Obstacles – Cover Reveal

Good Morning everyone,

I hope you’ve enjoyed this beautiful week and that you are as ready as I am for the weekend! I had to travel to Germany on business this week so I decided to stay a little longer and do some sightseeing in Berlin which I hadn’t visited in over a decade. This time I’m visiting the city alone and even if it is strange for me to be all by myself for a couple of days, I’m finding it quite nice because not only I get to go exactly where I want to when I want to, but also because it gives me plenty of me time which I’m using to catch up with my TBR pile 🙂 The problem is that new books keep coming out and I am often taken off track. The latest book that took me away from my TBR pile was Obstacles by Belén Paccagnella. She is a new Meryton Press author who decided to take our dear characters into a completely different environment, and I have been feeling the need for something different lately, so this caught my attention.

But let me share the book blurb with you so you may know of what I’m talking about.

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Not all obstacles are restricted to the show-jumping arena…

Though Elizabeth Bennet lives an uneventful life instructing young equestrians at Longbourn, the family farm, she dreams of winning a show-jumping competition on Liddy, her spirited mare. But her life is upended when a team of world-renowned riders arrives at Netherfield, the neighbouring estate, and uses it as their training headquarters. As she assists the newcomers and their prize-winning mounts, she meets William Darcy, a wealthy and arrogant—albeit talented—rider with Olympic aspirations. He first insults and then ignores Elizabeth, and her feelings teeter between disgust at his hauteur and admiration for his equestrian prowess. As she discovers first-hand the rigors of a world for the elite, will Elizabeth change her perspective about love, trust, and the foibles of her own family?

Originally known as “Obstacles to Overcome,” Obstacles pays homage to Pride and Prejudice in the highly competitive world of equestrian show jumping.

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Different right? I had never heard of a premise like this and I can easily see it becoming a movie, but do you know what else caught my attention? The cover! You know how I love covers, and I really liked some details on the cover of Obstacles like the scrapbook and the scissor. These small details can make a huge difference:) Also the back cover is equally appealing, I can clearly picture Elizabeth Bennet in that environment, I know that in regency she is not that fond of horses, but if you think of a modern Elizabeth, this is just how I imagine her 🙂

Fun fact: the horses on the back cover where running in the fields surrounding Netherfield from the 1995 adaption when Janet visited the place in 2012. She took the picture herself and decided to use it here because it was fitting to the story 😉

But I’ll let you take your own conclusions and move along to the BIG COVER REVEAL🙂

So what do you think of it? Have you heard from this book before? What about the author? Do you want to find out more about her? You can read all about Belén I’m the author bio below 🙂

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Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Belén Paccagnella discovered the world of Jane Austen fan fiction after watching the 1995 BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice. In her teens, she lived in Brazil when her family moved to the city of Curitiba due to her father’s work. She moved back to Buenos Aires a few years later, where she studied agronomy but finally pursued a different career and started working in the development administration of shopping centres.

In 2001, she started writing both Regency and modern stories adapted from the Pride and Prejudice storyline, merging drama, humour, and adventure while creating characters with unique traits.

Belén still lives in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, where she shares her home with her daughter and her pets while spending her time working, reading, and writing.

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It’s already on Amazon!

If the blurb and cover got you curious, please don’t forget to follow the blog tour in the usual blogs starting on September 17th!

Also, if you want this book to be uploaded to your kindle as soon as it is out, you’ll be happy to know that the book is available for pre-order from today until the 3rd of September!

If you look for it at amazon it is already there! You can follow this link to go straight to it 🙂

The book will be released on September 4th, and I’m looking forward to read your reviews of it 🙂

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As I mentioned earlier I am currently traveling in Germany on business and yesterday when I was about to pay for a postcard I was buying, I saw this amazing tote bag!!!

Of course I couldn’t resist and bought every single one the store had, unfortunately they only had 3, so I’m keeping one to myself, I’m offering another one to a dear friend and I thought that one of my readers may like this bag too, so I’ll be offering it to a randomly chosen reader.

You know the drill, just comment on this post and let me know you’d like the tote bag. The giveaway is international and is open until the 8th of September.

Good luck everyone!

