Hi friends! Happy Friday! I’m so pleased to welcome back author Jayne Bamber to Austenesque Reviews today! 😊

Jayne has a new book she will be releasing soon – Worse Than Strangers!  🙌🏼

And she is starting to celebrate a little early! It is her 20th release, so I’m sure you would agree that a big, extended celebration is in order! 🥳

To celebrate her 20th release and her own birthday this month, Jayne answers 20 questions! 👏🏼

We hope you enjoy! 🤗

Hello again, lovely readers! It is a treat to be back at Austenesque Reviews to share another new release. This one marks a very special occasion for me – it is my fortieth birthday, and I am celebrating my twentieth novel!

 

My upcoming release, Worse Than Strangers, will be available on Kindle later this month. It marks the final installment of my Silver Screen Retellings series – playful Austen mashups drawn from pop culture classics such as Home Alone, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Holiday, and The Parent Trap. 

Worse Than Strangers has not one but three pop culture influences! The original premise features around four matchmaking ladies – two widows and two spinsters – the Goulding girls, an homage to a tv show I grew up watching old reruns of. Lady Sophia, Lady Dorothea, Lady Blanche, and Lady Rosamund reside together in a sprawling seaside manor, and they amuse themselves by hosting matchmaking parties. 

From here the narrative gives a little nod to my guilty pleasure, Love Island (Brinity forever!) The third influence is a massively popular tv franchise in the US, the UK, and many other countries – readers may recognize a certain gothic game of treachery and “murrrrder” played by Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy, and the other characters on a dark and stormy night. 

To celebrate my twentieth novel, we’re going to play a game of Twenty Questions!

Twenty novels is quite a coup, congrats! And you’ve just released your first anthology, The Devious Schemes Collection, with more to come. Are there more to come?

Yes! I plan on releasing several over the next year or two, all grouped with common themes I like to explore in my novels, such as Elizabeth travelling beyond Meryton, the bonds of sisterhood, alternative pairings, and matchmaking matrons.

Those are all great tropes! Are there any tropes you have not done yet, but would like to? And what are your favorites?

I have an idea brewing for something next year that will feature a bad Georgiana, who forms an unholy alliance with Caroline Bingley! There are a few good characters I’d like to turn bad, and of course I love redeeming the villains, too! There’s a little of that in my upcoming release – though I know thinking ill of Wentworth is not a popular opinion, I was never convinced his letter to Anne was enough to redeem the way he trifled with Louisa Musgrove. 

Your new release sounds so exciting! What else can you tell us about it?

While Darcy and Elizabeth’s romance is at the center of the story, characters from other novels appear – you know I love a good mashup! Readers can look forward to a fun friendship blossoming between Elizabeth Bennet and Anne Elliot, and of course a few unusual couplings. 

As long as Darcy and Lizzy get together! Is the Goulding girls’ party how they first meet?

No indeed! They are thrown together at the house party just a few weeks after Elizabeth rejects Mr. Darcy during her visit to Hunsford.

That’s not awkward at all! Do we see any other characters from Pride & Prejudice?

Yes! Darcy would never deign to attend a matchmaking party if he was not dragged there by Richard and Bingley – and my favorite self-insert character, Lady Rebecca Fitzwilliam! Jane accompanies Elizabeth, and the Gardiners stick around for a little while, too. 

What fun! So how does this house party draw influence from Love Island?

Over a dozen eligible regency singles trapped on a vacation together, with activities planned for each day to ensure romance blossoms. The Goulding girls are creating their own live entertainment, stirring the pot as much as they can. 

Your original character Lady Rebecca is always such a pot stirrer! What mischief can we expect from her this time? 

She’s always an ally for Darcy and Lizzy’s relationship, and this time she takes the lead on finding love for herself. I often depict her as jesting about being a bit of a man-eater, but this time around there’s a gentleman who says challenge accepted.

You’ve given us plenty of alternate pairings in your novels! Do you have any favorite unlikely couples? 

I always have a lot of fun with Colonel Fitzwilliam – I’ve matched him with Jane Bennet, Charlotte Lucas, Marianne Dashwood, Emma Woodhouse, and Caroline Bingley – his romance with Caroline in Madness in Meryton was so wickedly delicious. A more recent addition to my favorite couples would have to be Emma Woodhouse with Mr. Bingley in The Guardian Gambit – having him woo Emma by joining in her matchmaking and meddling was so perfect for his golden retriever energy. 

Are there any pairings you’d like to write, but are afraid the audience would not enjoy?

Oh, I am full of unhinged matches that would probably cause a revolt! I think Elizabeth could do well with a lot of the Austen heroes – Mr. Tilney and Mr. Knightley in particular. 

Those two are definitely swoonworthy! Who is your Austen match?

Haha, prepare for a very shocking answer! If I had to pick a man, probably Colonel Fitzwilliam, but my true answer is really either Emma Woodhouse or Mary Crawford. They’re bother pretty similar to Elizabeth, but with slightly more of a wicked edge. I’ve explored both of those dynamics and had a blast with it. In Handsome, Clever, and Rich, Emma and Elizabeth are long lost sisters with decided similarities – both being too confident in their own judgement, and easily duped by smarmy slimeballs. And in A Quick Succession of Busy Nothings I imagined Mary Crawford as Elizabeth’s spikier cousin, both of them flirting by teasing, and roasting all their friends. 

