Happy Monday, friends! I’m so excited to welcome author Stephanie Vale to Austenesque Reviews today! Stephanie is a new author who just celebrated her debut release – The Colonel’s Brother – last month! And it sounds like a wonderful Pride and Prejudice variation. There have been several stories that explore Darcy facing some competition for Elizabeth or a love triangle with his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, which is conflicting and poignant for us to endure! But in Stephanie Vale’s story it isn’t that cousin that poses a threat…it is his older brother – the Viscount! 😯

Stephanie is here to celebrate her new release and share an excerpt from The Colonel’s Brother, we hope you enjoy! 🤗

Hello everyone! I’m thrilled to be here as Meredith’s guest on Austenesque Reviews.

I am a semi-retired attorney and part-time university instructor in the US Pacific Northwest. I’ve been writing since I was a little girl. In elementary school my favorite thing every week was our assignment to write a story incorporating that week’s spelling words. In about the ninth grade I wrote a musical parody of The Wizard of Oz. (It was called The Wizard of Bras. I thought I was very daring!) In college, in addition to a gazillion papers, I wrote the humorous Christmas play for my dorm in my senior year (it was about a ruthless university fundraiser who would stop at nothing to get the big check from alumnus Eli Scrooge); it was thrilling to see it performed! Once I went to law school, though, my creative output dropped to approximately zero. I was still writing but it was mostly contracts and memos. Not exactly soul-satisfying.

After college, living in New York City, I had a roommate who worked in publishing and was something of a Janeite. In about 1980 I told her I felt a little guilty about never having read Austen. She handed me the boxed set of paperback editions of the six completed novels from her bookshelf and said, “Here. Start with Pride and Prejudice.” And I was hooked.

I discovered JAFF in about 2008. My introduction was the fantastic trilogy Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman, in which Pamela Aidan retold the story of Pride and Prejudice with Darcy as the central character. I still consider that trilogy to be one of the greatest pieces of JAFF ever written. A few years ago I got an idea that I didn’t think anyone else had taken up, and I thought, “well, why can’t I write it?” So I did. That idea eventually became The Colonel’s Brother.

I’m grateful for the JAFF reader-writer events and Zooms organized by Victoria Kincaid and Don Jacobson. The community of JAFF writers is so welcoming and respectful. It is inspiring. As a newbie I must acknowledge that my work is less complex and sweeping than the work of many other Austenesque authors, but I’m just starting out, and determined to improve.

I hope you will like The Colonel’s Brother. I look forward to your comments below.

~ Book Description ~

What if Darcy’s cousin – a future earl – shows an interest in Elizabeth? Can Darcy earn her good opinion before he loses her forever?

It is early spring in Kent. Fitzwilliam Darcy and his cousin Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam are making their annual visit to the estate of their aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and her daughter Anne. Lady Catherine has not given up her plan for Anne to marry her cousin Darcy. But a few months ago Darcy met a young woman, Elizabeth Bennet, who attracts him more than anyone he has ever known, and as luck would have it she is also in Kent, just next door, visiting her best friend, who is married to Lady Catherine’s parson.

Then Richard’s elder brother, the Viscount Leicester, shows up unexpectedly. He is looking for a wife, and the very pretty Miss Elizabeth catches his eye….

~ An Excerpt from Chapter 7 ~

In the cool dappled sunshine of the grove, Elizabeth was warming to the discussion. “You have been the principal, if not the only means of dividing them from each other, of exposing one to the censure of the world for caprice and instability, the other to its derision for disappointed hopes, and involving them both in misery of the acutest kind! How could you have done such a thing? My sister is the kindest person in the world. What did she ever do to you, sir, to call down such retribution upon her head? And Mr. Bingley is your friend! Your best friend! He is the only person Jane ever met who might rival her sweetness of temper. And he loved her, as she did him. How could you take it upon yourself to decide that they did not deserve their happiness?!”

For a brief moment her good manners threatened to fail her; her small hands formed into fists at her sides and she had an urge to strike him. She was shocked to experience such an uncivilized impulse and resolved to control herself better. She had no way of knowing that her words were worse than blows to him.

“Miss Elizabeth. Please. I know I am in the wrong. I have come to you to apologise. Please, may I speak?”

