Silver Buckles – Cover Reveal & Giveaway

Good Afternoon everyone,

Welcome to one of my favourite types of posts: Cover Reveals!

Today we bring to you a new author to the genre and therefore to this blog: Grace Gibson. In addition to mosaic art, which she creates at Studio Luminaria, her home-based glass shop in El Paso, Texas, she enjoys writing regency romance and Pride and Prejudice variations for pleasure. Meryton Press saw Ms Gibson’s talent and decided to publish Silver Buckles, a regency variation that will take our ODC on a different path into happiness.

Today we are bringing to you first hand the cover of this new book which was designed by the talented Janet Taylor. As always, you may expect an impeccable taste of a classy lady. This cover has Janet’s style written all over it, and obviously, that means that it is a stunning cover!

I love the silver shade and the font on the word Silver, it is beautiful and classic, and the simplicity of the cover makes it very appealing to the eye. The spine is also beautiful and I think it would look beautiful on my shelves 🙂 However, I believe the back cover is where all the art is! But before telling you why I loved the back cover, I think it is time to show you the cover itself! So here it:

 

Don’t you agree that the colour and the silver buckles on the spine make it the perfect book to have on a shelf?

Now, the back cover caught my attention because if you read the blurb, which I am adding below, you’ll notice the scene we see in the cover represents precisely  what is written there and what I am assuming is one of the first scenes in the book. Janet Taylor is a specialist in that type of effect, she always adds something which is very relevant to the story and which is portrayed in an important scene to the back cover, and I love that because it makes me want to read such scenes. By visually seeing what the scene would reveal I always feel tempted to grab the book and jump right into that scene. 

I am also intrigued about the ladies who seemed to be whispering to one another below the musicians. The one on the left looks suspiciously like Mrs. Bennet and the one on the right may be an embarrassed Jane, even if she resembles more Georgiana, doesn’t she?

What is your opinion of the cover?

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She staggered a great man. He was reeling. She was overwhelmed. 

Fitzwilliam Darcy, standing irritably at the edge of the Meryton assembly, declines to dance with Elizabeth Bennet. In a mood of revulsion, he rejects her without concern of being overheard. Country pretensions are always in need of squashing, and what better way to make clear he would not partner anyone outside his party? However, when he looks over at her, she does not appear humbled at all. She is secretly laughing at him!

Elizabeth is perversely delighted to encounter such an outrageous snob as Mr. Darcy. When he approaches her with a stiff, graceless apology, she coolly brushes him off, believing that, like most annoyances, he will go away when properly snubbed. But no! The man then puts out his hand and, not wishing to create a scene, compels her to stand up with him.

They go through the steps of the dance mutually disdainful and intent upon wounding each other. But by the time the musicians end their tune, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy have traded barbs with such accuracy, they are unaccountably amused and engaged. Will this most inconvenient flirtation drive them apart—or, like silver buckles, are they a matched pair?

 

You can find Silver Buckles at:

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

and on Kindle Unlimited

 

 

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I am so privileged to have received such a warm, gracious welcome at Meryton Press for my novel, Silver Buckles. I cannot say enough about how helpful everyone has been, from Michelle Reed and my amazing editors Debbie Styne and Ellen Pickels, to Janet Taylor, who produced this gorgeous cover.  The colors on the book jacket are delectable and Janet brilliantly featured those silver buckles.

We will get to the topic of shoe buckles later in this excerpt. But first, we find Elizabeth at the home of her Aunt Philips, where she meets a dashing young officer in the Militia. To her surprise, Mr. Wickham lets slip that he grew up with, and was poorly treated by, none other than Mr. Darcy!

This was all very shocking, and I hardly knew what to think, but there was something slightly chafing about Mr. Wickham’s story. Indeed, after my first inclination to swallow his tale whole, I classed it as a story rather than the absolute truth, and I would have picked at him very gently to unravel his assertions if Mr. Collins at that moment had not looked to be standing up from the card table. Quick as a flash, I absconded, and expecting to be hunted down by my odious cousin, I went home the long way around through Mrs. Long’s garden, across fallow fields, over stiles, and through a dry creek bed.

