Hi friends! Happy Friday! I’m very excited to welcome back author Barry S. Richman to Austenesque Reviews today! 🙌🏼

And it extra exciting because Barry is here to talk about the new book he has coming out in less than one month!  🎉

Barry is here today to share a little about his upcoming release – Colour My World and the unique ability Elizabeth possesses in this story! 😊

We hope you enjoy! 🤗

Hello everyone. It is a privilege to be back at Austenesque Reviews and to share my next publication in The Bennet Sister Variations series.

My earlier novels gave each overlooked sister a crucible to endure: Kitty, in Doubt Not, Cousin, was forced to navigate a silent world, overcoming deafness to regain her connection and dignity; Mary, in Follow the Drum, driven into exile by albinism, found purpose and endurance in the harsh life of war; and Jane, in The Scarred Duchess, scarred in body yet unbroken in spirit, transformed society’s cruelty into grace and authority. Each of these stories carried a darker tone, rooted in scars, exile, and survival against unforgiving circumstance.

Elizabeth Bennet is different. She enters literature not as a fragile figure needing repair, but as a woman already formed—intelligent, empathetic, and principled in a world of gentility, proper manners, and formal society. She is, in many ways, a literary superwoman: her wit slices through vanity, her empathy unsettles artifice, her sense of justice pierces pretension. To weigh her down with the same kind of external obstacles that shaped her sisters would be to diminish her essence. Her challenge, therefore, is inward.

Elizabeth’s gift in Colour My World is not magic, but a form of acquired synaesthesia—an uncommon way of processing the world that makes hidden states appear as colour. Like anyone with a heightened faculty, she comes to rely on it instinctively, until the moment it fails her—most crucially with Fitzwilliam Darcy. That failure leaves her not with another sense to trust, but with a crisis of self: How can my sensibilities not work? Why have they abandoned me? Her struggle is profoundly human, mirroring the bewilderment we all feel when the compass we depend upon suddenly spins without direction.

Colour My World is lighter in tone than its predecessors, yet no less searching. It asks what we do when certainty deserts us, and whether humility might be the truest form of strength.

Colour My World is available now for pre-order and releases in Kindle Unlimited and paperback on October 2^nd.

Thank you, Meredith, for welcoming me back, and thank you to all the readers at Austenesque Reviews for allowing me to share a glimpse of my newest story. I am so grateful for your ongoing interest in The Bennet Sister Variations, and I hope you will enjoy Colour My World as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Let me end with a few questions to the audience:

• What do you think makes Elizabeth Bennet so enduring as a heroine? Is it her wit, her principles, or something else entirely?

• If you could perceive emotions in colour as Elizabeth does in Colour My World, do you think it would be a gift—or a burden?

• Each Bennet sister has faced her own crucible in my series. Which sister’s journey speaks to you most strongly, and why?

I look forward to hearing your opinions.

~ Connect with Barry ~

Website   ❧    Instagram    ❧    Facebook    ❧   Goodreads

~ About Barry ~

  Barry S. Richman combines his background in the armed forces and expertise with a passion for Pride recuperating at home after having his wisdom teeth extracted in and Prejudice retellings.

After two decades of exploring countless stories from the JAFF universe, his wife challenged him to try writing one. During a trip to Istanbul, Barry wrote four pages that wove his real-world experiences into alternate-universe stories inspired by Jane Austen’s characters. He continued from there.

He published his first novel, Doubt Not, Cousin, in 2023, followed by The Scarred Duchess in 2024. Follow The Drum continues his military-influenced alternate universe populated by characters familiar and new.

Barry and his “Jane Bennet” divide their time between Los Angeles and a seaside town in southwestern Turkey.

~~~

GIVEAWAY TIME!!!

Barry is generously giving away 1 paperback book of Colour My World in conjunction with his visit to this blog!!  Woot woot! 

 

To enter this giveaway, please subscribe to Barry’s mailing list and leave a comment, question, or some love for Barry!

• This giveaway is open worldwide.  Thank you, Barry
• This giveaway ends September 12th!