She spat out a surprisingly harsh rejoinder. “Have not your words done enough damage already?”

He winced. “I acknowledge the damage I have done. It appears that I was entirely in the wrong. May I please speak?”

She was a little embarrassed by the rawness of her anger, her lack of courtesy to this man who truly seemed remorseful and was, for reasons opaque to her, trying to apologise. He is still the best chance of Jane ever seeing Bingley again. I will listen.

“Yes, Mr. Darcy, I regret my outburst. Please continue.”

“Your reaction is entirely natural and not unexpected. But I have more to say, and I thank you for the opportunity to say it. I had not been long in Hertfordshire, before I saw, in common with others, that Bingley preferred your eldest sister, to any other young woman in the country. But it was not till the evening of the dance at Netherfield that I had any apprehension of his feeling a serious attachment. I had often seen him in love before. At that ball, while I had the honour of dancing with you, I was first made acquainted, by Sir William Lucas’s accidental information, that Bingley’s attentions to your sister had given rise to a general expectation of their marriage. He spoke of it as a certain event, of which the time alone could be undecided. From that moment I observed my friend’s behaviour attentively; and I could then perceive that his partiality for Miss Bennet was beyond what I had ever witnessed in him. Your sister I also watched. Her look and manners were open, cheerful and engaging as ever, but without any symptom of peculiar regard, and I remained convinced from the evening’s scrutiny, that though she received his attentions with pleasure, she did not appear to be encouraging him in any way. I studied her for some time and she did not have the look of attachment about her.”

Elizabeth made a small sighing sound. What was it Charlotte had said? “In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better shew more affection than she feels. Bingley likes your sister undoubtedly; but he may never do more than like her, if she does not help him on.” She sighed again.

Darcy looked at her for a long moment and when it appeared that she was not actually trying to speak, he continued.

“Your superior knowledge of your sister suggests that I must have been in error. If it be so, if I have been misled by such error, to inflict pain on her, your resentment has not been unreasonable. But I shall not scruple to assert, that the serenity of your sister’s countenance and air was such, as might have given the most acute observer, a conviction that, however amiable her temper, her heart was not likely to be easily touched.”

“But if as you say you believed that her heart was not touched, how could he be in any danger from her, beyond some temporary disappointment?”

He took a deep breath. “That is an excellent question. I come now to the most difficult part of my explanation.” He took another deep breath. Elizabeth looked at him apprehensively.

“Pardon me, Miss Elizabeth, I do not wish to offend you further, but I feared that under the influence of your mother, Miss Bennet might accept my friend’s hand for reasons unrelated to affection.”

“Because he is rich.”

“Yes, that is one possibility, or perhaps because she wished an establishment of her own, or some other combination of reasons. But I would not wish a loveless marriage on my friend, especially considering his open and caring character. It would crush his spirit.”

“And you believed my mother capable of –”

Here Elizabeth stopped. All the memories of her mother’s loudly voiced boasts and indiscretions at the Netherfield ball and other social occasions came flooding back into her mind, and from actual weakness she sat down upon a nearby log and took her face into her hands. Jane’s happiness, destroyed in large part by her own mother’s bad manners! “What is Mr. Darcy to me, pray, that I should be afraid of him? I am sure we owe him no such particular civility as to be obliged to say nothing he may not like to hear.” Elizabeth remembered it all vividly, with full rations of shame and horror, and felt the weight of her embarrassment a hundredfold from the night it had all happened, just a few hours before Bingley had left Hertfordshire never to return….

Ooh! Glad to see this conversation take another turn…but I’m curious to how it came about. Was there a proposal beforehand? Were there any other heated interactions before this one? Where does the Colonel’s brother fit into all this….inquiring minds want to know! 🤔 😜

Thank so much for sharing, Stephanie! I wish you all the best with The Colonel’s Brother!

~~~

GIVEAWAY TIME!!!

In conjunction with Stephanie’s lovely visit today, she is giving away 2️⃣ Kindle ebook copies of The Colonel’s Brother to 2️⃣ lucky winners!!

To enter this giveaway leave a comment, a question, or some love for Stephanie below!

• This giveaway is open worldwide.  Thank you, Stephanie!
• This giveaway ends September 13th.