A Northern Tour: Following in Jane Austen's Footsteps

I've made no secret about the fact that I've always loved Jane Austen. I enjoyed reading her work, even though in today's market her writing would be considered a bit stilted. Different times and different style. Regardless, her wit and observations of life in Regency era are accurate. I also enjoyed some of the screen adaptations of her work. And while I have read a few Austen fanfiction stories they're not the first thing I reach for when I'm in the mood to read an historical. 

I've grown up enjoying Rengencies (I have my favorite authors) and I'll be first to admit we've been flooded with Regency stories in the past few years so it really takes something extraordinary in the storyline to pique my interest enough  to read another one. Yet there is a whole segment of readers that adore anything Regency and Austen Regency in particular.

Since I have several friends who write Austen fanfiction they do realize I mean no disrespect when I ask, What is the fascination with the Darcy's? What makes an author want to devote most their writing life to continuing their view the Darcy's story and future? 

My guest today is Jane Odiwe and she hails from England. She also writes Austen Regencies featuring the characters of Jane Austen's world. So I asked her the same question. What draws you to Austen's characters. What's the fascination, as an author? She takes us on a bit of a tour to help us see the whys.

Thank you, Sia, for inviting me onto your blog. I’m so pleased to be able to talk to you about Mr. Darcy’s Secret. 

Writers of Austen continuations, like me, are compelled to carry on with the lives of her characters, inventing new stories. Can we have too much Pride and Prejudice? I don't think so - I loved writing Mr. Darcy’s Secret, and part of the fun is doing research.

My sister and I headed up north to Derbyshire as I was writing my book, in search of Pemberley and Lambton. Jane Austen made up these names, but many people think that Bakewell was the inspiration for Lambton, where Lizzy Bennet stays with her aunt and uncle Gardiner when travelling through the Peak District and where she starts to see Mr. Darcy (or Pemberley) in a different light. I wanted to include scenes from Lambton in my own book, and to my surprise my sister booked us in to stay in an old coaching inn at Bakewell, The Rutland Arms, where they have a room which they claim Jane Austen stayed in. I don't know whether the evidence for this is very strong, but it's a lovely idea.

The inn is very old; from our window we had a lovely view of Bakewell, and the sitting room conjured up images of days long ago. We travelled in late November; I remember sparkling, frosty days, blue skies and mists in the valley - and sitting by a roaring fire when inside - perfect!

Not far away, one of the fascinating places we visited was the Red House Stables Working Carriage Museum. It was in the middle of winter and as we were the only people there that afternoon, we were able to really explore the place and completely monopolise one of the lovely staff who told us all about the adventures they'd had working in lots of television and film. I was especially interested to hear that some of the carriages had been used for the 1996 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth.

We certainly had a lovely time on our ‘northern tour’, sampling the delights of the landscape and the famous Bakewell Pudding!

Mr. Darcy's Secret

One dark secret can completely ruin a bright future...


After capturing the heart of the most eligible bachelor in England, Elizabeth Bennet believes her happiness is complete-until the day she unearths a stash of anonymous, passionate love letters that may be Darcy's, and she realizes just how little she knows about the guarded, mysterious man she married... Excerpt

Buy: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Chapters Indigo 

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Jane Odiwe is the author of Mr. Darcy's Secret, Willoughby's Return, and Lydia Bennet's Story. She lives in High Barnet, North London, and Bath, England, with her husband, three children, and two cats.


In 2003, her obsession with all things Austen really took off when she wrote and illustrated a little book, 'Effusions of Fancy, consisting of annotated sketches from the life of Jane Austen in a style entirely new,' which is a light hearted celebration of Jane Austen's early life, in letters and paintings. In 2007, Jane was thrilled to be asked if Sony Pictures could use her Jane Austen illustrations in a short film; a biography feature about the author on The Jane Austen Book Club DVD.

It was a short step to writing her first novel, Lydia Bennet's Story, a sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Her lifelong dream of becoming a published author came true when Sourcebooks editor, Deb Werksman, rang her one cold, December evening asking to meet her in London the next day to discuss publication. Sourcebooks published Lydia Bennet's Story in October 2008.

Mr Willoughby's Return, a Sequel to Sense and Sensibility, was published in autumn 2009. Mr Darcy's Secret is to be published in February 2011, and Jane is contributing to a short story anthology, Jane Austen Made Me Do It, to be published by Ballantine Books, autumn 2011. 

The Bane Of A Writer's Existence: Interruptions

Today, we step back into a gentler time period. One peopled with beloved characters, The Ton, balls, Almacks, sharing the latest on-dits, diamonds of the first water, and all those dangerously sexy rakes.

Haven’t you thought of stepping into a world where fortunes won or lost on a card, dress in the lovely gowns of the time, go riding in a phaeton, walk through the shops of Bond Street, or go to huge house parties or attend balls during the London season?

 My guest, Abigail Reynolds, creates that sort of world set in the Regency period of England, that authors like Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen made so popular.


