Tag Archives: Cass Grafton

SISTER SCRIBES: CASS GRAFTON REVIEWS SYRIE JAMES’ NEW RELEASE

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Regular readers of the Sister Scribes’ contributions to Frost won’t be surprised to hear that I’m a huge Jane Austen fan. Aside from enjoying repeated readings of her novels, I also enjoy books that have Jane as either a part of the story or where there is a strong Austen association.

I’d read and loved author Syrie James’ contemporary novels, The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen and The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen in the past, so when I was invited to read and review her latest novel, (released through Avon Impulse on 25th February 2020), I leapt at the chance.

Duke Darcy’s Castle is a historical romance, set in the latter part of the Victorian era, and although the title hints at the story being a retelling of Pride & Prejudice, it isn’t, though certain similarities can be detected, not least in the duke’s inability to propose in a way likely to be accepted!

So what’s it about?

Lance Granville, the reluctant Tenth Duke of Darcy, has given up his much-loved naval career to inherit the family title, along with substantial estate debts and an ancient castle in serious need of renovation. Time to find a wealthy wife, perhaps?

Kathryn Atherton is determined to become the first woman architect in Britain. Marriage and children are not part of her plans—ever. Despite family and society opposition, she’s managed to complete her training; now she needs experience. When the architect who has given her a chance is incapacitated, she’s sent in his stead to Cornwall to do the initial sketching for a remodel of Lance’s castle. The last thing Kathryn wants—or needs—is to be attracted to its handsome owner.

Lance is soon entranced by Kathryn, and when he learns she is an heiress whose fortune would save the estate, he sets out to win her hand. But duchesses can’t be architects. And Kathryn has fought too long and too hard to give up her dreams…

With romance novels, the reader often picks up on who will end up with whom before the characters do, but the pleasure is gained from following the path to happiness, and this book does not fail on this, delivering several twists and much to keep the reader engaged along the way.

The book is also a fascinating insight into the late Victorian era attitude towards women pursuing an education, having careers and the restraints and attitudes they came up against.

With beautifully evocative descriptions of the setting, there’s no denying the location of St. Gabriel’s Mount, where the castle is situated, is inspired by St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, and the sense of place permeates through the pages.

I think my favourite aspects were the bond of love and friendship Kathryn has with her sisters and also the character of the Dowager Duchess of Darcy, Lance’s grandmother.

As for the story, can two such strong characters, both with conflicting motivations, face up to the need for compromise? Will Lance ever get his proposal right, and will Kathryn’s final decision be to follow her head or her heart?

Duke Darcy’s Castle is well written and very well researched, and I recommend it to those who love historical romances with plenty of passion.

 

NB: Recommended for mature audiences only, as there are several scenes of an intimate nature.

 

Syrie James is the USA TODAY and Amazon bestselling author of thirteen novels of historical, contemporary, and young adult fiction. A member of the Writer’s Guild of America, Syrie is also an established screenwriter and playwright.

Follow Syrie on Twitter @SyrieJames

 

 

SISTER SCRIBES’ READING ROUND UP: FEBRUARY

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Cass:

Having loved Kitty Wilson’s debut novel, The Cornish Village School: Breaking the Rules, I already knew what to expect from the pen of this talented author: relatable characters, a fabulous Cornish setting, lots of emotion and laughs-a-plenty.

The Cornish Village School: Second Chances is the story of Sylvie, who’s had to give up her dreams in the past and is also doing her best to recover from a recent loss whilst being the best mum she can be to her little son, Sam (adorable!) and Alex, who’s come to Penmenna with his adopted daughter, Ellie (adorable and hilarious!), to help her escape the horrors of her past and to also take a break from the pressures of his job.

Surround these two new characters with the regulars from the first book, Rosy and Matt, still cosily besotted with each other; Chase and Angelina (who’s still weird, but perhaps a bit mellower… sometimes); the controlling Marion Marksharp (still loving that name), and you have a fun read, layered with depth, as both Sylvie and Alex reveal their past wounds, at first to themselves and then to each other.

A fabulous second novel from Kitty Wilson, who writes rom-com at its very best.

 

Jane:

Given most of my novels have a time-slippy element it’s surprising I haven’t read Daphne du Maurier’s The House on the Strand before. In truth I only picked it up because my talks partner, Sue Kittow, has written a book of walks based around du Maurier’s work and we’ve been asked to speak about the author to a local group.

