Hi friends! Happy Monday! If you been visiting this blog for a bit then you know I have grown to be a big fan of Regency romances. 🥰 I love reading Regency romances because you can often find some nods to and influences of Jane Austen in them.

It started with Julie Klassen and Georgette Heyer, who both has so many books I still haven’t read them all! 😬  But this year my Regency reads have branched out to several other Regency romance authors, many of which just published their debut releases this year! 📚

And one of those authors is Elizabeth Rasche! Who just published her debut release, Flirtation and Folly, with Quills and Quartos today. 🎉  Aw man, it’s Q&Q! You know it’s going to be good! 🙌🏼

Elizabeth is here to share an excerpt from her new release, Flirtation and Folly. We hope you enjoy!

~ Excerpt from Flirtation and Folly ~

Marianne tugged at the edges of her gloves. The trimming brushed her wrists, but not solidly enough to provide real warmth there. Snowflakes whirled and careered into her aunt’s light-grey pelisse, leaving wet smudges of charcoal grey. The snowflakes in London were all burdened with grains of dust and ash, and faint discolouration remained as they melted onto light-coloured fabric. It almost made Marianne glad that her new clothes were not ready for this walk to church. Almost.

Back home in Wrumpton, the church was visible from miles away; but in London, Marianne had no notion they had arrived at the church until they stood before it. The grey stone stretched up in a momentous enough way—it looked heavy and cold, as if it had soaked up the winter that the pellets of snowflakes carried with them. But in the shroud of fog, one could almost stumble over its door-step without any notion it was near.

Marianne paused to examine it, despite the frosty numbness of her wrists. She liked the grey stone, so rough and crumbly, with its thin lines of mortar in-between. The lanterns hanging outside the door should have illuminated a wide expanse of sidewalk, but the fog pressed in from all directions, muting the light and blurring it. The scene ought to have made her feel chilled and dismal, but Marianne found herself appreciating the gloom. It felt stark and powerful.

“Do go in, child, or we shall freeze,” Aunt Harriet said. Her voice held a constrained testiness that Marianne knew well from her father. It was the I am irritated, but dare not express it on a Sunday morning sort of annoyance. The prospect of delivering a sermon made her father especially conscientious, but did not prevent the ordinary vicissitudes of life with ten children from raising his ire. On Sundays, he did not scold, but Marianne could always sense the struggle of holding back lying just beneath his skin.

“Shall Aunt Cartwright sit with us?” she asked as she passed through the church doors and beneath the spreading curves of the vaulted ceiling. They took their seats in a pleasantly padded pew, while her aunt’s servants filed in more noisily and sat in the rear of the church. Marianne glanced back and spied Jenny giggling among them.

“Heavens, no. Matilda is too much an invalid to come to church. She rarely goes anywhere.” Her aunt sniffed. “You will meet her in a few days. She is having an evening party then.”

“With music?” Marianne chewed her lower lip in concern.

“Probably not. She prefers cards.” Aunt Harriet studied her. “Why are you making that face, child? Do you dislike music?”

“No, but—ˮ Marianne decided the topic was safe enough in church. Her aunt could not scold her here. “My mother said you would help me with lessons. I can ride a little and play the pianoforte a little, but neither very well.” Judging her aunt to look reasonably amenable, she rushed on to say, “I thought perhaps you would let me take riding lessons, and piano lessons, and harp lessons, and French and Italian, and drawing and—ˮ

“Good heavens! You’d have time for nothing else, and my house would leak tutors in every direction.” Aunt Harriet looked more puzzled than annoyed.

“But I must become an accomplished young lady, Aunt, in order to—well—ˮ She could not confess the truth even in church: in order to attract a rich husband.

“Choose three. I will permit three studies. I will not pay for a horde of masters.”

Marianne considered. She had learned to ride as a child, back when her mother’s dowry still remained to be drawn upon and there were not many children at the rectory yet. She had a vague memory of being lifted onto the broad back of a horse, and an uncomfortably clear memory of the terror at being perched there alone. It had felt like too much of her childhood: being placed too young atop something far bigger and stronger than she was, and being expected to manage it. Improving the skill did not seem pleasant. Besides, her aunt only hired carriages from the livery stable rather than owning any horses, and Marianne had no servant or friend who could ride with her yet.

The harp was impractical—they had no harp at the rectory, nor at Aunt Harriet’s—but would not the elegance of graceful plinking outweigh the expense of buying a harp and towing it about? French was a must; Marianne’s sounded too much like a schoolgirl. Years of teaching beginner’s piano and French to her younger sisters instead of practising more difficult endeavours herself had stunted her skills.

An image of her sketchbook, its worn edges and ruffled pages preventing it from sliding neatly into the bookcase with the other books, flashed through Marianne’s mind. She did love to draw, but the pictures she liked to draw did not exactly frame her as a proper young lady. A drawing master would only teach her to make portraits of blank-faced women and landscapes of dull English countryside. “French, I suppose. And the harp and piano. Unless they can count together as one study of music—ˮ

“French, harp, piano,” Aunt Harriet said with a decisive nod. “Very well.”

~ About Elizabeth ~

What do you think friends? Are you curious to see how Marianne Mowbry’s London Season turns out?

Wishing you all the best, Elizabeth! Thank you for the lovely visit!

*If you want to know what I think of Flirtation and Folly, pop back on Wednesday to read my review. 🙂