Hi friends! Happy Friday!

I’m thrilled to welcome back Amy D’Orazio to Austenesque Reviews because…if you can believe, she has another new release that came out this week – An Offer of Marriage! 🎉

Serious question, is anyone else able to keep up with Amy?!? 😆

Amy’s newest book sounds terrific as always, one with some misunderstandings and emotional trials – which we all know Amy does so well. 🙌🏼

Amy is stopping by today to share an excerpt from !  📖

We hope you enjoy! 🤗

~ Book Description ~

A finer punishment does not exist than if I were to accept him.

Elizabeth Bennet—shocked, dismayed, and emotional following Mr Darcy’s offensive proposal in Hunsford parsonage—makes a flippant remark to her friend Charlotte Collins. She observes that, given Mr Darcy’s disdain for her family, accepting him would be the worst punishment imaginable for him, for then he would be forever connected to the very people he so despised. She speaks in jest…but Mrs Collins fears she might be serious.

Mr Darcy leaves Hunsford parsonage following his proposal feeling a measure of joy at his beloved’s acceptance of his proposal. Alas, his news is received less than joyously at Rosings Park and he fears Elizabeth might be in some danger. With the help of his cousin, he hurries her out of Kent and to the safety of her relations in London.

Caught in a grave misunderstanding, whereby Mr Darcy thinks she has accepted him, Elizabeth soon finds that Mr Darcy is a vastly different man than she had previously understood him to be. A man that she likes…a man that she might perhaps come to love.

As the days of happy courtship pass in London, the secret of how she really felt the night of his proposal lingers. When the truth comes out, Mr Darcy feels he has been made an object of ridicule, and Elizabeth fears she might have lost him for good.

An Offer of Marriage is a forced marriage, enemies to lovers to enemies and then back to lovers again, closed door regency romance.

~ Excerpt from An Offer of Marriage ~

To view one’s own house through the eyes of another was a strange thing. Darcy walked through the halls as if he had never seen them before, imagining what Elizabeth might think of this wallpaper or how she might like that paint colour. He was not overly partial to any of it; in fact, many of the rooms had not been redone since his mother died and were likely sorely in need of refurbishment.

That gave him a pulse of panic. Would she think it all hideously passé and shabby? Most of the walls had been painted a cream colour, very dull in fact, and only now did he see the little scuff marks and discolorations upon them. Mrs Hobbs came to him at once, concerned that some oversight in housekeeping had been discovered, but he waved her away, assuring that things were as well-kept as ever. Merely old, he thought. Then again, does not every bride wish to put her own stamp on her new home?

He was bent over examining a particularly egregious mark, and on the verge of going for a bucket of paint himself, when Saye entered the hall. “What on earth are you doing?”

“This paint.” Darcy straightened, brushing his hands against each other. “It seems suddenly…quite…ugly. I cannot comprehend how I have not ever realised how much I hate it. It seems the more I look at it, the uglier it is.”

Saye laughed. “Yes, well, you are a bachelor. Miss Bennet is fortunate there is not a suit of armour here in the hall, with a large Tudorish painting of an execution or a mythological beast besides.”

“When she arrives, I will be sure to inform her how lucky she is at that,” Darcy replied. “We are hosting a small—”

“Dinner, yes, I know. ’Tis why I am here, and looking so splendid. Quite hungry too, I must say, what may I expect?”

“You may expect to be shown to the door. It means to be a quiet dinner, just six of…” He trailed off as Saye began shaking his head.

“Not so. Georgiana was at Matlock House earlier this morning and did not protest when we told her we four should like to attend.”

Darcy extended his arm, indicating that Saye should precede him down the hall. “Someone not protesting is not the same as being invited.”

“The lady ought to meet the rest of your Fitzwilliam relations. The sane ones, for I daresay she has already met the lady lunatics of Rosings Park, and of course my brother. She might think him mad too, as do I half the time.”

“I agree, I would like her to meet all of you, only I had not thought the best time for it being tonight.” Darcy followed Saye into the drawing room. “Elizabeth’s aunt and uncle are coming.”

Saye turned round and stared at him blankly. Darcy thus added, “Elizabeth’s uncle is in trade.”

A beat later, Saye raised one brow. “And?”

“And nothing. He is in trade.”

Saye moved towards the nearest chair and sat. “My mother and father have grown quite liberal in that regard. They have dined in the company of tradespeople before, several times in fact. And they like your friend Bingley well enough. Far more than I do. Are you going to sit, or tower over me all evening?”

Darcy dropped into the chair next to his cousin. “You may be the chief source of my concern. I have seen you storm out of a place because someone from trade was there.”

“Only the once!” Saye protested. “And in truth the tedium of that party had me half out of my mind already. I was wanting an excuse to leave.”

“Very well, but no such mischief this evening! You must be nice to them, else I shall toss you out onto the street myself.”

“I should like to see you try, although I daresay you are looking less battered than you did before,” Saye informed him. “In any case, you need not fear, for we are all quite eager to know this lady who has enthralled you.”

“Someone not protesting is not the same as being invited.” love it… 😆

The relationship between these two is without a doubt one of my favorites.

Can’t wait to see how this dinner goes! 

~~~

GIVEAWAY TIME!!!

In conjunction with Amy’s lovely visit, Quills & Quartos is giving away 3️⃣ copies of An Offer of Marriage to 3️⃣ lucky readers of this blog. 

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

• This giveaway is open worldwide.  Thank you, Quills and Quartos!
• This giveaway ends August 31st.