From the first chapter I was hooked. The book dates from the 1960s and the protagonist is Dick Young, a man who can only be described as having a mid life crisis, and is lent a house in Cornwall for the summer by an old university friend – on the condition he helps him with an experiment. This involves taking a drug which transports him to the early fourteenth century, a brutal time by any standards, and even as a helpless bystander he becomes emotionally involved in the lives of lords, ladies and serfs living around Tywardreath then.

I enjoyed this well crafted book and alternately racing to finish it and throwing it down and stomping off yelling “oh, you stupid man!” at Dick. Although the writing was so vivid I travelled back to medieval times, the contemporary story of a man struggling to make sense of his life – and in so doing putting his family’s happiness at great risk – gripped me even more. Through the lens of time Dick could be seen as a selfish bastard but this book is actually a heart-wrenching portrayal of what addiction can do to the body and mind. As relevant today as it was in the 1960s.

Set firmly in the past – this time the early nineteenth century – is To Have and To Hold, another great book from Valerie Holmes. Her Yorkshire setting is so beautifully drawn I could see it in my mind’s eye as I read, and I love the way she draws her characters from outside ‘the ton’ – it makes them seem so much more real, somehow.

This is a great adventure/love story that begins with a runaway mill boy and ends… well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it? Poldark fans should love it. Valerie’s new book, In Sickness and in Health, is available for pre-order now.

 

SISTER SCRIBES: CASS GRAFTON ON THE CHALLENGE OF NAMING CHARACTERS

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What’s in a name? Or perhaps that question should be, ‘who’s in a name’?

I’ve realised that I have a two-tier approach to naming the characters in my novels. For the leads, I go to extreme lengths not to use names of people I know personally, but for all the background characters, I am more relaxed and confess a few of my friends have popped up—in name only, I stress—over recent years!

However, I certainly couldn’t use a first name for one of my leads—someone I spent a lot of time with, got to know and had probably fallen in love with—and then in a later book give the same first name to an unpleasant character.

This is not something I share with Jane Austen, who seems to have had a much more prosaic approach, often using a first name for a heroine in one novel and then giving it to an unpleasant character in another. These names were also prolific amongst her close family, including frequent use of names shared by her brothers and their wives and children!

One of the best examples is Elizabeth Bennet in Pride & Prejudice. She’s a strong, confident young woman, a character Jane Austen had clearly become attached to, as shown in a letter written to her sister, Cassandra, the day after the book’s publication:

“I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print, & how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least, I do not know.” 29th January 1813

Yet in her last completed novel, Persuasion, the author gives the name Elizabeth to Miss Elliot, who is cold, haughty and self-centred.

More amusing is Austen’s aversion to the name Richard. In the opening paragraph of Northanger Abbey, she refers to the heroine’s father as ‘a very respectable man, though his name was Richard’.

She does use the name across several of her novels, but only for non-speaking characters, with the most scathing reference in Persuasion.

“…that the Musgroves had had the ill fortune of a very troublesome, hopeless son; and the good fortune to lose him before he reached his twentieth year… He had, in fact… been nothing better than a thick-headed, unfeeling, unprofitable Dick Musgrove, who had never done anything to entitle himself to more than the abbreviation of his name, living or dead.”

Of course, there’s always the option of simply not giving a lead character a first name, something Daphne du Maurier did in one of my all time favourite novels, Rebecca. The book’s title is the name of the first Mrs de Winter, and the story is narrated by the second. This Mrs de Winter’s name is never revealed.

The author was often asked why this was so, and in a book she later wrote about her novels and writing career, Daphne du Maurier gave this explanation:

“…why did I never give the heroine a Christian name? The answer to the last question is simple: I could not think of one, and it became a challenge in technique, the easier because I was writing in the first person.”

Charles Dickens is, of course, notable for thinking up names to suit a characters’ nature or profession: Sloppy, Wopsle, Sweedlepipe, Pumblechook, Skimpole, Bumble and Toodle, to name but a few.

