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Like me, Steve Hockensmith has bridged the worlds of Jane Austen and Sherlock Holmes. Unlike me, he’s successful, but I won’t deny him due. He’s taken the reins of the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies franchise with Dreadfully Ever After and Dawn of the Dreadfuls after the departure of Seth Grahame-Smith.
The strange serendipity of reading The Sherlockian, tracking Arthur Conan Doyle’s diary, and The Dashwood Sisters Tell All, following Cassandra Austen’s diary while on the trail of Jane’s diary, is too wonderful to resist, and so this link to author Beth Patillo’s website. You may also know her from Jane Austen Ruined My Life and Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart.
Murder at Mansfield Park is another of those stories that doubtless would have Jane Austen spinning in her grave if author Lynn Shepherd’s style weren’t so spot on that Jane would probably wonder if she hadn’t written it herself in some alternate universe.
Author Jane Odiwe crafts her Austen continuation novels from her sumptuous lair, where you will find her latest, Mr. Darcy’s Secret and her earlier Lydia Bennet’s Story, Willoughby’s Return and Effusions of Fancy, a book of watercolors that tries to bring Austen’s life alive and rescue it from the poor reproductions with which we’re familiar. There’s a very nice gallery of these images you can find here.
Ablog based on a book? What an excellent idea (wish I’d thought of it first)! From the Jane Austen Addict blog and the associated website: “After nursing a broken engagement with Jane Austen novels and Absolut, Courtney Stone wakes up and finds herself not in her Los Angeles bedroom or even in her own body, but inside the bedchamber of a woman in Regency England.” Laurie Viera Rigler is the author of Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict and Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict.
AustenBlog is “a compendium of news about Jane Austen in popular culture: mentions in newspaper articles, books and magazines; film adaptations; paraliterature such as continuations of the novels or modern retellings” … or as the tagline sums it up “She’s everywhere.” Blogger Margaret Sullivan is also author of There Must Be Murder, which follows the life of Henry and Catherine Tilney after the events of Northanger Abbey.
From the The Heroine’s Bookshelf website: “The literary canon is brimming with intelligent, feisty, never-say-die heroines and celebrated female authors. When they were up against the wall, authors like Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott fought back—sometimes with words, sometimes with gritty actions. In this witty, informative, and inspiring read, their stories offer much-needed literary intervention to modern women.” (The author spoke quite charmingly at my local JASNA meeting.)
Austen Authors is kind of like an antiques mall of Austen authors, all under one roof, with very nice biographies and giveaways. And don’t miss the associated news blog. Or the forum. Or the combination potato ricer/Ginsu knife.
Derbyshire Writers’ Guild: “We are a community of readers and writers of Jane Austen fan fiction, and we have one of the oldest and largest archives of Jane Austen-based stories on the internet. Our stories expand on the universe created in Jane Austen's novels and explore the possibilities she left out. Come and join the fun!”
Janet Mullany, whose latest books are Jane of the Damned and Bespelling Jane (an anthology collection to which she contributed) has her home here, which she shares with her nom de plume Jane Lockwood, and because she is so accomplished (and apparently a saucy girl), can also be found at History Hoydens.
Loretta Chase, a historical romance writer, and Susan Hollyway Scott, a historical novelist, write as Two Nerdy History Girls: “To us, the everyday details of life in the past are things to talk about, ponder, make fun of — much in the way normal people talk about their favorite reality show.”
Michelle M. Pillow is a romance novelist, not solely historical, who wrote Pride and Prejudice: The Wild and Wanton Edition for Adams Media. From her bio: “So far I have written several historical romances, supernatural romances, a contemporary romance and horror books—including a vampire series, Tribes of the Vampire!” She is quite gracious.
AustenFans and the associated Sourcebooks were created by Austen fans/novelists who wanted a place on the web to promote and sell their books, a desire I certainly understand. Sourcebooks has expanded beyond Austen, however, with a number of pure romances in the catalog, but usually with a historical bent.
The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen attempts to answer the question, posed by the author herself in this fictional memoir, how a woman who had never known true love could write so convincingly of same? I’m a sucker for letters found in a tin dispatch box and this memoir, found during restorations at Chawton Manor House rings so true you’re tempted to believe it, but that’s just a testament to author Syrie James’ talent and skill.
Author Stephanie Barron has been writing of Jane Austen as detective for so many books now that I should think her relatives and friends would regard one of her visits with almost as much horror as a visit from J.B. Fletcher or Miss Marple. I recently reviewed her first book, Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor.
