After launching this lovely new feature of mine during [Autumn, 2018] it is a pleasure of joy to continue to bring #SaturdaysAreBookish as a compliment focus of my Twitter chat @SatBookChat. If you see the chat icon at the top of my blog (header bar) you can click over to visit with us. The complimentary showcases on my blog will reflect the diversity of stories, authors and publishers I would be featuring on the chat itself. As at the root and heart of the chat are the stories I am reading which compliment the conversations.
#SaturdaysAreBookish throughout [2019] will be featuring the Romance & Women’s Fiction authors I am discovering to read across genre and point of interest. Every Saturday will feature a different author who writes either Romance or Women’s Fiction – the stories I am reading might simply inspire the topics in the forthcoming chats or they might be directly connected to the current guest author.
I am excited about where new guests and new stories will lay down the foundation of inspiring the topics, the conversations and the bookish recommendations towards promoting Romance & Women’s Fiction. Here’s a lovely New Year full of new authors and their stories to celebrate!
Acquired Book By: I am a regular tour hostess for blog tours via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours whereupon I am thankful to have been able to host such a diverse breadth of stories, authors and wonderful guest features since I became a hostess!
I received a complimentary copy of “The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen Volume 2” direct from the author Collins Hemingway in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Why I was interested in the premise behind this novel:
I am not entirely sure if everyone who reads my blog is aware of my admiration for Jane Austen or the fact, I consider myself a #Janeite. I have loved the author’s style of narrative for many years, in fact, I wrote an Essay about it during 2017’s #AustenInAugust and couldn’t help but gush over the reading of the first novel in this trilogy as well.
What implored me truly to read this after canon selection on a theory of Jane Austen’s life is my affection for the author herself. I love reading after canon works based on her collective works but I also like to entertain readings of stories which relate directly to the writer, herself. Previously, I have explored this through the Jane Austen Mysteries a series I look forward to re-visiting this year, as I hadn’t had the time to re-read the first novel nor continue with the rest of the stories which followed suit. This was initially my goal whilst reading the first volume in this series – however, in the past few years, my readings of Austen Literature has taken a few interesting hiatuses.
Whilst noting this is a novel of an evolving theory based on what ‘could have been’ in accord to Ms Austen’s life, I felt it warranted exploring because after all, how much do any of us know about the Classical authors we love to read? In this, I had a curious thought – what if this novel had a foundation of grounding based on one of the author’s own works? This is something which came into better clarity as I read the novel directly and one in which, I had wondered if other readers on the blog tour had noted themselves.
Directly though – I was dearly curious to continue reading this series due to these
ruminative thoughts I had shared after finishing Volume One:
You can understand Jane’s assessment of country vs city living – of how within the harriedness of a city, you cannot help but feel drowned out by the blare of it’s noise and bustle; yet in the country, there is a slower pace, where the gentleness of nature can still affect you. Thus, I felt grave for their circumstances now – having been placed in Bath, a city bursting out of its own route of perimeters and having relations like their Aunt, who felt it was their duty to re-insist the dependence they knew they were in debt to her without giving credit to their own independence. For the girls were not past marrying age but their Aunt seemed to take the family’s financial affairs as matters cast in stone; unchanging and thereby, she goaded the girls’ whenever she could with things they hoped to have but could not readily afford. Their Aunt was the kind of woman who would be considered a miser, for she did not easily depart with her coffers nor give thought to those of whom she became indebted.
IF it weren’t such a serious infraction in the eyes of her parents (although, admittedly, Mr Austen has a more forgiving conscious and heart than Mrs Austen) – you could almost presume the balloon adventure could have been seen differently; as a blissful jaunt in the skies, where everything heavenbound could be observed. If only it could have had this conclusion for dear Jane! I truly felt for her as her vexations were presented and known. It was through these sequences where I was at first fraught with anger at the story and the way in which it was being told whilst curiously trying to bade my anger a bit to see if it would become quelled by a change in mindset or circumstance; Hemingway did not disappoint on either score!
Sometimes I think the best stories writ in the Classical style evoke stronger emotions – the words used, the phrases chosen, the absurdity of having societal opinions thrusted on young people and taken as truth; the idiocy of women not being aloud to have a strong voice and opinion of their own,… I digress. Still, what drew me further into the story was how much this still leaned into the narrative within Pride; to which I concluded, did Mr Hemingway himself draw a connecting line between Pride and how Miss Austen might have felt in real life in matters of her own life and heart? It is something I have oft considered myself – was it more of a portrait of her own life rather than a figment of imagination. She dipped into her own well of observational thought throughout her canon, but which of the stories struck a balance of being closer to Jane as she once lived herself; that is the curious question! Perhaps, in this entreaty of narrative, we have our response to an unspoken question? It was as I pondered these thoughts I wondered if my dear fellows of literary wanderers in #theclassicclub had come across this trilogy?
