A Season of Magic is now available on Kindle Unlimited!

A Season of Magic – Now Available in Kindle Unlimited!

Everyone knows Elizabeth and Jane’s parents were magical murderers. But blood isn’t everything.

When the girls are forced to reveal their elemental magic, it does not matter to the Mage Council that they did so only to save lives. Their parents were traitors and the entire magical community is simply waiting for them to descend into evil themselves.

The Council reluctantly admits Elizabeth to the magical university (and unofficial marriage market) called The Season, where she will learn how to control her powers. If she can keep her head down and avoid drawing any untoward notice, she might be able to graduate and finally be accepted as a fire mage.

But fading into the background will be difficult. Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, nephew to Lord Matlock of the Mage Council and a student himself, is assigned to observe her and report any misstep. One mistake could send her back to her foster parents, the Bennets—or worse, to prison. Yet when that mistake inevitably comes, he stands up on her behalf. Could he be an ally instead of an enemy?

A Season of Magic is a clean fantasy variation based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

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Are you coming to the JAFF Writer-Reader Get Together?

There are only two weeks left until this amazing event! I hope you’re excited! You can still sign up here.

If you haven’t heard of it before, let me tell you what’s going on!

It’s a great opportunity for writers and readers of Jane Austen fanfiction to come together to talk about our favorite books! From talks about where writers get their ideas, to writers reading from their current WIPs, to open chat time, there’s always something fun going on.

Some years, this has been held in person in Virginia. However, this year it will be held online. That means that you can attend without the cost of a plane ticket or hotel room!

I’ll be giving a talk about my writing process on Sunday! So if you’ve ever been curious about the process of coming up with a story and fleshing it out into a novel, join me from 1-2pm Eastern Time.

I’ll also be reading from a new story I’ve just begun called “Another Day at Rosings,” based on the idea from the movie “Groundhog Day.” You may have read a book (or two or three or ten) with that basic idea. But I think I have a fun new idea to bring to it, so I hope you’ll stick around on Sunday to see what it is! That’s from 10am-12 on Sunday (again, Eastern Time).

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An Accidental Holiday by Melanie Rachel

Delightful new must-read in time for the holiday season!

Melanie Rachel is my critique partner and absolutely one of my all-time favorite JAFF authors.

The first book out in her “accidental” series has all the best holiday feels and is perfect to ward off that autumn chill. This story is so perfect, you won’t want it to end! I hope you love it as much as I do.

Get it here!

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Vexed a Little in Love

My book of short stories, Vexed a Little in Love, is available for preorder here! https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B09DT6KFX2/ It will be released on September 13, so you have less than two weeks to wait.

This book contains five of my favorite short stories and novellas: The Precipitous Marriage, There Can Be No Doubt, A Match Made at Rosings, Pride, Prejudice, and the Christmas Spirits, and The Colonel’s Post. I’ve posted most of these stories on my blog previously, but they will now be available in one volume. A Match Made at Rosings is a new story that has never been posted anywhere else.

My next couple of stories are going to be fantasy. I’m working on a story (will probably be a novella or maybe a fairly short novel) with Melanie Rachel, and I’m also working on a fantasy novel myself. Elizabeth and Jane are twins with elemental magic. Elizabeth gets the opportunity to attend the “university” for magic, The Season, but there are plenty of people who are unhappy to see her there. Elizabeth and Jane’s parents were notorious villains, and while the magical community cannot punish them for their parents’ crimes, they do not want to train up what may be a new generation of evildoers. Fitzwilliam Darcy is determined to keep an eye on Elizabeth and catch her making trouble before anybody gets hurt.

Things have also gotten a bit busy around here with the new school year starting. While we homeschool year-round and don’t follow the school calendar, I do give the kids more playtime during the day in summer, so now it’s time to get down to business. On top of that, all sorts of activities are starting up. My kids were so excited when I put up September’s calendar, because, “Look, there’s actually stuff on it!” Hopefully I will still have plenty of writing time in the evenings to keep moving forward with my writing.

I hope everyone else is enjoying the move towards autumn and the beginning of new terms and activities, whether you have kids or not!

A Quiet April

I’m sorry that I haven’t posted for a while! I haven’t had any new stories to post just yet, but I’ve still been writing.

My latest short story idea is a Groundhog Day story that turns the traditional Groundhog Day tropes on their heads. It’s going to be a wild ride, both to read and to write! I’ve only written a page or so on it, although I do have an outline.

