Author Guest Post with Jeanette Watts: Jane Austen Lied to Me

How could my hero be so wrong?

Welcome to the July 17th stop on the blog tour for Jane Austen Lied to Me by Jeanette Watts with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for more excerpt spotlights and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

Please note that this post contains affiliate links, which means there is no additional cost to you if you shop using my links, but I will earn a small percentage in commission. A program-specific disclaimer is at the bottom of this post.

Author Guest Post

Things that inspire you and why

Looking over the many different things that have been the inspirations for almost everything I’ve written, there is one thing they all have in common: people.

I am very much a people person. I have been told that I “collect people.” I have dance friends all over the country. I have a network of museum friends, and I have friends from all the different places that I have lived in the past. I have lived in nine states so far. Hopefully soon I can achieve state number 10.

I also love talking to strangers. I’m from Chicago, a place where everyone is like a golden retriever. We are gregarious. We make friends at street corners while waiting for the light to change, or waiting for the elevator to arrive. We have long conversations in grocery stores. So being an author and going to book festivals is second nature to me.

When I look at the inspiration for so many of the things I have written, almost all of them started because of a conversation.

Wealth and Privilege got started because I was waiting for a friend, and amusing myself reading the back covers of all the books on her table. So that one is something of an outlier, but still involved a close friend. The sequel to that book happened because a reader did not like the fact that Wealth and Privilege ended ambiguously, like Gone With the Wind or “The Lady, or The Tiger?” or Casablanca, and forcefully suggested I needed to write another book. It was the process of thinking over that conversation in the car, and then encountering the Twilight book that went back to the beginning and repeated all the events from a different point of view, that gave me the way forward on how I could satisfy my reader’s ire. My Dearest Miss Fairfax is the result of an online conversation on Reddit. There is a very vibrant Jane Austen subReddit. A Woman’s Persuasion was inspired by a conference. I was sitting in a lecture full of Jane Austen addicts; so it was not so much a conversation, but it was still a room full of people. The book would not have happened without people, and conversation, even though I was a listener, not a participant in the conversation.

The book that is just now coming out for release on audiobook, Jane Austen Lied to Me, is inspired by several conversations. I was at the Jane Austen Festival at Locust Grove in Louisville, Kentucky, having fun with tea in real china cups, and promenading with large quantities of other people who like to play dress up, and talking over any number of aspects about Jane Austen, her life and works. There were so many people, so many conversations. It was a lot to think about on the drive home, and the final takeaway was the realization I needed to write Jane Austen Lied to Me. It may have gone through many iterations before it reached its final form and publication, but the inspiration came from spending the weekend with a whole lot of playful, fun people.

About the Book

Jane Austen Lied to Me
by Jeanette Watts

Published 26 September 2017

Genre: Romantic Comedy
Page Count: 193 
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

What college girl doesn’t dream of meeting Mr. Darcy? Lizzy was certainly no exception. But when Darcy Fitzwilliam comes into her life, he turns out to be every bit as aggravating as Elizabeth Bennett’s Fitzwilliam Darcy. So what’s a modern girl to think, except….

How could my hero be so wrong?

Amazon US | Amazon CA | Amazon UK

Excerpt

Feb 28

I’ve been thinking about my conversation with Professor Jacobson over and over.  The thing about formulas and people.  It makes a certain kind of sense, but does it lack a romantic sensibility?

Ha!  Sense and Sensibility! 

This is the second time that Professor Jacobson has me thinking about S&S. Well, if I’m no Lizzie Bennett, there are worse things in life than being a Marianne Dashwood.  She had youth and beauty and high spirits.  She wasn’t good at the dating thing, either, and overlooked the better man at first.  Why was that?  Did Colonel Brandon seem unromantic at first impression?

Even though I’ve got an assignment due in Spanish, as well as the inevitable calc and chem homework, I grabbed Sense and Sensibility to take with me to read while I went to dinner. I wanted to read everything in the book about Colonel Brandon.

Anne spotted me in the dining hall while I was halfway through a tuna sandwich and a really big pile of potato chips.  “Hey, Roomie.” She slid her cafeteria tray onto the table across from me and plopped her book bag down beside it.  “You having a really bad day?”

“Um, no I don’t think so, why?” I asked.

“Usually, if you’re having a bad day, you pick up Jane Austen and read a little something before you start to study.  Since instead of sitting here doing your homework, you’re sitting here reading Jane Austen, I take it you had an exceptionally bad day today.”

About the Author

Jeanette Watts has written three Jane Austen-inspired novels and two short stories for Jane Austen Fan Fiction anthologies, two other works of historical fiction, stage melodramas, television commercials, and historical dance manuals. She is a regular contributor to MOMCC Magazine.

When she is not writing, she is either dancing, sewing, or making videos for her YouTube channel and TikTok accounts, “History is My Playground.”

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest | Goodreads

Giveaway Alert!

The author will be awarding a Jane Austen Coloring Book (US only) to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter.

Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.