Mr. Darcy and the Enchanted Library: Launch Day!!
Griffins, Libraries and Pride and Prejudice. Surely that has to be a perfect combination? Add to that a magical journey and a second chance romance, and it's time to find a snug little corner and start reading.
What makes this novel unusual is that the content was decided by our readers, who voted in a series of polls which determined what they wanted us to write about. How cool is that?
Mr. Darcy & the Enchanted Library was written as a series of posts over several months by six authors: Victoria Kincaid, Melanie Rachel, Sarah Courtney, Lari Anne O'Dell, Abigail Reynolds and Monica Fairview (that's me). And now it's finally here, in published form: a magical adventure story featuring Darcy and Elizabeth!
To celebrate our launch, we giving away TWO copies of the eBook version. Just leave a comment telling me what Jane Austen or Regency fantasy you've read and what you like about it.
Description
When Fitzwilliam Darcy’s sister is from a magical ailment, the only person who can help is Elizabeth Bennet, the powerful Librarian of the Great Library – the same woman he abandoned five years earlier.
Elizabeth can’t forget Darcy’s refusal to believe in her magical ability, even now that she has a griffin familiar. However, as the Librarian, duty compels her to help him. Together, they undertake a quest to the Faerie Realm to find a cure, encountering dangerous magical creatures along the way.
An even greater danger lurks in their own hearts. After their heartbreak five years earlier, can they stop themselves from falling in love all over again? And what will happen when they discover that Georgiana Darcy's illness is intertwined with a danger that threatens all of England?
Mr. Darcy and the Enchanted Library began as an interactive group writing project. In response to enthusiastic readers, the authors have revised and published this second chance, forced proximity romantic fantasy based on Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice.
Here is a short excerpt from Chapter 3 to give you a taste of what to expect.Â
It was another caprice, another delay.
Miss Bennet had sent Darcy away again. He was to return in the morning.
Darcy collapsed on a chair near the hearth and laced his fingers behind his neck. Good God, would Georgiana still be alive in the morning?
Never had he wanted something so fiercely and been forced to overcome so many obstacles, to exercise so much patience to achieve it.
He sat up and rubbed his hands together near the fire as he waited for the bath to be filled. Normally he would not put the innkeeper to this sort of trouble for what he had intended to be a one-night visit, but he was still nearly frozen through.
There was some difficulty with the Great Library, apparently, or perhaps even with the Librarian herself. Was it possible she had not been the Librarian long enough to anticipate its moods?
No, the process of approval for the Librarian was an arduous one. More likely it was her way of exacting a punishment from him for ending their engagement. He had once been in love with Elizabeth Bennet and was well aware of her excellent character, but among her many fine qualities was mixed a rather sharp temper.
The laugh was bitter on his tongue. Had once been in love? He was in love with her still. He had never stopped.
Darcy shut his eyes, recalling Elizabeth’s question, nay, challenge. Had time treated her well?
Far better than it had treated him.
He had always been healthy, even vigorous, and there was still strength in his limbs. But the countenance in his looking glass was worn further each day with the debts of sleepless nights and joyless living. He had thrown over his only chance at happiness to do his duty, and this was the result.
Darcy’s spirits had never really recovered from his disappointment. He made a good enough show of it, he supposed. He had found that when he drowned himself in work, it was easier. Each morning he awoke before everyone else, and each night he slipped into bed only when exhaustion was already overtaking him. Only in that way could he avoid dreaming of a life from which he had walked away and avoid the certainty that if he had it to do over again he would make a different choice. How he would defy the Patronesses, including his own aunt, if he could only have Elizabeth. Not even the prestigious position of griffin-keeper, the only one in all of England other than the Librarian herself, was worth the cost he had paid.
He had faced a harsh truth today. The sacrifice he lived with, had lived with every minute for five long years, had been entirely for naught. The Patronesses had been wrong somehow. Elizabeth did have magic. Elizabeth was eminently worthy of a marriage to Darcy.
Unfortunately, Darcy had proven, definitively, that he was not worthy of a marriage to her.
Miss Elizabeth Bennet was the Librarian now. She had no more use for him and every reason to distrust him. Had he been braver, had he been stronger, had he stood beside her--facing down the Patronesses and forcing them to accept his choice, he might have been spared the agonies he had suffered.
He might have spared them both.
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Mr. Darcy and the Enchanted Library is now available on Amazon and other online booksellers.
