Hi friends! Happy Friday!

I am so thrilled to be starting my weekend with a visit from Amy D’Orazio!!  🙌🏼

Our busy writing and publishing queen, Amy D’Orazio, is celebrating the release of her 18th? (not counting anthologies) Pride and Prejudice inspired work – Run Mad. 😮

And it doesn’t sound like Elizabeth is following Jane Austen’s advice about running mad, fainting fits, or swoons…but instead, is suspected of being mad herself! 😵‍💫

Today Amy stops by to share an enticing excerpt from Run Mad and an exciting giveaway opportunity!  📖

We hope you enjoy! 🤗

~ Book Description ~

I was not mad. I was inconvenient…

When Elizabeth Bennet rejects Mr Darcy’s proposal at Hunsford, she believes she has merely exercised a woman’s last freedom: the right of refusal. But when a careless letter carries word of it back to Longbourn, her father’s characteristic indolence curdles into something monstrous. A wit too sharp, a will too strong, a daughter who will not marry where she is bid: to the right physician, these are not faults of character but symptoms of mental illness. Drugged and spirited north, Elizabeth wakes behind the locked doors of a private madhouse, the place where inconvenient women are sent to be cured of having minds of their own.

Ten months later, Fitzwilliam Darcy comes for her. But the only way to free her is to make her his wife in truth, by papers forged in a debtor’s gaol and binding in the eyes of the law. Elizabeth escapes one cage only to discover she has become the property of the very man she once turned away.

She will not be grateful. She will not be managed. She will not fall in love with her rescuer.

Then the blackmailer’s letters begin, threatening to parade her ruin before all the world. And Elizabeth must decide whether the man who took her freedom might be the one to help her seize it back, and whether the only way out of the shadows is to walk, at last, into the light.

~ Excerpt from Run Mad ~

It seemed the prudent course was to confront Mr Bennet directly about how it was that Elizabeth came

to be sent away, and thus did Darcy find himself knocking on the gentleman’s book-room door the next day.

Mr Bennet was seated in an overstuffed leather chair near the window. From the smell of the room, it seemed he had been lately enjoying a pipe. He gestured to Darcy to take any seat he wished, and Darcy did.

“We are seeing a great deal of you here these days, Mr Darcy.”

Darcy only tilted his head to acknowledge that.

“Dare I suppose you mean to give your friend a bit of competition?”

Darcy blinked and drew back. “I beg your pardon?”

Mr Bennet smirked. “I presumed to imagine you were here for Jane.”

“Of course not,” Darcy retorted immediately. “Miss Bennet is very lovely of course, but I should never interfere with my friend’s interest in any woman in such a manner as you suggest. I am here to speak to you about Miss Elizabeth.”

Mr Bennet’s expression shuttered instantly. “As I mentioned to you previously, she is with my aunt in Brighton.”

“And no one has received word from her in all these months? I did not realise that obtaining a letter from Brighton was so improbable.” Darcy kept his gaze level on Mr Bennet.

Mr Bennet shrugged, the same closed expression on his face. “She must be very busy. I cannot see that it is any concern of yours, but so it must be.”

“We both know she is not in Brighton.” Darcy leant forwards in his chair. “Where is she?”

“Brighton.”

“Very well.” Darcy stood. “I am for Brighton, then, only should I find that Miss Elizabeth is not there, I assure you that I will return here straightaway and be in a far less agreeable temper than I am at present.”

He gave Mr Bennet a hard stare that Mr Bennet returned for several moments. “I was not aware that you had such a friendship with my daughter that you should be entitled to know her whereabouts.”

“I think you are well aware of my friendship with your daughter,” Darcy said in controlled accents. He slowly sat again. “And no matter what she might feel for me, I have the deepest regard for her welfare, and I am exceedingly concerned that her departure from Longbourn was…less than voluntary.”

“Not voluntary?” Mr Bennet’s eyebrows rose with affected amusement. “You make it sound quite sinister. Elizabeth has gone to take in the sea air, to benefit from a change of scene, and to keep company with an old lady. Surely there is nothing remarkable in that?”

“Most young ladies who desire a change of scene are not abducted from their homes to do so,” Darcy replied neutrally. “Although I am not certain if it is an abduction if the lady’s father stands by and condones it.”

Mr Bennet’s eyes narrowed. “Who said such a nonsensical thing?”

“Someone who saw everything.”

“Who?” Mr Bennet demanded. “They will be dismissed from their position yet tonight!”

“This is the way, is it? Someone does something to displease you and they are sent off.”

Mr Bennet’s frown turned into a scowl, and he stood. “I have tolerated your impertinence long enough, Mr Darcy, and I daresay—”

“Where is she?” he said, quietly insistent. “It was my proposal which landed her in this predicament, and I believe that gives me some right to know.”

“You do not have the authority to question a father’s decisions regarding his own daughter. Elizabeth is precisely where she needs to be.”

“And where, precisely, is that?”

“Somewhere she can receive the care that she needs.”

“It was not madness that provoked her to refuse me,” Darcy said firmly. “I came to her with the most insulting, degrading proposal any man could ever have offered. Indeed, I am disgusted by the things I said to her that night and applaud every harsh word she returned, for it was needed. My character was in need of reform—”

“Be that as it may,” said Mr Bennet. “It was not to my daughter to give it to you. You are a man who ought to be refused nothing, Mr Darcy, and you and I both understand that. You saw no need to make yourself agreeable to anyone in this place last autumn, Elizabeth included.”

“And that was wrong of me,” Darcy retorted. “Not her. She ought not to be punished for what was a just refusal of an insulting offer of marriage.”

Ooh! I’m so in love with Mr. Darcy’s determination in this excerpt – he is ready to have it out with Mr. Bennet!! 🎩

I can’t wait to see what Elizabeth thinks of this reformed version of Mr. Darcy. 🥰

~~~

GIVEAWAY TIME!!!

In conjunction with Amy’s lovely visit, Quills & Quartos is giving away 3️⃣ copies of Run Mad 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 October 31st.