{"id":7476,"date":"2011-10-19T09:14:55","date_gmt":"2011-10-19T13:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theseasonforromance.com\/wordpress\/?p=7476"},"modified":"2011-10-19T09:14:55","modified_gmt":"2011-10-19T13:14:55","slug":"thinking-about-jane-austen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smittenbybooks.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/19\/thinking-about-jane-austen\/","title":{"rendered":"Thinking about Jane Austen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>by <em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/janetmullany.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Janet Mullany<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>My October release, <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>JANE AUSTEN: BLOOD PERSUASION<\/strong><\/span>, is about Jane Austen as a vampire. To write it, I had to learn something about vampires\u2014easy: You sift through the vampire lore and use what suits the plot. I also thought I knew quite a lot about Jane Austen. I didn\u2019t. I wasn\u2019t even sure what I thought about her, other than loving her books, being annoyed by her letters, and critical of most of the movie versions.<\/p>\n<p>The problem is this\u2014we all think we know Jane Austen. We own her. She\u2019s everywhere, on movies, in sequels, prequels, \u201cwhat-if\u201d novels. She\u2019s cast as a vampire slayer, a detective, or even a vampire. But who was she really and why do we still read her? Her books are brilliant and witty, structured like elegant puzzles, and every time you read one of her books you find something new\u2014or you discover something new within yourself.<\/p>\n<p>Her life was fairly ordinary; she grew up in the country, the youngest daughter of a clergyman, to a family of high achievers. Her brothers had successful careers in the navy and the church, and one brother unexpectedly became heir to several large estates. She had little formal education, and liked to read, dance, play music, and flirt. She enjoyed the company of children and had a great sense of fun. Neither she nor her sister Cassandra married, although Jane received at least one proposal of marriage, one from an eminently suitable young landowner. Jane accepted, thought it over for a night, and broke off the relationship. It was certainly the sort of marriage that a young woman of her background would be expected to make if she was lucky\u2014a \u201cgood\u201d marriage to someone known to the family and who would help them out financially if necessary. For reasons we\u2019ll never know, that marriage was not right for her, and she had the sense to know it. Fortunately, the Austen women had a different sort of HEA\u2014the landowner brother Edward provided them with a home where, for the last eight years of her short life, Jane had the security and peace to polish earlier books and write new ones.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-7478\" style=\"margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 3px; border: 1px solid black;\" title=\"JABP\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/smittenbybooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/JABP.jpg?resize=200%2C300\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" \/>Austen\u2019s books deal with the conflict of the heart and the mind, the balance of desire and practicality. Her heroines are nearly always attracted to the sexy rakes, men like Wickham or Frank Churchill or Henry Crawford. But they don\u2019t marry them, and it\u2019s usually a decision they reach on their own. Two centuries later, we still have to make the decision of whom we\u2019ll allow ourselves to love and how we can retain our sense of self within a relationship.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why do you love Jane Austen? Comment to enter to win an autographed copy of JANE AUSTEN: BLOOD PERSUASION.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Book blurb:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Jane Austen: Blood Persuasion<\/strong>. <em>It\u2019s 1810 and Jane Austen settles down to some serious writing in the peaceful village of Chawton. But it\u2019s not so peaceful when the Damned introduce themselves as her new neighbors. Jane has to deal with the threat of a vampire civil war, her best friend borrowing her precious silk stockings for assignations with the Damned, and a former lover determined to hold a grudge for eternity.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-7476\" data-postid=\"7476\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-7476 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Janet Mullany My October release, JANE AUSTEN: BLOOD PERSUASION, is about Jane Austen as a vampire. 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