I think we can be pretty certain these weren’t people he knew in person, but—fabulous as they are—I don’t think it’s a talent I have. Perhaps it’s time to browse the Penguin Classic Baby Name Book for some inspiration…

 

Sources: Jane Austen and Names by Maggie Lane and The Rebecca Notebook and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier and Jane Austen’s Letters, edited by Deirdre le Faye.

 

SISTER SCRIBES: CASS GRAFTON ON WHY WRITING IS A NEVER-ENDING ADVENTURE

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For me, pursuing a career as a writer is not just a journey; it’s an expedition into a world I’m still discovering. It’s ‘the world inside my head’ meets ‘the world out there’, and they are only on their third date. It seems fair to say, therefore, that I’m not only a writer but also an explorer.

I’ve been published since 2013, a combination of solo and co-writing across seven novels, some indie published and some with a publisher, Canelo Escape. Everything I’ve written so far has had, at its core, a love story —I love romantic storylines.

So, how is my writing career now on its third ‘date’? It’s to do with the genre of romance and the many categories that further define it. I’ve published in two of these ‘sub’ categories: historical romance (Regency era) and time-travel romance. These were the first two ‘dates’, and they went quite well—I’m certainly going to be seeing them again—but for now I’m rather excited about my upcoming third. This date is with contemporary romance.

When I was young, I dreamed of writing love stories, but always in the present day. No breeches and fluttering fans; no flitting to and fro through the centuries courtesy of a charmed necklace. My dream was of writing modern romances—relatable, believable and with characters doing everyday things, but always, ultimately, falling in love.

I’ve been toying with the idea behind The Cottage in a Cornish Cove since the days when my hair was a box-shaped perm, my shoulder pads needed scaffolding to support them and keeping in touch with non-local friends was done by a landline phone or with good old pen and paper.

Although the story I’ve now written bears little resemblance to those initial ideas other than the inciting incident that sets the plot in motion, I view it with the affection of an old friend, one of those worlds inside my head that simply took a long time to emerge and meet the world outside.

So what’s it about, I pretend to hear you cry?

It’s a heart-warming tale of discovering all you never wanted is exactly what you need.

Much of Anna Redding’s happiness as a child came from the long summer holidays spent with an elderly family friend, Aunt Meg, in the charming village of Polkerran.

With Aunt Meg’s passing, Anna is drawn back to the West Country, relocating to the Cornish cove where she was once so happy. Settling into her new life, and enjoying her work for the older, reclusive and—to be honest—often exasperating Oliver Seymour, Anna is delighted when Alex Tremayne, an old crush of hers, reappears in Polkerran and sweeps her off her feet.

The stars finally seem to be aligned, but just as Anna thinks all she’s ever wished for is within reach, a shock discovery reveals she’s living a dream that isn’t hers…

 

As for those other dates, is the adventure over? Definitely not! They are part of my on-going expedition, my journey as a writer, so I won’t be deserting them. Ada Bright (my co-writing partner) and I still have a third time-travel romance up our sleeves, and I have two Regency romances in the works, which I hope to finish soon.

In the meantime, though, if you’re up for a bit of eavesdropping on my third date, come and join us in gorgeous Cornwall, wallow in the quaintness of Polkerran, get to know the locals and fall in love with romance all over again.

The Cottage in a Cornish Cove will be released on 11th February 2020.

 

SISTER SCRIBES’ BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2019

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Kitty: I knew when I was reading it that Circe would be a book that stayed with me for a long time and I’m happy to call it my book of the year. I’m already itching to re-read it, an absolutely wonderful read. 

I finished Circe by Madeline Miller this month and I cannot do justice to how much I loved it. The story of Circe, a woman locked in by her divinity whilst also dealing with the very female roles of mother, daughter, sister and lover. This retelling made Circe much more accessible and empathetic than the male-centric version that I grew up with. Full of self-discovery, courage and empowerment it turns the myth of vicious witch into a story of a true heroine. I loved it so much that having read it once I am going to store it, like a secret treasure, for a re-read in a few months so I can wallow in it slowly and feel the magic again.

Susanna:  I love Carol’s 20th century sagas, but this year she wrote her first Victorian story, which happens to be my favourite historical setting. Carol Rivers + Victorian = one very happy reader!

