"How Did I Get Here?" — Guest Post & GIVEAWAY from Heather Moll!

We're kicking off today — a day of double giveaways — with a look at how Heather Moll came to be the Janeite she is today. She's also giving you a chance to get your hands on a copy of her book, His Choice of a Wife, so make sure to click through and enter!

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Heather Moll Guest Post, or: How Did I Get Here?

Thanks for welcoming me to Austen in August, Misty! I’m excited to be on this side of your blog and have the chance to talk Jane Austen and offer a giveaway of His Choice of a Wife to your lovely readers who love Jane just as much as I do.

For years, I thought Jane Austen wasn’t for me. I’m an avid reader, I was a librarian, and if there was a classic that you had to read, I probably read it because I wanted to. But when I tried to read Emma in high school, I hated it. Or, more to the point, I hated her. Emma Woodhouse may have been handsome, clever, and rich but she was also spoiled, meddlesome, and I never finished the book. Not even Clueless could make me go back to Austen.

“That’s all right,” I thought. “I’ll stick with the Bronte sisters.”

I was not predisposed to become an Austen fanfic lover, let alone write books of my own.

I lived in ignorance of Austen until my husband thought to earn some points by taking me to a ‘date’ movie to see the 2005 Pride and Prejudice adaptation. I was not about to see a movie based on a book without reading the book! So, being a librarian, I checked it out from the library. And I fell in love. I adored the dialogue between Darcy and Elizabeth. I loved Austen’s clever wit and the romantic ending for two flawed characters who became better people and then found true happiness together.

(Dare I even get into all the ways that movie differed from the book? Oh, if I but had the time!)

I had to read Austen’s other works. Pride and Prejudice will always be my favorite, but I admire Elinor Dashwood’s resilience and Anne Elliot’s sensitivity. I can smile at Catherine Moreland’s naïveté and respect Fanny Price’s quiet strength. I’ll never like Emma Woodhouse, but I appreciated her more at 30 than at 14. But what else was there? I read literary criticisms, Austen’s letters, joined JASNA, I read everything about Georgian England, and I bought multiple copies of Austen’s works just for their unique introductions and annotations. (This is normal… right?)

What else was there for the fan of an author who has been dead for 200 years?

While working at the library, a patron asked me if other authors continued the story of Jane Eyre. “Uh, there’s Wide Sargasso Sea that tells the backstory of Bertha Mason … umm,” I floundered. I had no idea if the concept was a popular one. I had to know: did anyone write a continuation about Darcy and Elizabeth’s life at Pemberley?

I typed ‘Darcy, Fitzwilliam fictitious character’ into the catalog’s subject field. Way back then in the dark ages, around 2010, there were not as many titles as there are now, but I was surprised by how many were available. I chose a trilogy of books that retold Pride and Prejudice from Darcy’s perspective and devoured them!

Every JAFF regency I could get my hands on followed. When my husband noticed what I was reading, he teased me, “They’ll revoke your JASNA membership for that.” I gave a shaky laugh, but pretty soon I read all of the Austen fanfics in our library system. I was a junkie.

Foolish me, for thinking those few library books were the end of Austen retellings and sequels! In that serendipitous way of the internet, someone had a link that directed me to Austen in August and other blogs and website that discussed and shared Jane Austen fanfic.

Oh. My. Goodness. I discovered a rich community of people who cherish Jane Austen, her novels, and the world that she lived in. It made me realize that I was hardly alone in my appreciation of both Austen and the fanfic she inspired. There were others who also loved retellings through Darcy’s eyes, mysteries solved by Jane Austen, what-if variations, and on and on. Eventually, I started to imagine my own changes to these beloved characters and sat down to write His Choice of a Wife.

I love participating in a community that finds as much enjoyment in Austen and the world she created as I do. Do you want to talk about why Darcy was named what he was? Talk about modern versus regency variations? Fandoms and Jane Austen? Group read of Mansfield Park? Regency jewelry? Visit Jane Austen sites in England? I am here for this!

The world she created isn’t limited to her six novels. Austen tells us that the person who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid. Does that good novel have be one of her six, or are those variations and retellings and inspired-bys equally as worthy of being read? I think everyone enjoying the 10th year of Austen in August would say that we’ll happily take as much Jane as we can get!

Tell me in the comments your story of how you found Jane Austen or how you came to love Austen variations.

****GIVEAWAY****
Meryton Press is giving away 1 eBook of Heather Moll’s His Choice of a Wife to one lucky Austen in August reader!
This giveaway is international, and ends August 31st, 2019
To enter, fill out the Rafflecopter below.
Good luck!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


ABOUT THE BOOK

When a man’s honor is at stake, what is he willing to risk for the woman he loves?

After a disastrous marriage proposal and the delivery of an illuminating letter, Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet hope never to lay eyes on one another again. When a chance meeting in Hunsford immediately throws them in each other’s way, Darcy realizes his behavior needs correcting, and Elizabeth starts to appreciate his redeeming qualities. But is it enough to forgive the past and overcome their prejudices?

Jane and Bingley’s possible reconciliation and Lydia’s ill-conceived trip to Brighton pose their own challenges for two people struggling to find their way to love. When scandalous news threatens their chance at happiness, will Darcy and Elizabeth’s new bond be shattered, or will their growing affection hold steadfast?

Buy:
Amazon US
Amazon UK

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Heather Moll is an avid reader with a B.A. in European history and a M.A. in library science, so it is astonishing that she did not discover Jane Austen until her late-twenties. Making up for lost time, she devoured all of Austen’s novels, her letters, and unpublished works, joined JASNA, and spent far too much time researching the Regency era. She is thrilled to have found fellow Janeites and the JAFF community, if only to prove that her interests aren’t so strange after all. Heather is a former librarian turned stay-at-home mother who struggles to find time for all of the important things, like reading and writing.
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