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And the winner is…

Hello everyone,

A couple of weeks ago I posted the review of An Arrange Marriage by Jan Hahn, who is definitely one of my favourite authors, and because I had an extra paperback of her book The Journey, I decided to offer it to one lucky winner. Today I’m pleased to announce that the winner is:

 

*** Carla Santos***

 

Congratulations Carla! I hope you enjoy this book 🙂 Can you please send me your address to ritaluzdeodato at gmail dot com so that I can send the book to you?

Happy Reading!!

 

A Weekend With Mr. Darcy

A Weekend with Mr. Darcy is the first book of the Austen Addicts series first published in 201o but that I have only discovered last year. Sometimes I wonder how I have missed some books and this is clearly one of them.

It is a modern Austen inspired romance that will bring together several Janeites at a Jane Austen Conference in the English countryside, and it describes my perfect holidays (if we consider time travel is not yet possible).

Can you imagine a country manor full of Janeites attending the most diverse events dedicated to Jane Austen? Wouldn’t that be a dream? I absolutely loved the entire scenario this author created; the conference with all the events, the estate descriptions, the conversation the characters had, their discussions, etc. I felt I was in that manor with my fellow Janeites having the conversations we frequently have online, and part of me wished I could one day participate in an event such as the one Victoria Connelly created.

At this conference we are introduced to two main female characters, Katherine Roberts, a professor at Oxford University with whom I connected immediately and  Robyn Love a hopeless romantic trying to figure out who the perfect companion should be, her high school boyfriend Jace or Dan a dashing young man she meets at the conference.

In a Weekend with Mr. Darcy we are transported into a Jane Austen conference where not only we will relate to many of the discussions taking place but also accompany the romances of these two main characters.

I mentioned earlier that I related immediately with Katherine and she became a favourite of mine along with Warwick, her love interest. I liked their love story and their interactions even if I was a little a disappointed at him for taking so long to make the right thing. But I cannot say the same regarding Robyn. To be honest, this character bored me and I couldn’t like her. I didn’t dislike the character, I just could not like her. I think that one of the purposes of having two main characters in this story was precisely to be able to reach a broad audience and to capture the attention of everyone, and that worked out for me because even if I didn’t love Robyn I was always eager to read more about Katherine. While I didn’t love Robyn, I’m sure many readers will prefer her character to Katherine’s and will be more interested in her love story with Dan. This is particularly interesting, and it reminds me a little of the differences between Elizabeth and Jane. I prefer Katherine’s stronger character, but I’m sure other readers will related more to Robyn’s insecurities and dilemmas.

I really enjoyed this book and considered it a fun, light romance that will appeal to all Janeites.

My only quibble with A Weekend With Mr. Darcy is the fact that the author repeats the expression “she said” constantly throughout the book which distracted me from the story, and it is one of the reasons why I couldn’t give it 5 stars. Nonetheless I recommend this book to every Janeite, I’m sure you will all relate with it 🙂

You can find A Weekend with Mr. Darcy at:

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

An Arranged Marriage Review & Giveaway

As the name indicates An Arranged Marriage starts with Elizabeth agreeing to marry Mr. Darcy as part of what she believes to be an arrangement. Shortly after her refusal of Mr. Darcy at Hunsford, her father dies, and Mr. Darcy comes to the rescue by offering his hand in marriage to Elizabeth once more. She accepts his hand to save her family, but is led to believe their marriage will be something very different…

An Arranged Marriage is told from Elizabeth’s point of view with a first-person narration and the scenes are so good that I wish I could also read this story from Darcy’s perspective. This is something I feel quite frequently when the scenes are very intense or interesting and Jan Hahn is a master in creating that type of scenes! The moments between Darcy and Elizabeth are so tantalizing that I would love to know what he was thinking and feeling at each moment.

In the beginning I considered Elizabeth too childish and spoiled but that impression soon went away as she started to fall in love with Mr. Darcy and resemble the Elizabeth we all know. Her character becomes very true to Austen’s creation but Jan Hahn added something else, a little jealousy 🙂 This additional feature made me love this book even more because it brought more intensity of feeling to it.

The romance is exquisite and written with such eloquence that it becomes irresistible. It is slow, intense, believable, and whimsical at the same time and Jan Hahn proves once more to be an expert in this genre, writing everything one would like to see developed in a forced marriage scenario.