One of the things I love and admire about books by Carol Rivers is that, while some authors get a bit stale and produce books that feel samey, Carol always writes something fresh, using new ideas, at the same time as remaining true to the drama and strong sense of personal relationships that characterise her books. Christmas Child is a story for any time of year, not just for the festive season. An emotional and enthralling tale, it follows Ettie as she faces up to life’s dangers and challenges and learns the hard way that not everyone deserves to be trusted. I love stories set in Victorian times and I’m delighted that Carol Rivers has, for this book, left behind her customary 20th century setting and moved into the 19th century. I hope there will be more Victorian stories to come from this wonderful writer.

Cass: A hilarious yet poignant story of self discovery, where you are laughing out loud one moment and holding back tears the next.

“Everyone should be adopted, that way you can meet your birth parents when you’re old enough to cope with them.” So says Pippa Dunn, the eponymous heroine of Alison Larkin’s debut novel, The English American (which has its roots in her autobiographical one-woman comedy show of the same name). Adopted as an infant and raised terribly British (attending a posh boarding school, able to make a proper cup of tea and in the ‘love’ camp for Marmite on toast), Pippa – now 28 – discovers her birth parents are American. Finally, she begins to understand why she’s so different from everyone she knows. Pippa sets off for America, soon meeting her creative birth mother and her charismatic birth father. Moving to New York to be nearer to them, Pippa believes she’s found her ‘self’ and everything she thought she wanted. Or has she? This is a hilarious yet poignant story where you are laughing out loud one moment and holding back tears the next. Pippa’s journey is very funny, yet deeply moving, and I highly recommend The English American to anyone who loves to finish a book with a smile on their face and a warm feeling in their heart.

Jane: Elizabeth Buchan’s The Museum of Broken Promises is, like her other books, a slow starter. I have learnt to be patient while she creates a tapestry of detail so rich and wonderful, holding my breath until to story tips into second, third and fourth gears and becomes unputdownable.

The book is set in Paris in the present day and in Prague in the 1980s. The end of the Cold War was in touching distance, yet nobody knew it, and this adds an additional poignancy to the narrative. Laure, a young woman coming to terms with the death of her father is an au pair to a businessman and party insider, and while trying to make some sense of life behind the Iron Curtain, meets a dissident musician who steals her heart and soul. Years later in France, she sets up the Museum of Broken Promises, full of artefacts people donate in attempt to avenge or assuage the pain of betrayal – and some of them belong to her own past. Slowly the book teases out truths from a long ago Czechoslovakian summer. One moment achingly beautiful, the other shocking in its violence, the whole fits together like a handmade glove. It stayed with me, too – and it’s only now I’m writing this review I finally understand the most important promise. And who broke it. A must read. Honestly.

Kirsten: Beautifully written and no matter how grim the present times feel, at least we are not living in a plague village in 17th century Derbyshire!

I love historical fiction and I was late to the party with  Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. It was published in 2002 and was recommended to me several times before I finally grabbed myself a copy. The book is set in 1666 and it’s based on a true event. The Great Plague has reaches the quiet Derbyshire village of Eyam through a contaminated piece of cloth that has been sent to a tailor from London. It’s the only place in the region that’s been affected and the villagers make the extraordinary decision to isolate themselves totally so that the plague cannot spread further – so no one allowed in or out until the plague has run its course or everyone has died. This story is told through the eyes of 18-year-old Anna Frith as she confronts ‘the loss of her family, the disintegration of her community and the lure of a dangerous and illicit love’. I loved it. It’s sad and interesting and touching and fascinating and I had no idea that anything like this had happened. I wonder how we’d have reacted in the same situation.

SISTER SCRIBES GUEST: CLARE FLYNN ON THE BENEFITS OF A CRITIQUE GROUP

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I’m delighted to welcome Clare Flynn as my guest. Clare is the author of ten historical novels and a short story collection, and we met over dinner on the opening night of my first ever RNA conference a couple of years ago. Today, she sharing her thoughts on the benefits of critique groups for writers.

Soon after leaving London for the beautiful South Downs and Sussex coast, I had the good fortune to come across two fellow members of organisations I’m in – the Romantic Novelists Association and the Historical Novel Society. One is an author and the other an editor with authorial aspirations, both Eastbourne residents. We decided to set up a critique group and subsequently two more authors have joined our posse. We five now meet every Friday afternoon at a seafront hotel.

