My Love for Jane Austen

In the web since last week, there are three great giveaways for Austenesque books. First up is the giveaway for Murder at Mansfield Park hosted at Stephanie's Written Word as part of the Everything Austen II challenge. If you do not know what the challenge is all about, you can read here for more details. Lynn Shepherd is the author of the newest Jane Austen murder mystery, Murder at Mansfield Park which has just been release in US. In Stephanie's blog , Lynn has kindly offered a copy of her novel to one lucky reader at the end of her guest blog. All you have to do to win this book is to leave a comment together with a valid email address . Read here for more details. UK cover US cover Australia/New Zealand cover This contest is open to US or Canadian residents only. Deadline is at 12 noon ET on Monday, 26 July 2010 . The lucky winner will be informed through email. The second giveaway is To Conquer Mr. Darcy by Abigail Reynolds, whi...

I write like H. P. Lovecraft I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software . Analyze your writing! According to Wikipedia , H. P. Lovecraft was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the sub-genre known as weird fiction. In my opinion, I don't think this test is accurate. Anyway, it is just a fun piece of trivia. For those who are curious, do read here . I quote some interesting tidbits here. The website was created by Dmitry Chestnykh, a 27-year-old Russian software programmer currently living in Montenegro. Chestnykh modelled the site on software for e-mail spam filters. This means that the site’s text analysis is largely keyword based. Even if you write in short, declarative, Hemingwayesque sentences, it’s your word choice that may determine your comparison. Chestnykh has uploaded works by about 50 authors – three books for each, according to him. That, too, explains some of its shortcomings. This could account for the inaccuracy o...

Alexa Adams is organising a giveaway of one set of Mercy's Embrace: Elizabeth Elliot's Story series by Laura Hile in conjunction with the release of her new book, The Lady Must Decide , the third book in the series. One winner will receive the 3 books signed by Ms Hile which comprise of: Book 1: So Rough a Course Book 2: So Lively a Chase Book 3: The Lady Must Decide Ms Elizabeth Elliot, the eldest unmarried sister of Anne Elliot at the end of Persuasion is beautifully and sympathetically portrayed by Laura Hile to perfection. According to Laura in her blog , she finds that Book 3 is her favourite novel. Alexa has delightfully crafted some questions about Elizabeth Elliot from Jane Austen's Persuasion for interested readers to answer in order to win this set of books. If you can answer one question correctly, you will be entered once and so forth. Please remember to include your email address with your answers in your comment. The ba...

There are two interviews from Austenesque novelists with giveaways that may be of interest to you. Laurie Viera Rigler, best-selling author of Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict and Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict was recently interviewed by Maria Grazia of My Jane Austen Book Club . To learn what she says about her books, Regency England and Austen adaptations, you can proceed to Maria's blog at Talking Jane Austen with Laurie Viera Rigler Part I . For your information, Ms Rigler's book Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict is nominated in The Jane Austen Awards 2010 , a yearly event sponsored by The Jane Austen Centre located in Bath, England. The aim of the awards is to recognise the contribution of the nominees in furthering the understanding, appreciation and enjoyment of the work of Jane Austen. As mentioned, her book is nominated for Best Austen-inspired Book Published in 2009 . In addition, Laurie's website Jane Austen Addict is also in the runnin...

Here are some of the giveaways generously hosted by bloggers. This information was gleamed when I visited some Austenite blogs. All giveaways listed are open worldwide . 1) Raquel Sallaberry, co-blogger for Jane Austen Today is giving away 1 handmade notebook in honour of Mary Bennet, sister to the heroine Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice . All you have to do is comment on her post about who do you think will marry Mary Bennet. Contest ends next Wednesday, 30 June 2010 and is open to readers worldwide except Brazil . Take a look at her beautiful notebook below. 2) Mary Simonsen, author of Pride and Prejudice mash with post-WWII story Searching for Pemberley has just self-published her new book titled  Anne Elliot, A New Beginning . In this novel, Anne Elliot the heroine from  Persuasion celebrated her 25th birthday with her family declaring her a spinster and seldom bother her. With this new found freedom, she becomes a long-distance runner. The plot shift ...

Jane in June is a lovely event dedicated to Jane Austen and is hosted by Misty on her blog . Although I'm giving this event a miss, I will be commenting on some posts by participants of the event at their own blogs to win some lovely prizes that are up for grabs. If you are interested to know more, take a look at her introductory post . If you would love to know the schedule for this event and read some of the wonderful posts, head here for the dance card (table of contents). You can also contribute your ideas or anything about Jane Austen and her novels or sequels by linking it to her blog . As I mentioned earlier, there are some giveaways that are worth winning and are open to international readers too. This is very good as most blogs seldom give worldwide readers an opportunity to win giveaways as shipping costs are quite expensive and beyond their limits. Anyway, I'm listing the contests which you can enter. Do take a look. 1) Maria Grazia from Italy is hosting...

Laurie Viera Rigler, author of two bestselling novels of Austen para-literature, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict and Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict , has collaborated and produced about 20 webisodes based on her novels. In this series, the two protagonists from her novels (Courtney Stone and Jane Mansfield) who have inexplicably switched bodies, life and time period, debates the advantages and disadvantages of life and love from the modern world (21st century Los Angeles) vs Regency England. Topics range from love, sex, courtship, fidelity, marriage, manners, morals, hygiene, Facebook status updates and many more. Up till now, 5 webisodes has already been shown on Babelgum which premiered on 17 May 2010 . New webisodes will air every Monday (or Tuesday, depending on where you are). So if you enjoy reading the books like I do, then click on the image to check it out!

Here's a challenge that I would love to participate. Stephanie's blog, The Written Word is hosting the Everything Austen II for readers of Jane Austen's novels and movies. The challenge will run for 6 months beginning 1 July 2010 until 1 January 2011 . Participants need only pick up 6 Austen-themed things to complete them before the deadline. What is considered Austen-themed things? Of course reading any Jane Austen's novels counts towards this challenge. So if you're planning to read or re-read her novels, now is the time. In addition, movies or television mini-series adaptations based on her novels are also accepted. There's more! You can also choose to read the prequels, sequels, retellings or variations based on Jane or her novels written by various authors that is available in the market or even listen to audiobooks. For a creative person, he/she can choose to do craft projects like cross-stitch patterns inspired by Jane Austen. The choice is up to yo...

I've been meaning to write about this for some time what with the World Cup, reading and surfing, fighting to control my limited time everyday. Let's get on with it then. One of the blogs which I follow almost everyday is Austenprose created and managed by Laurel Ann Nattress, a Barnes & Noble bookseller in US. She is currently organizing a re-reading of Jane Austen's most famous work, Pride and Prejudice which started a few days ago. Is not the artwork promoting for this event pretty? I like how the slogan sound. As some of you may be aware, ever since April last year when Pride and Prejudice and Zombies first exploded into the book industry scene and topped the New York Times bestseller list for weeks thus creating a whole new genre of monster mash-up in our classics, I think this phenomena has gone out of control with a new books trying to cash-in on this genre, the latest being Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina turning into Android Karenina . Anyway before ...