After the angsty beginning, which is by itself another ingredient to make me love a book, Jan Hahn took the time to show us how blissfull Elizabeth’s and Darcy’s marriage was. We could read how everything ended up for all characters and we had the time to savour those delicious moments. This is very typical of Jan Hahn and once more she did not disappoint, she creates an angsty story and then gives us a little mush to balance everything and please all types of readers.

Apart from Darcy and Elizabeth’s characters which I loved, the relationship between Georgiana and the Colonel was also endearing and I wanted to keep reading about it every time a new scene between them arose.

I highly recommend this book to all readers! As always, Ms Hahn presents us with a quality book full of romance and intensity between Darcy and Elizabeth, a book we don’t want to let go until we finish it, and that makes us dream about it once we’ve reached the end.

 

You can find An Arranged Marriage at:

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.ca

 

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I would love to offer you a copy of this book, but unfortunately I don’t have an extra one, I do however have an extra paperback of The Journey, one of my favourite books from Jan Hahn, and also one of my all time favourites. I was very lucky to receive a signed copy of it and because I already had a paperback, I am now in a position to offer it to another reader.  I must say it has been read so it is mildly used. If you would like to win it anyway, please comment on this post and I will enter you in the giveaway. The giveaway is open until the 16th of August.

Good Luck everyone!

What’s Past is Prologue Review & Giveaway

Having read so many wonderful reviews of Side By Side Apart I was very expectant about Ann Galvia’s second book, What’s Past is Prologue. In this sequel Galvia approaches Darcy and Elizabeth’s relationship in a very realistic manner by bringing into the narrative topics that are not always present in this type of literature, but which could also be a little controversial, and not to everyone’s tastes, due to the detail with which they are explored.

It wasn’t easy for me to get into the story in the initial chapters, and I believe it will be beneficial for readers to either read the blurb or reviews explaining the premise before starting to read this book. In What’s Past is Prologue it is Jane who goes on the trip to Derbyshire where she meets Darcy and reunites with Bingley. While there, she receives a letter from Elizabeth telling her about Lydia’s elopement and Darcy still saves her, but when Mr. Bennet discovers his involvement he goes to London to ask for explanations, and Darcy confesses he has intervened only because of Elizabeth. Due to this confession, he feels obliged to propose and Elizabeth feels obliged to accept. Of course she knows Darcy loves her still, but she accepts mainly because of gratitude and is not yet in love with him. We don’t see any of these events taking place because the book starts right after their marriage when they travel to Kent to help Lady Catherine with estate matters, so it’s important to know this before reading the book in order to get some context when the narrative begins.

The story starts at Rosings where the couple is accompanied by Kitty and Georgiana. Elizabeth is still adapting to her married life, struggling with her own insecurities, feelings and society’s expectations as well as Lady Catherine’s disrespect and Anne de Bourgh’s cold manner. Surprisingly we don’t see Darcy come to the rescue of his wife as I would have expect and he has little intervention in the treatment his wife is receiving from his family.

The story is told from Elizabeth’s point of view and her misapprehensions and insecurities made the narrative dispassionate, cold and dry in my opinion. There is a lot of focus in physical aspects, though not in a sexual way, and not much in the love that Darcy may feel for her. He is seen as an insatiable man and this could have been interesting if we could see it as a demonstration of love, instead we see Elizabeth looking at this as an obligation to provide an heir to Pemberley. We know that Darcy loves her, and she even welcomes his caresses, but it is always too mechanical for my taste.

Readers who like a lot of Darcy and Elizabeth time will be happy to know that there are a lot of scenes between them and several long dialogues. This is something I always like to see on a book, but I confess that their dialogues felt too cold and distant, and I only started to feel a true connection between them towards the end of the book.

I enjoyed the characterisation of Sir Lewis the Bourgh and his opinions on the education of women, this along with the literary mentions were a good addition to the narrative and kept my interest every time it was brough up.  Lord Wortley’s second son, Thomas Fitzwilliam, was also an addition I enjoyed in this book. It is hard to read him at first, but I ended up liking the character and would even like to see more of him in this story.

My main quibble with this book was the lack of passion and story developments in the sense that I kept expecting something to happen, but never did. I thought that some character behaviours would lead to some interesting revelations or for something to be uncovered, but that never happened. This book was not intended to be an action driven book, I believe Galvia’s main interest was to have a character driven novel, but I didn’t feel any connection to either Elizabeth or Darcy and for that reason some action would have helped me to keep invested in the book.

