May Is a Big Month for the McVeighs!!

First, we shall see our daughter Rachel, who is a Presidential Scholar (Ph.D-level) at Harvard. Once term is over at Harvard, she’ll be home!!

Second, my husband’s Music in Edwardian London (designed to please my fellow music lovers, my husband’s new book about music in London 1890 to 1914) is released. On the same day, our video of his conducting me playing the Elgar cello concerto goes live on YouTube. 

Third – on May 30^th – the fourth in my Austenesque series, Pride and Perjury,  is released. 

This one’s a little different. 

Susan, which placed in Publishers Weekly’s BookLife Prize, is an imagining of the wicked middle-aged Lady Susan as a sixteen-year-old.

 In Harriet (joint runner-up in general fiction for Foreword Indies’ “Book of the Year 2022”) I rewrote Emma from the points of view of Jane Fairfax and Harriet Smith. 

And in Darcy – judged in the top seven self-published novels of 2023 at the London Book Fair – I basically wrote Darcy’s diary.

I started another novel for my fourth, but I kept thinking of parts I left out – of Darcy, especially. The result of that is Pride and Perjury, twelve playful, witty, and occasionally deeply moving Austenesque short stories (the title one was a finalist in Chanticleer’s 2023 short story Book Awards). If you’ve ever wondered why Wickham eloped with Lydia from Brighton, what Lady Catherine’s diary might be like, or how Mr Elton proposed, in Bath, to Mrs Elton (the famous Miss Hawkins of Bath) you can pre-order it for .99 from May 16^th. 

Here are a couple of highlights from ‘The Housekeeper’s Tale’ (Mrs Hill):

Then the mistress was banging on the door to the library, all in a flutter. I was pretending to be examining the dust in the stairwell, just to hear what clever thing Mr Bennet might say, for the master will have his little joke.

‘Mr Bennet, oh Mr Bennet,’ she cried, entering. And he, lifting his eyes from his great book, wished to know if it was a flood or an earthquake, or the return of the Messiah with a choir of angels.

‘My dear! Hill has learned that Netherfield is taken at last – a young man, single, charming – and why, you must call upon him!’ 

‘Is he some sprig of the nobility? Or a Parliamentarian, perhaps?’

‘No, he is a Mr Bingley!’

‘I suppose,’ said Mr Bennet thoughtfully, ‘that a man named Bingley might be as great an encumbrance at Westminster as a fellow by any other name.’ 

***

I trotted upstairs to fetch Miss Bennet’s lace collar. Then I bustled down to the kitchens, where Bessy was attacking the silver, and told her, ‘And here is one for you, my girl, for I lack your deft touch with the needle!’

‘The French collar? What is amiss with it?

‘It wants repairing, the mistress says.’

‘Mercy! And why was I never told as Miss Jane was to be presented at court?’

‘Nay, for she is not – but the mistress fears that, should the new master at Netherfield observe imperfect lace on Miss Jane’s collar, he will return to town in a dudgeon, and not wed her after all.’

***

So now poor Miss Jane is confined at Netherfield with a chill, and Miss Lizzy insists upon attending her. And today, after Miss Lizzy left, through the mud and the dirt, the master proposes that, once she catches Jane’s cold and commences to sneeze, Miss Mary might go to Netherfield to attend her – and then Miss Kitty might then go thither to attend Miss Mary and then – why – Longbourn might be as peaceful as it had been before there were any girls at all, to the astonishing relief of man and beast… He has a wicked sense of humour, the master. 

PETITION TO THE BRITISH LIBRARY

Finally, I have just learned the JASA (Jane Austen Society of Australia) is supporting my petition to the British Library. As many of you on Facebook will know, I was disappointed to find not a single handwritten book of Austen’s on display there, two weeks ago. I was told that no, they are NOT on tour (the little writing desk is, but no manuscripts). Instead, they have been mothballed because they’ve been on display for 15 consecutive years and it’s time for a ‘change’. 

In my opinion, this is mad. Shakespeare’s folio is still there, and Austen very little less gifted (many here will prefer her!) I’m a Londoner, but thousands of Austen fans aren’t – if they come to London at the moment, they’ll miss out!!! 

So I got up a petition to return at least one of the Austen hand-written books on display. Please consider signing it here: 

And – for my fellow music lovers here – the link to my husband’s new book about music in London 1890 to 1914:

Happy Reading!!!!!