’s Guardian, it all started three years ago when Ashford moved to the village of Chawton and began writing her new crime novel in the library of Austen’s brother Edward’s former home, Chawton House. It was there Ashford began reading through Jane Austen’s personal correspondences. Having researched poisons for her crime novels, Ashford immediately recognized the symptoms Austen described in that sentence were alarmingly similar to that of arsenic poisoning.

Ashford then met with the former president of the Jane Austen Society of North America who informed her that a lock of Austen’s hair had been tested for arsenic by the now deceased American couple who purchased the hair through an auction at Sotheby’s in 1948, tested positive.

It seemed that everything started to click into place for Ashford and her diagnosis was simple and for some thoroughly startling-Jane Austen died of arsenic poisoning.

Now, the question remains-was it accidental/medicinal exposure to the poison or was it something more sinister, say murder?

Lindsay Ashford, like any good crime novelist, saw an opportunity to explore the path not taken by turning these facts into a murder mystery in her newest novel, The Mysterious Death of Miss Austen. Although being intentionally poisoned was not the only way to die of arsenic poisoning.

In Regency England, exposure to arsenic was a rather common occurrence-an occurrence that was often unintentional. In addition, this accidental exposure came in the innocent looking form of green paint, or rather what was known as Emerald or Paris Green.

In 1814, two men, Russ & Sattler, tired to improve Scheele’s Green paint, a paint that was made with copper arsenite. Their “improvement” resulted in a toxic pigment called ‘Emerald Green”. This bright green colour made with arsenic and verdigris became a big hit with dyers, painters, wallpaper designers, and cloth makers. Not only were the drawing rooms throughout England being plastered with this toxic colour, the ton were dressing themselves up in it as well as consuming it in the form of green-colored confectionaries.

Although Emerald/Paris Green was not the only source of accidental arsenic exposure to be found in Regency England. The poison was often found in the most simplest and accessible of products such as candles, glass products, leather, wallpaper, fabric, sheep dip, soaps, and in pharmaceuticals as a supposed treatment for rheumatism, which Austen suffered from.

While accidental exposure would be minimal, for someone with an underlying illness, minimal exposure could exacerbate the illness and even cause death. If it were arsenic poisoning through unintentional means or through medicinal use, an underlying illness would explain the reason why neither her mother nor sister succumbed to the effects.

Yet, we can neither prove nor disprove the theory of arsenic poisoning based on a hair sample and a line from a letter. Although the possibility does make for a good crime novel and Lindsay Ashford is seeking to use it just for that.

On the author’s website, she describes her novel, The Mysterious Death of Miss Austen, as “the product of all that I have learned and imagined in the three years since I came to live in Chawton. It’s a work of fiction inspired by facts and I hope that those who read it will be both intrigued and fascinated by a possibility which had been overlooked until now…”

I for one can certainly see the basis of the novel as a potential truth, and I’m sure if you put yourself in the shoes of Jane Austen’s friend and protagonist of the novel, Anne Sharp, you too could believe the situation plausible.

In the time in which Anne Sharp lived, she would have heard and read about the arsenic related deaths that were occurring throughout England at the time. And since the Marsh Test was developed in 1836, she would have had access to that as well as seeing the symptoms Jane Austen suffered from. Curiosity is a part of human nature and I am sure that an inquiring mind would have put two and two together.

Let me reiterate the fact that Lindsay Ashford is not claiming that Jane Austen was murdered. She has expressed through numerous outlets that based on her research the arsenic found in Jane Austen’s hair was there by accidental exposure or more likely medicinal usage. In her novel, The Mysterious Death of Miss Austen, Lindsay Ashford is exploring the what ifs. And I for one am glad that she has decided to explore this avenue.

I would love to hear your thoughts and comments regarding this matter.

Until We Meet Again,
Best Wishes & Happy Reading,
Angela Renee