Mostly, though, I’ve been trying to focus on A Season of Magic. It will be a full-length novel about Elizabeth’s adventures at the Season, where young mages are taught how to use their elemental powers. She is at a disadvantage at the start, both because she does not know how to use her element yet, and because her parents are notorious in the magic world–and not in a good way. Good thing she has a twin at home at Longbourn, her beloved Jane, and that she shares a special secret method of communication with her.

I’ve been posting Plots, Ploys, and the Art of Matchmaking at DarcyandLizzy as well as at A Happy Assembly. AHA had an upgrade that kept me from posting for a few days, so the posting is further along at D&L right now.

While I don’t have any new writing to post just now, there are still lots of great stories and books out there! Melanie Rachel and I beta-read for each other, and I love her I Never Knew Myself, which just released a few weeks ago. Mary Anne Mushatt has also released a totally different story that also has a kidnapping theme, called Taken, which I think just came out yesterday. I haven’t read the published version yet, but I did buy it right away, as I’ve read the story before on the forums and it was fantastic! I really liked Lari O’Dell’s Mr. Darcy’s Clan, too.

Other than Pride and Prejudice fanfiction, I’ve been reading a lot of fantasy. K.M. Shea’s Hall of Blood and Mercy series is absolutely amazing. Probably some of the best books I’ve read this year. The third book of the trilogy releases on Friday, and they’re all available on Kindle Unlimited. K.M. Shea is a fantastic author, probably my favorite current author. I love her Timeless Fairy Tales series, which has spun off into the Fairy Tale Enchantress series (anxiously awaiting the next book in that series, too, which comes out later this year). My current reread, though, is the delightful Spoken Mage series by Melanie Cellier. In fact, these books were the inspiration for my book A Season of Magic, and I’m using some of the same tropes in mine, even if it spins in a different direction.

More stories coming soon!

Thank you for your patience when I haven’t posted anything for a while! It’s been a pretty crazy few weeks, hasn’t it? My husband and I have been busy getting ready to make an overseas military move this summer, and then this virus popped up and threw a wrench in everybody’s plans.

My husband got sick right around the time this happened, and then I’ve been sick for the past week. The symptoms have been pretty much the same as the symptoms from a bad cold, though, so who knows if it’s the coronavirus or not. We’re mostly recovered now with just a bit of a lingering cough.

I have been busy getting some writing done! While I was waiting to have Plots, Ploys, and the Art of Matchmaking beta-read, I started on a short story. The short story is now finished and will be posted here in a few days. If you have an account at AHA or DarcyandLizzy, you can read the first part on one of those sites now! The Precipitous Marriage is the story of a young, impetuous Fitzwilliam Darcy who is tired of his parents’ domineering control over his life and makes a rash decision to marry a girl whom he likes–but barely knows.

I did get edits back on Plots, Ploys, and the Art of Matchmaking, so you can expect to see that within the next week or two posting at AHA and DarcyandLizzy. After that, I will start the next level of editing and looking to get it published.

I hope everybody is doing okay hunkering down during this crazy season!

The Writing Process

Right now, I have three different books at three different stages of the writing process. A Good Name has been published, and it’s fun to check regularly to see if I have any new reviews or how much it’s earning, and how close I am to making back my original investment (in editing, cover art, etc.).

I just got the edits back from my editor on Beauty and Mr. Darcy last night. I’ve gone through about half of them this evening, but I’ll have more to go through tomorrow, and once I’ve gone through all of the edits, there will be some that I need to return to as being more complicated than a misplaced comma. So far I’m confident that I’ll have the book done well in advance of the publication date of January 31. Preorders are going well, which is exciting! I’ve been told that Regencies sell much better than moderns, so I’m looking forward to seeing how it does.

Finally, Plots, Ploys, and the Art of Matchmaking has to be set temporarily aside while I work on the edits for Beauty and Mr. Darcy, but I’ve tentatively started looking at covers for it. I have an image in mind and have been thinking about seeing what my cover artist can do with it. I spend a lot of time thinking about and mulling over cover art, because it’s one of the first things you see when you see the book listing. If the cover doesn’t look professional and doesn’t catch your eye, then you might move on without even looking at the blurb! I’ve gone back and forth dozens of times on this book, trying to decide just what colors/style/look I want. I am currently leaning towards using an old oil painting that has the feel of a particular scene in the book and also is just very pretty.

Check back in a few weeks for the cover reveal! I’m also scheduled to have A Good Name reviewed on the blog “Diary of an Eccentric” in January. Since AGN is my first book, I’ve never had any blog reviews before, so I’m ridiculously excited about this!