Our aim is to offer mutual support and encouragement, share tips on marketing and publishing, and most of all to give constructive criticism of our work. None of us wanted to do workshop style exercises, as apart from the editor we are all published – two of us hybrid, one indie and one trade. What we all have in common is the desire for a sounding board and some tough love during the writing process.

A few days before our weekly meeting, we email each other the extracts we want to review, usually a chapter of around 2,000 words so we get a chance to read them all at leisure. Everyone prints off a copy of each submission annotated with comments and brings it to the session.

We used to read the work aloud but it became too time-consuming and we have so much else to talk about. Instead, we take each submission in turn, with each person offering their comments. The criticism is always constructive and now we know each other well we don’t pull our punches. All of us share a desire to help each other produce the best work possible.

We have had short stories as well as extracts from works in progress. We use the approach of Adopt/ Adapt/ Reject, although most of the feedback makes eminent sense and is mostly acted upon.

Some examples of changes made as a result of feedback in these sessions:

  • Inconsistencies of character,
  • Lack of tempo and pace
  • Anachronisms and clichés etc
  • Details such as titles, uniforms and spotting costume gaffes
  • Metaphors that don’t work or take one out of the story
  • Making awkward sentences flow
  • Avoiding repetition
  • Spelling and grammar
  • Identifying a character going to sit down when they were already seated (it happens so easily!)

Not everyone submits an extract every time if they don’t happen to have a piece ready to review, but the weekly meetings act as a spur to getting the next chapter ready.

The group has been going now for nearly four years. Thirteen published novels have emerged so far from our sessions. This early input identifies any major issues before the final draft is released to the editor, agent and beta readers.

We meet in one of the public lounges and I often wonder what unsuspecting hotel guests think when passing by as we respectable looking women of a certain age hotly debate the choreography of a sex scene or the best way to kill someone off.

There’s always plenty to talk about as well as the work. We share publishing news, marketing ideas, gossip and plans for attending conferences and industry parties. It’s a very supportive and encouraging group.

The writer’s life is by definition a solitary one for much of the time, so having a weekly gathering to share triumphs and setbacks is an absolute godsend.

 

Clare Flynn is the author of ten historical novels and a short story collection. Her latest novel, The Pearl of Penang, set in Malaya in 1939 through to the end of the war with Japan, is now available for pre-order.

Website http://www.clareflynn.co.uk

Twitter – https://twitter.com/clarefly

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/authorclareflynn

 

SISTER SCRIBES: CASS GRAFTON ON THE ENDURING APPEAL OF DARCY

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As the 18th century drew to a close, a young Jane Austen was busy writing the first draft of a novel called First Impressions.

A parson’s daughter, she was growing up in the country idyll of rural Steventon, Hampshire, surrounded by a lively and intelligent family. As the new century dawned, however, Austen’s life underwent significant change, and it was 1812 before she put the finishing touches to First Impressions, now renamed Pride & Prejudice (publishing it in January 1813).

In There’s Something About Darcy, Dr Gabrielle Malcolm delves with a steady hand into how Pride & Prejudice’s hero, Fitzwilliam Darcy, has endured across the centuries, inspired other writers and why he continues to hold such appeal (and not just for those who adore Colin Firth’s visual interpretation and that infamous wet shirt scene).

The opening chapters begin with a fascinating and insightful look at the progression of Darcy’s interest in Elizabeth Bennet. Malcolm’s exploration of the confusion and contradiction of Darcy’s feelings is both fun to read and enlightening. This is a thorough analysis of the man and what he is experiencing, and those who love getting inside Darcy’s head will relish these chapters.

Subsequent chapters go on to examine in great depth how Jane Austen’s depiction of Darcy has influenced other writers – even those who were not known for admiring Austen’s works. Well-researched and informative chapters explore and analyse Darcy’s descendants across the nineteenth century, through to the Regency romances, on into the twentieth century and onwards to the present day.

There’s a fabulous chapter about Darcy on screen, exploring the various adaptations and Malcolm’s in-depth study will delight fans of any or all of these productions, from Laurence Oliver, David Rintoul, Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen’s more ‘traditional’ – I use the word loosely – interpretations to the more diverse eg Elliot Cowan’s in Lost in Austen and Sam Riley in Pride, Prejudice & Zombies.