Abigail says writing about that world, and when you’re in the zone, everything fades away but the world being created. Unless something wrenches you abruptly two hundred years forward…but we’ll let Abigail tell you about it.



Writing is the ultimate escape from me. When I’m writing – as opposed to trying to write, which is a horse of a different color – the whole world fades away. Dishes don’t need to be done, the house doesn’t need to be cleaned, and I don’t have to worry about the latest front-page news, because none of it exists. It’s a haven, a safe harbor from the shoals of life, full of the sunshine of creativity and abundant possibilities in every blank page.

But it’s a very temporary haven, which brings me to the bane of my writing existence: interruptions. A few hours ago I was deep in the throes of powerful fight scene, almost in tears myself along with the heroine, and my son came down, distraught because he had lost one of his games in the war zone we refer to as his room. Now, before you tell me I should set some limits and tell him to look for it himself, let me mention that my son has autism and that for him, this truly was a disaster of cosmic importance. And, since I have a vested interest in him being able to complete his homework without a meltdown, I helped him find his game and came racing back to the computer.

The inspiration wasn’t there. I couldn’t feel my heroine’s sense of betrayal or get inside the head of the hero who is desperately trying to explain himself. But because I really wanted to write, I sat down and wrote. Bland, boring, excruciatingly dull sentences free of any spark of life. They even bored me. And I know from experience that it’s likely to be a couple of days before the characters come alive for me again.

That’s what happens when I get ripped out of the story. Little interruptions are annoying but tolerable – letting the dog out, getting a drink of water, closing the windows to keep out the rain. My characters will usually keep talking in my head through something minor that doesn’t require much thought. But when I have to do something that requires planning and interaction with real life people, they vanish without a trace. To make matters worse, it’s almost painful to be torn out of story when I’m deep inside it. I usually surface with an intense desire to murder the source of the interruption, and while I manage to put that aside, my family will happily tell you – at length – that I am very testy indeed under those circumstances.

That’s why I have my office, which isn’t actually an office. It’s a comfortable coffee shop nearby where nobody interrupts me, plus they provide great tea and dainties on request, something that never seems to happen at home! But that’s not all, because I’m not the only one who uses my office to write. There are a half dozen familiar faces that I’m likely to spot there, hunched over their laptops and typing away with that distant look in their eyes. I don’t actually know most of them beyond a first name and that they’re a writer, too, but I do know one thing about them. When I walk in this evening, I can go up to any one of them and say, “I am going to kill my son,” and they’ll look up and nod sympathetically, perhaps even making the suggestion of using a very sharp knife. We’ve all been there, and that makes us comrades at arms.

Then we smile at each other, and the coffee shop reverts to its other plane of existence as Pemberley, a London alleyway, the sewers of Paris (not for my books!) , and a multitude of other places. All of them with good coffee.

• How do you handle interruptions? 

Mr Darcy's Obsession Blurb:

What if Mr. Darcy never had the opportunity to propose to Elizabeth Bennet at Hunsford, and did not meet her again until her circumstances were reduced? In Mr. Darcy's Obsession, Mr. Darcy has an even greater social distance to bridge if he wishes to marry Elizabeth. Add in some Fitzwilliam relations with links to the Prince Regent and the loose morals typical of Regency high society who feel that Elizabeth is the material of which mistresses, not wives, are made, and Mr. Darcy has to make a painful choice between the demands of a decadent society and his personal moral sense. The background of this novel is the morally bankrupt ton which Jane Austen knew well, but did not describe in detail in her novels, perhaps because it was a given to her and her contemporaneous readers. Against this backdrop, the characters of Mr. Darcy and Miss Bennet shine brightly as they seek to find an alternative to the bounds of decorum that constrain Darcy's usual marital prospects.  Excerpt

The more he tries to stay away from her, the more his obsession grows... "[Reynolds] has creatively blended a classic love story with a saucy romance novel." -Austenprose

Buy: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Chapters Indigo 

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Abigail Reynolds is a lifelong Jane Austen enthusiast and a physician.  In addition to writing, she has a part-time private practice and enjoys spending time with her family.  Originally from upstate New York, she studied Russian, theater, and marine biology before deciding to attend medical school.   She began writing From Lambton to Longbourn in 2001 to spend more time with her favorite characters from Pride & Prejudice.  Encouragement from fellow Austen fans convinced her to continue asking ‘What if…?’, which led to five other Pemberley Variations and her modern novel, The Man Who Loved Pride & Prejudice.  She is currently at work on another Pemberley Variation and sequels to The Man Who Loved Pride & Prejudice.  Her newest release is Mr. Darcy’s Obsession, available October 1, 2010.  She is a lifetime member of JASNA and lives in Wisconsin with her husband, two teenaged children, and a menagerie of pets.
 
You can find Abigail:  Abigail Reynolds Website
 
Facebook, Abigail's Writing Desk Blog, Austen Author's Blog,