You tend to make sure Jane has her share of romance in many of your retellings. Which of your novels was your favorite storyline for Jane Bennet?

As much as I enjoyed making her cruel and vain in Happier, I have to say I really enjoyed giving her a backbone in The Countess and Her Sister. I explored the way Elizabeth is often portrayed as protective over her delicate sister; in this version, Jane does not want that solicitude, and manages to find her own agency in navigating difficult situations.

You don’t often pair Jane with Bingley in your retellings. Will they have an HEA in Worse Than Strangers?

You will have to read it to find out!  But I will admit, I don’t often favor their pairing. They’ve gotten together “offscreen” a few times, but the last time I wrote a match for them in any detail – in The Countess and Her Sister – I let Lady Catherine torture poor Mr. Bingley quite a bit first.

Jane Austen gives us some fantastic villains to work with! Which is your favorite?

Absolutely Lady Catherine! I had fun redeeming her in Five Daughters Out at Once, but she’s way more fun when she’s behaving very badly – and you can expect a little of that in my new release! After all, Darcy and Lizzy’s happiness is never complete without Lady Catherine wondering if the shades of Pemberley are to be thus polluted!

You’ve redeemed your share of Austen villains, for sure: Wickham, Willoughby, and even Henry Crawford, to name a few! Are there any that you find irredeemable?

John Thorpe! Honestly, I should put him in more of my books just to give him a grisly demise! Mrs. Norris is another, and Elizabeth Elliott deserves a horrible fate, too – I might mention that she figures into my new release, Worse Than Strangers. 

You haven’t named Lucy Steele. Do you not loathe her, too?

She gets what she deserves in my only non-P&P mashup, Outmatched. Her demise is reason enough to read it! And Elizabeth publicly puts her on blast in The Sisters’ Holiday, too. Someday, though, I would like to write a variation where she wises up and realizes that Elinor isn’t her enemy, that they have both been ill-used by Edward. He’s on my naughty list, too.

You’ve done a few things to get yourself on the naughty list, Jayne! You’ve given us some pretty wild deaths. Do you have a favorite?

Without a doubt it would have to be Mr. Collins choking to death on a boiled potato in Happier. After being punched in the face by Lady Catherine. At the dinner table. In front of a dozen witnesses. 10/10 would do again!!

Have you ever written any character deaths that genuinely upset you? You’ve killed off various members of Elizabeth’s family in nearly all of your novels. 

More than half, I think – muahaha! But yes, there are a couple pretty heavy ones. In A Sister’s Curse, Lady Anne Darcy and Edward Gardiner each lose a spouse before ending up together, and their years of grief take a toll on Elizabeth and her family. Killing Mr. Bennet off in Just Between Us was also one of several angsty calamities in that novel, and it manifests very physically with Elizabeth, who is wasting away at one point in the story. 

Yikes! How many times have you killed off Mr. and Mrs. Bennet now? 

Five, I think? The three eldest Bennet sisters are raised by the Darcys in A Sister’s Curse, all five are adopted by Lady Catherine in Five Daughters Out at Once,, and she also adopts Jane & Lizzy in Fascination & Falsehoods. It is always so much fun exploring how the story might unfold with Elizabeth and her sisters brought up in different circumstances, especially when rank, fortune, and social status is such a huge factor in Darcy and Elizabeth’s relationship.

There are less tragic ways of accomplishing that. How often do you take advice from the Northanger Abbey quote: “If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad?”

That’s definitely another trope I enjoy – in fact, it will be the theme in the anthology I release next month. I have written Elizabeth into all sorts of adventures; one of my favorites was reimagining her as a manager of her uncle Gardiner’s prosperous hotel in Sanditon in Preference & Neglect. She also had a pretty wild (and often dangerous!) adventure in my Clue inspired Clwyd Castle. My new release is similar, in the sense that she spends the whole book in one location, at a manor house full of other Austen favorites. But happily, Worse Than Strangers isn’t quite so murdery!

But the murder level is more than zero, from the sound of this treacherous game they play! I have a hunch I know what inspired it. Are you a big fan of The Traitors?

A super-fan! A friend even told me I should apply for the show, but I am a writer, and a big fan of sitting down in general. The physical challenges would have me pouting worse than Kate! Naturally, I removed that element from the version of the game played in Worse Than Strangers. It’s closer to the original Murder party game (as seen depicted in episodes of other shows like Younger and Frasier.) But in my retelling, the drama is heightened to a theatrical level, with Elizabeth already pretty worked up after overhearing Mr. Darcy speak of his ardent feelings for her. 

So wonderful to learn more about your books like this, Jayne! Thank you!! ☺️

Congrats on number 20  – it’s a big number! Definitely a full shelf of books! (and happy birthday!) 🎂

~~~~~

Connect with Jayne

Facebook    ❧    Blog

~~~

GIVEAWAY TIME!!!

Jayne is kindly offering ebook of Worse Than Strangers, in conjunction with her visit today!

 

To enter this giveaway, leave a comment to celebrate Jayne’s 20th book release – maybe tell us how many of her 20 you have read, or your favorite book of hers, or what book(s) you want to read!

*I’ve read 5. Five Daughters Out at Once is my current fave. And as a Clue fan, I have Clwyd Castle on my wishlist.

• This giveaway is open worldwide. Thank you, Jayne!
• This giveaway will end August 31st

 

Worse Than strangers is currently available for pre-order and will be released on September 30th!