I believe What’s Past is Prologue is a book that may appeal to readers interested in feminist stories not only because of Sir Lewis de Bourgh’s views of women’s education and role in society, but also because of the trust that Darcy places in Elizabeth. Their dialogues show that Darcy sees Elizabeth as an equal with whom he can discuss serious matters regarding the estate and daily issues that may arise. This was what captivated me the most about this book and I believe readers with feminist sensibilities will appreciate it too.

 

You can find What’s Past is Prologue Review at:

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

 

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Ann started writing sometime before she knew how letters functioned. Her first books were drawings of circus poodles heavily annotated with scribbles meant to tell a story. Upon learning how letters were combined to represent words, she started doing that instead. This has proven to be much more successful.
Sometime after that, she decided she wanted to study Anthropology and sometime after that, she decided she liked cats more than dogs. And sometime after that, she decided to become an educator and teach a new generation of kids how to combine letters to represent words, and use those words express ideas.
And sometime after that, she realized all she really wanted to do was write, which probably should have been evident from the beginning.

Connect with Ann at the following places: Twitter | Facebook | Blog

 

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Don’t forget to follow the blog tour for more news on What’s Past is Prologue 🙂

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August 1 / Savvy Verse& Wit / Guest Post & Giveaway

August 2 / Of Pens & Pages / Book Review & Giveaway

August 3 / Babblings of a Bookworm / Book Review & Giveaway

August 4 / Just Jane 1813 / Book Excerpt & Giveaway

August 5 / Liz’s Reading Life / Author Interview & Giveaway

August 6 / From Pemberley to Milton / Book Review & Giveaway

August 7 / More Agreeably Engaged / Guest Post & Giveaway

August 8 / Austenesque Reviews / Book Excerpt & Giveaway

August 9 / Diary of an Eccentric / Book Review & Giveaway

August 10 / My Vices and Weaknesses / Book Review & Giveaway

August 11 / Margie’s Must Reads / Book Review & Giveaway

August 12 / My Love for Jane Austen / Book Excerpt & Giveaway

August 13 / So Little Time… / Guest Post & Giveaway

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Meryton Press is giving away 8 ebooks of What’s Past is Prologue. Readers may enter the drawing by tweeting once a day and daily commenting on a blog post or a review that has a giveaway attached for the tour. Entrants must provide the name of the blog where they commented. If an entrant does not do so, that entry will be disqualified.
One winner will be selected per contest. Each winner will be randomly selected by Rafflecopter and the giveaway is international.
To enter, please use the Rafflecopter link.

Good Luck everyone!

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And the winners are…

Good Afternoon everyone,

Today is the 3rd anniversary of From Pemberley to Milton and I had planned to publish a huge post accompanied by a major renovation of my blog with a new organization and new menus, but as usual my real life got in the way and I didn’t have time to prepare everything. Apart from all the work hours, last month I spent lots of time out of the house. Rui and I went for a romantic getaway to celebrate our wedding anniversary, the following week we decided to go to the theatre, and my best friend came to stay a few days with us which meant dragging me to the gym, taking me to a concert and of course, lots of dinners and talks at home, so my “blog time” was affected and today, instead of a new From Pemberley to Milton I am only bringing you the names of the giveaway winners of Modern Love.

I will still renovate the blog and throw an anniversary party, but it will have to be postponed until the end of the month. Until then, maybe you can let me know what you would change in this blog, what you would keep and why you visit it the most. Maybe you can help me make the renovation even better!

But going back to today’s post, I listened to the audiobook of Beau North’s modern novella and loved it so I published a review a couple of weeks ago and she decided to take the opportunity to offer this book to some of my readers. She was very generous offering 10 e-book copies, and I would like to thank her for that, I’m sure the winners will appreciate this gesture 🙂

The lucky winners are:

*** BeckyC ***

*** Darcybennett ***

*** Raquel ***

*** Regina ***

*** Evamedmonds ***

*** JanisB ***

*** Carla Santos ***

*** integr67 ***

*** Rellaenthia ***

*** Tamara ***

 

Congratulations everyone! I hope you enjoy your prizes 🙂 Can you please send me your address to ritaluzdeodato at gmail dot com so that I can send the books to you? Can you please contact me until the 11th of August? unfortunately if I don’t hear anything from you, I’ll have to draw other winners.

Happy Reading!!