A further chapter probes the interest in and fascination for ‘more’ Darcy, with an endless stream of Pride & Prejudice-inspired prequels, sequels and what ifs out there, and more coming every day, from the many authors (and for the many readers) who just can’t get enough of Darcy. This includes well-established authors not normally known for writing Austen-inspired works, from re-writes of Austen’s classics by eg Joanna Trollope and Curtis Sittenfeld, re-imaginations such as Longbourn by Jo Baker, to Death Comes to Pemberley, a ‘what-if sequel’ from the pen of P D James.

The final chapter is fittingly called ‘Unwavering, Enduring: Darcy – a hero for all time’, touching upon the more recent incarnations, from Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’ Diary series, the time-travel escapism of Lost in Austen and onwards to Bernie Su’s award-winning YouTube adaptation, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

As Malcolm says in her book, ‘Darcy as the influence for other prominent writers cements his significance further in a commercial and cultural context.’

It seems extremely fitting that a character from a book with the working title of First Impressions has left such a lasting impression upon generation after generation of writers and readers.

A must-have for any dedicated Jane Austen fan, Dr Gabrielle Malcolm’s There’s Something About Darcy is an informative, fascinating read, and I highly recommend it.

 

There’s Something About Darcy is available for pre-order through this link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Theres-Something-About-Darcy-bewitching/dp/1911445561/

Dr Gabrielle Malcolm is a freelance writer and artist. She edited ‘Fan Phenomena: Jane Austen’ (Intellect Books), wrote three plays for Moon On A Stick children’s theatre company, and writes scripts for web series and short films for international clients. Her forthcoming non-fiction book, ‘There’s Something About Darcy’, is released on 11th November 2019 with Endeavour Quill.

 

SISTER SCRIBES GUEST: ALEXA ADAMS ON THE GIFT OF TRUST

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Meet Alexa, a fellow writer and Jane Austen fan who’s become a trusted friend and needs no better introduction than that.

 

For most of my life, I did not have many female friends. As the only child of a woman who prized sincerity above all else, many of the unwritten rules of girlhood were lost on me, and I often said things that offended others, never really understanding why what I perceived as honesty provoked such backlash. I was occasionally bullied, and the lesson I took away from those experiences was not to trust women professing friendship. Apart from a few, lifelong attachments, my friends were always mostly men. As I grew older and got married, this became more isolating. Inevitably, I would find myself at parties grouped together with a bunch of other women, nervously tottering through conversations, struggling to get through the evening without trespassing on those invisible boundaries established so many years ago on the playground.

I was often depressed in my 20s, but I had no idea the lack of a female support group contributed to the problem. I thought my career in sales and marketing was the driving issue. I wanted more purpose and independence, and in a leap of faith I am still amazed my husband supported, I quit my job to write. This was a whim; I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. It was other women writers who showed me my path through their guidance, support, and acceptance.

I truly was shocked by the kindness of the woman writers I met. I didn’t expect it, and it took me a long to time to trust it. I hid for years behind my pen name, using it as an excuse to keep all my authorly interactions online, dreading having to explain to someone I had now known for years that no, Alexa is not my real name, though my middle name is Alexandra, while I simply appropriated Adams from a few notable figures in US history. Perhaps by not acknowledging my real identity earlier in my relationships with these women, I had once again trod on one of those unspoken laws of female friendship?

Cass Grafton, the Sister Scribe who invited me to contribute these thoughts, was one of the first fellow writers whom I revealed my true identity to, and she took it in such stride that it taught me how paranoid I had been behaving. In the few years since, so many of my online relationships have been solidified into real-world friendships. My network of women who I can depend on, confide in, and trust has exploded, and I have a hard time recalling how I ever got by without them. These friendships are the most unexpected gift that writing has bestowed on me, and for them I am immeasurably grateful.

 

Biographical Info:

A devoted reader of Jane Austen since her childhood, Alexa Adams is the author of several Austenesque novels and short stories including Being Mrs. Bennet, Darcy in Wonderland, The Madness of Mr. Darcy, and Tales of Less Pride and Prejudice. Alexa is an American residing in Switzerland with her husband, daughter, and son. She blogs about Austen and Austenesque literature at alexaadams.blogspot.com, is a contributing member of AustenAuthors.net, and a founding member of the Jane Austen Society of Switzerland.