Lory Lilian – Guest Post & Giveaway

 

Hello everyone,

This week, one of my readers commented on my review of Remembrance of the Past that it seemed as though everybody else had read a book except for her, and that was pretty much what I felt until late last year, but it wasn’t towards a book, it was towards a writer.

It appeared everyone had already read something from Lory Lilian except for me. The first book I read from this author was her latest release Sketching Mr. Darcy, and it amazed me to discover that Lory Lilian was actually one of the first JAFF authors out there. I still do not know how it was possible for me to have never read anything from her before 2015. That is one of the magical things about JAFF, there are so many good authors out there, that we can discover a new one almost every month 🙂

Of course I didn’t stop at Sketching Mr. Darcy and recently read and reviewed Remembrance of the Past, her second book.

Lory Lilian knew I was unaware of her books until last year, so today she visits From Pemberley to Milton with a guest post which will explain me, and my readers, her journey into the JAFF world. She also brings a generous giveaway of 2 of her books at readers’ choice.

I’m very happy to receive Lory Lilian for the first time at From Pemberley to Milton, and I hope this will not be the last, as I am always very interested in reading her comments and posts. I hope you like it too 🙂

 

***Guest Post***

 

Rita, thank you so much for your invitation. It is my first visit to “From Pemberley to Milton” and I am very excited about it. And thank you for the lovely review of Remembrance of the Past!

I gave it a lot of thinking to what I could possibly put in this post.

I have been for so long in JAFF, and I spoke with so many people, either directly or through guest posts and interviews, that I wonder what else would be interesting for your lovely readers. I feel people already had enough of me LOL.

So brief introduction – I am 48, Romanian, and have been in love with Pride and Prejudice since I was 13. As I said before, everything related to Pride and Prejudice and Darcy and Elizabeth is my hobby and my passion. However, I never imagined my passion would come out in published form, nor that one day I will try to make a living from writing. I still am surprised, flattered, and grateful to see so many people interested in buying my books.

An aspect of Jane’s genius is that she said (wrote) little but suggested so much about the hidden part of Darcy and Elizabeth’s relationship, and allowed the reader’s imagination to work and to explore it. I always felt that I would like to know more details – and I always tried to imagine them. Of course, back then I thought I was completely nuts, and I avoided talking to anyone about that obsession. In 1996, after I saw the miniseries, my imagination turned wild –and my worry about my sanity increased LOL.

And then, in 2004, I discovered the fanfiction world, and I realized there were hundreds of thousands of people sharing the same “craziness”. I was hooked, and my life changed forever.

After reading countless JAFF stories online and many, many sleepless nights, in January 2005 I started to write Rainy Days and post it at “Derbyshire Writers Guild”. Just imagine a Romanian, who only used English for pleasure or for business communication, writing in Regency English. lol I was absolutely frightened. And then – boom !!! Rainy Days was more successful that I could ever imagine! I wrote 390 pages in only three months! The first version was PG 13, then later that year, I “enhanced” it to N 17 and I posted it at “Hyacinth Garden”. The reactions exceeded all my expectations. Until today, people still love this story, still send me messages about it and still wait for the sequel (which, hopefully, will be out in a couple of weeks – finally).

Remembrance of the Past was my second book, and it is an entirely different type. It introduced a new character– Lady Cassandra; half of the readers loved her from the beginning while the other half hated her. It was a character that brought me great satisfaction while writing it, and the readers’ responses to it proved to me that she had captured everybody’s attention in one way or another.

Then it came His Uncle’s favorite, The Perfect Match and Sketching Mr. Darcy.

It was always my primary concern to put in each of my books something that had not been done before in JAFF. Something to catch the readers’ attention, to make them remember it.

In Rainy Days I had the cottage, Lady Matlock, and little Becky; in Remembrance of the Past – Lady Cassandra and Lady Catherine’s confrontation with Mr. Bennet; in His Uncle’s Favourite – Lord Matlock and Lady Sinclair – who tried to insinuate herself into Darcy’s bed, and ending up sleeping with his valet; and in Sketching Mr. Darcy it was Annabelle, the conclusion of Wickham – Lydia story, the two young children of a servant, and Lady Catherine’s involvement.

I hope my endeavor was not unsuccessful, and I am so happy every time a reader appreciates these original elements.

I only wrote four long books and a short one in more than ten years, because I always had time- consuming, demanding jobs. Hopefully, this will change; this year I made the scariest change in my life: I decided to put the primary focus on writing, and only work part time on other projects. Wish me luck with this – I will certainly need it!

 

 

***It’s Giveaway time!!!***

As I mentioned before Lory Lilian was kind enough to bring 2 e-books to giveaway at From Pemberley to Milton.

The giveaway is international and to participate all you have to do is leave a comment on this post. Let us know which of her books you find more appealing and why, or just share your support for Lory’s new challenge.

The giveaway is open until the 27th of March and the lucky winners will be randomly picked, and contacted afterwards to let us know which of Lory’s books they will want to receive.

Good luck everyone!!!