Triumph and cleverness came with a consequence, however, for when I happened to glance behind me, whom should I see but Mr. Collins in the distance, waving and struggling to reach me. I dashed ahead and crossed over the road to Netherfield to cut through a hedge, but in my haste, I stepped on a loose stone and fell in a flash of pain. I had twisted an ankle!

I sat on the edge of the road in a disheveled mound of dampened cloak and dusty hems, clutching my throbbing ankle, when Mr. Darcy appeared atop a great tall horse over the rise of a hill.

He dismounted instantly and came to me. “Miss Elizabeth, what has happened? Are you well?”

The full impact of the impression I made fell on me. With what humiliation did I undergo his interrogation and his unapologetic examination of my ankle. I blushed at the condition of my walking boots—scuffed and now muddy—with dull, tarnished brass buckles holding tight my well-worn straps. Blushing and stammering, I sought to make him go away, insisting I would be well enough to continue in a minute. But no! He would stand there and continue to wonder what had happened.

“Indeed, sir. It was nothing. I only slipped on a loose stone.”

“But I have seen you walking, and I cannot believe you would not be able to catch yourself from falling. A more sure-footed young lady I have never met.”

I looked obliquely behind him. My cousin was now within hailing distance and would soon bear down upon me.

Mr. Darcy, quick to notice everything, followed my gaze. “Who is that? Is that man following you? Were you running from him?”

Looking up into my interlocutor’s eyes, I smiled a bit grimly. “That sir, is the man my mother intends me to marry.”

“What? But who is this person?” he demanded.

“He is none other than my cousin, the man who will inherit Longbourn. And, having been incapacitated on the road here, I begin to know what a wounded animal must feel as the hunter approaches.”

By this time, Mr. Collins was upon us, red-faced, gasping for air, irritated, and astounded to find me down in the dirt.

“Cousin, you should not be walking out alone. I forbid it!” he roared. “Did you not hear me calling you to return to me? And you, sir,” he cried upon noticing I was not alone, “who are you?”

Mr. Darcy replied very coldly. “Who are you, sir? This lady is known to me, and I am here to offer her aid. She has injured her ankle.” He then very determinedly and pointedly turned his back on Mr. Collins. “Are you able to stand? Let me help you.”

He supported me as I stood with my weight on one leg. Mr. Collins began to sputter his objections, and Mr. Darcy said in a voice loud enough to overcome his protest, “I shall put you on my horse and have you home in no time at all.”

I would have objected—violently objected—in other circumstances. I am not a horsewoman, and above all things I hate being treated like a fragile trinket. I have twisted my ankle before. It is a hazard of walking all one’s life, and I have limped home without incident. But Mr. Collins’s presence was so abhorrent at that mortifying moment that I welcomed Mr. Darcy’s intervention and let him lift me up on his steed.

The rest of this scene will be featured on my first blog tour stop – Austenprose, on October 16th – if you would like to find out what happens after Mr. Darcy puts Elizabeth on his horse.

As the story weaves its way from Hertfordshire to Kent, and then to London, we find Elizabeth in a pivotal, internal quandary: she just might be asked to trade her brass shoe buckles for silver ones! Being Elizabeth Bennet, a lady who has taken her disadvantages and vulnerabilities and made strengths of them, we cannot be surprised when she does not relish the idea, much less surrender without resistance.

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The blog tour for Silver Buckles will start within two days at Austenprose where you can read the rest of the scene we shared today, so don’t forget to stop by and follow the tour 🙂

Thanks for stopping by and see you on October 26th 🙂

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Meryton Press would like to offer one e-book of Silver Buckles to one of my readers in celebration of the cover reveal. The giveaway is international and all you have to do is comment on this blog until the 21rst of October. The winner will be announced shortly after.

Good Luck everyone!

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