Category: Jane Austen

  • A Final Excerpt

    A Final Excerpt

    I am sad to say that this will be my last post with Always Austen. To commemorate this moment, I thought I would share one more excerpt from 12 Months of Darcy. It is, of course, for March, and one of my favorites. This month, Elizabeth gets to see a softer side of Darcy. MARCH…

  • Regency Childbirth

    Regency Childbirth

    Forceps, anesthesia, and hot, spiced wine: What was it like to give birth in Regency England?

  • Jane Austen Inspires not only Appreciation but Creation

    Jane Austen Inspires not only Appreciation but Creation

    I recently posted a Middlemarch by George Eliot fan fiction on the free site Archive of Our Own (AO3). I was shocked to find myself making relationship tags. I was further blown away to find out that there are only 12 Middlemarch fan fictions on AO3 total. Checking other authors, even the famous Jane Eyre…

  • Anatomy of a Book Cover Part I

    Anatomy of a Book Cover Part I

    When I first started writing, my former publisher encouraged me to work on a series. So, I started writing what would become The Darcy and Elizabeth Series that consisted of the following: The Women of Longbourn Attending a Ball Darcy and Bingley Darcy Chooses Part 1 Darcy Chooses Part 2 Elizabeth’s Choice The first three…

  • On bombs, Austen, AI – and erotica

    On bombs, Austen, AI – and erotica

    By Alice McVeigh #MariannebyMcVeigh #historicalfictionnovel My first experience of being bombed was on holiday in Israel, when very young, when the Six-Day War broke out, and the hotel just across the road from us got bombed. (My family flew out the next day.) My second bomb was in Belfast, in the 90s, during the “Troubles”…

  • Another P & P Play

    Another P & P Play

    Hello everyone! As I mentioned last month, I went to Nashville to visit my daughter and see yet another stage adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. I arrived on February 14th and my husband had arranged for flowers and ice cream cake to be waiting for me. It was a wonderful extended weekend. We went to…

  • Unexpected Moments of Reaching Out

    Unexpected Moments of Reaching Out

    One scene has kept me coming back to George Eliot’s Middlemarch for fifty years. Dorothea, a young and engaging woman, has married an older man, clergyman Mr. Casaubon, out of an intellectual and religious ardor for his scholarship. After just eighteen months, she realizes that she is trapped in a loveless marriage with a third-rate…

  • Common Themes in Several Stories + the Upcoming Release of “Lost in the Lyon’s Garden” from Dragonblade Publishing [Available 18 March 2026]

    Back in January 2021, I released my Austenesque novel, The Mistress of Rosings Park. In that story, draper’s shops play a strategic role. In my upcoming novel from Dragonblade Publishing [book 4 of 5 in the Lyon’s Den Connected World Series, Lost in the Lyon’s Garden], my heroine is employed at a draper’s shop and…

  • Getting Away With Murder: All About Regency Duels

    Getting Away With Murder: All About Regency Duels

    Why did Colonel Brandon and Willoughby fire one shot and then walk away? This post explores the ins and outs of Regency duels.

  • Valentine’s Day in Regency England

    Valentine’s Day in Regency England

    Valentine’s Day, associated with love since the late Middle Ages, became popular during the Regency era as a time for expressing romantic interest within societal norms. Common practices included exchanging handwritten Valentine cards with poems, small tokens, and light-hearted customs. It provided a unique opportunity for flirtation amidst strict social codes, despite some skepticism from…