I must confess, throughout reading this novel I found my feelings on its behalf vacillated; I was either wholly engaged with its direction, utterly at a loss for words to describe my disappointment or so betwixt knowing how I felt, I nearly put it down completely! In essence, it was a story which gave me a pensive amount of contemplation – a near wrestling of feelings and on Jane’s behalf, I found her even more lovable than before! In fact, my favourite part of this novel is the enlightenment ringing true on behalf of Jane Austen – as I myself, have fashioned her to mind whilst reading of her, reading her canon or whilst engaged in after canon readings based on her collective works; there are many incantations of Jane which strike through everything interconnected to her person.
In the ending chapters, I smiled. I smiled because the theory I was ferreting through my own thoughts was threading into the author’s own theory of deduction! I might have missed a considerable amount of exchanges in the letters (see below) however, blessedly, Hemingway knitted together the missing bits by re-addressing what was previously disclosed throughout Part III. It was here, I continued to smile because despite everything, I truly felt he had substantiated his theory of why he told the story in the manner in which he had – part of me hoped other readers would see Darcy and Lizzie in this novel. Of recognising what Hemingway has done with this story and how it inter-relates back to Pride.
Now, dear hearts, I must sort out a way to get Volumes II and III,… for you see dear hearts, the gentleman who wrote this understands Miss Austen! Consider him the David E. Kelley for #Janeites!
Being that I spent the last #SatBookChat discussing a re-telling of Jane Eyre, it felt rather fitting to begin February discussing an after canon work of Jane Austen. I love discovering Historical Romances and finding an author who has charmed me by his dedication to bridging what we know of Austen with what we might never have suspected without his muse guiding us is something to celebrate.
February is also the month most known for Romances and I am dearly enthralled by the ones I’ll be highlighting on Saturdays, including my continuation of reading the Seven Sisters series which will alight on the 23rd. Ahead of that, I will be focusing on two more Historicals – one of Women’s Fiction and one of Romance which I think will lead to fascinating conversations. Here’s to keeping February wickedly Historical as I continue to champion the authors who are drawing my bookish eye onto their stories.
The Mariage of Miss Jane Austen : Volume Two
Subtitle: A novel by a gentleman, Volume Two
by Collins Hemingway
Source: Author via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours
Jane Austen Lived a Quiet, Single Life-Or Did She?
Tradition holds that Jane Austen lived a proper, contemplative, unmarried life. But what if she wed a man as passionate and intelligent as she-and the marriage remained secret for 200 years?
The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen resolves the biggest mystery of Austen’s life-the “lost years” of her twenties-of which historians know virtually nothing.
• Why the enduring rumors of a lost love or tragic affair?
• Why, afterward, did the vivacious Austen prematurely put on “the cap of middle age” and close off any thoughts of finding love?
• Why, after her death, did her beloved sister destroy her letters and journals?
The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen trilogy answers these questions through a riveting love affair based on the history of the times and the details of Austen’s own life.
Genres: After Canons, Historical Fiction, Historical Romance, Re-telling &/or Sequel Places to find the book:
ISBN: 978-1535444958
Also by this author: The Mariage of Miss Jane Austen : Volume One, The Mariage of Miss Jane Austen, The Mariage of Miss Jane Austen
Also in this series: The Mariage of Miss Jane Austen : Volume One, The Mariage of Miss Jane Austen
Published by Self Published
on 8th August, 2016
Format: Trade Paperback
Pages: 332
Self-Published Author
Converse via: #HistFic, #HistoricalFiction + #JaneAusten
About Collins Hemingway
Whether his subject is literature, history, or science, Collins Hemingway has a passion for the art of creative investigation. For him, the most compelling fiction deeply explores the heart and soul of its characters, while also engaging them in the complex and often dangerous world in which they have a stake. He wants to explore all that goes into people’s lives and everything that makes tThe hem complete though fallible human beings. His fiction is shaped by the language of the heart and an abiding regard for courage in the face of adversity.
As a nonfiction book author, Hemingway has worked alongside some of the world’s thought leaders on topics as diverse as corporate culture and ethics; the Internet and mobile technology; the ins and outs of the retail trade; and the cognitive potential of the brain. Best known for the #1 best-selling book on business and technology, Business @ the Speed of Thought, which he coauthored with Bill Gates, he has earned a reputation for tackling challenging subjects with clarity and insight, writing for the nontechnical but intelligent reader.
Hemingway has published shorter nonfiction on topics including computer technology, medicine, and aviation, and he has written award-winning journalism.
Published books include The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen trilogy, Business @ the Speed of Thought, with Bill Gates, Built for Growth, with Arthur Rubinfeld, What Happy Companies Know, with Dan Baker and Cathy Greenberg, Maximum Brainpower, with Shlomo Breznitz, and The Fifth Wave, with Robert Marcus.
Hemingway lives in Bend, Oregon, with his wife, Wendy. Together they have three adult sons and three granddaughters. He supports the Oregon Community Foundation and other civic organizations engaged in conservation and social services in Central Oregon.
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges: