The Sailor’s Rest by Don Jacobson – Cover Reveal & Giveaway

Good Afternoon everyone,

I hope you’re all doing well this week. I’m still very busy at work, but I am super excited about the post I have to share with you today. For those who haven’t heard yet, Don Jacobson will have a new book coming out on March 28th called The Sailor’s Rest. This will be published independently, and it is the author’s twelfth variation using Austen’s Canon as a basis for the story.

The Sailor’s Rest is a cross-over (not a mash-up) of Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion. For plot purposes, the novel is set on the Persuasion timeline in 1815. However, the age and plot constructs from Pride and Prejudice have been maintained to establish context.

As I am sure you know by now, these are my two favourite Austen books, so I am very happy to see another cross over coming out! And I am even more happy, and honored, to be the first to reveal to you the cover of this book 🙂 Cover Reveals are my favourite type of posts, and this book has a classical cover I adore! But I am getting ahead of myself, before doing the big reveal, I need to tell you more about the story, so I’ll let you read the blurb and a fabulous excerpt where you’ll find both Darcy and Wentworth 🙂 Yes, they are both in the same scene, how perefect is that? 

Thank you so much for visiting Don! It is a pleasure to have you here! I wish you all the happiness with this book 🙂

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The Sailor’s Rest: The Naval Adventure Jane Austen Could Have Written!

 

Jane Austen’s greatest lovers come together to be tested in the crucible of war on the Mediterranean’s blue waters and in the smoky confines of a prestigious London gambling den. 

The Sailor’s Rest is inspired by Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion and is set on the stage of Napoleon’s 100 Days. Discover how the two betrothed couples—Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy, along with Frederick Wentworth and Anne Elliot—find their love tried by separation, battle, and deception. 

The novel immerses readers first in a mystery, then a sea chase, and, finally, a satisfying comeuppance. From the tattered rooms of a waterfront inn to three frigates engaged in a deadly game of naval chess, readers will experience the yearning as four hearts come closer to one-another. Before the tale ends, the audience will step into the gilded confines of London’s preeminent card room.

The Sailor’s Rest uses the characters formed by Austen as a starting point in an Austenesque excursion that will leave readers both challenged and richer for the experience.

The Sailor’s Rest is set in the Persuasion timeline of 1815 but leaves in place the age and plot constructs established by Austen in Pride and Prejudice. This is a full-length novel of 115,000 words.

 

Part mystery, part adventure – and all heart – This has the feel of a Hornblower epic.

Alice McVeigh, author of Susan: A Jane Austen Prequel

 

You can find The Sailor’s Rest on Pre-Order at: 

Amazon.com

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Wentworth swam to the surface as the fog beclouding his mind began to dissipate. Early on he imagined himself in his hanging bed aboard the Laconia. That notion quickly faded the more aware he was of his face scraping back and forth across the deck. If that was not enough, the press of another body against him, accompanied by stertorous snores leavened by moans, spoke volumes. 

His ship master’s mind immediately ran through twenty years pacing Royal Navy quarterdecks. His intimacy with the unfixed terrain of the waters surrounding northwestern Europe led him to conclusions yet to be proven by observation. Must be working our way back toward France on a southeast heading if the way she works through the swell is any marker. Tacking across to gain easy passage past the Downs, Deal, and Dover. Need plenty of sea room to keep shut of those damn sucking sands. Wait…if I am down here, who has the watch?

Oh, this is not Laconia, but if not her, what ship? Feels like my old girl and neither larger like a lumbering liner nor a smaller sloop like my dear Asp. Has to be a frigate, and there are sore few on Channel patrol with most of the fleet paid off.

Ooooh, my head feels like I caught a block falling from the mizzen’s rigging.

And who is in here with me? Last thing I recall is dinner. Barton…Barton upon Humber! That’s it! I was at a table with a man, a gentleman! After that, though, darkness. 

His nose provided a partial answer—at least to the ‘here’ part of his wonderings—as the oaky scent of freshly planed wood shavings mixed with shellack’s spice registered.

I remember this from when I was but a squeaker being sent to Chips’s locker to look for a ‘long yard.’  

Then his ears promised more answers. His companion’s wheezes switched to low moans. Wentworth tested his limbs. Briefly surprised that his hands and legs were unbound—not as if I am going anywhere if we are cruising toward Brest, so why waste cordage—he slid his hands along the deck until he could lever himself upward and crouch on his knees. He knew better than to try his steadiness until his head cleared.

His neighbor joined him with a bout of coughing and clearing his throat. “Hello? Who is there?” A searching hand patted about until it hit Wentworth’s thigh.

Wentworth whispered, “Keep your voice low, mate, until we have sorted this out. I’m not sure what’s happening, but it cannot be good.” Then a name flashed before him. “Are you called Darcy? Were we dining together?”

Darcy rolled away and onto his side, “Yes on both counts. I am Darcy, and you must be that navy captain the innkeeper introduced: Wentworth. What sort of fiendishness is this?”

“Fiendish is correct, Darcy. I have heard of such things, but usually only in the Carib trade. A hostler will pocket silver to help a merchant captain man his ship by slipping his customers rum laced with something more.”

Darcy’s voice was stronger now but low in keeping with Wentworth’s injunction. “Illuminating, Wentworth, but it tells me nothing about why we were taken.”

“That remains to be seen. I assume our captors have other plans for us because we are breathing air and not North Sea brine,” Wentworth replied.

Darcy grumbled and began moving with purpose. “Well, you may be content to kneel here, but I am a Darcy, and I will meet whatever fate these dogs wish to mete out on my own two feet!” He began to stand.

Wentworth felt Darcy’s position change. “Wai…”

A solid thunk told the story. Darcy’s head slammed into a deck beam, and he collapsed with a groan. Pemberley’s master fell silent as he tried to shake away the starry blizzard blinding him.

Despite their grim situation, Laconia’s former captain chuckled at his companion’s plight. “If memory serves, Darcy, you are too long-boned for either a frigate or a sloop. Those of us bred to live on board ship quickly adjust to reduced leeway when walking about. Some argue that part of Lord Nelson’s success came from never scrambling his brains in his younger years. I once met the man and. I was but a stripling adolescent, and, even so, I bested him by an inch or two.”

Darcy’s introduction to their cell presaged the next event in their new life. The sounds of a heavy pin being removed and a stout hasp being pulled back disrupted their ruminations. A lantern’s light blinded them. They creaked to their feet, Darcy keeping bent to avoid another blow. Wentworth softly cautioned, “Follow my lead.”

“All right, ye two, get up and shift for yourselfs. Don’ know what pot ye was drinkin’ from, but ye wuz able ta take your bounty ta sign on. Can’t say but we be happy with a few extra hands. Th’ First wants ta see all volunteers afore they be read in so’s ta know who’s joinin’ th’ company. I be Bosun Tomlinson. And ye be?”

Darcy began his protest, but the words caught in his throat when Wentworth ground a bare heel on his arch. The captain’s laconic Bristol-accented reply—thicker and less cultured than when they had sat to dinner—was limited to a few well-chosen words.   “Fred Tomkins, able, an’ Will Smith, landsman.”

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Don Jacobson has written professionally for forty years, from news and features to advertising, television, and radio. His work has been nominated for Emmys and other awards. He has previously published five books, all nonfiction. In 2016, he published the first volume of The Bennet Wardrobe Series, The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary Journey. Since then, Meryton Press re-edited and republished Keeper and the subsequent six volumes in the series. In 2022, Meryton Press published the eighth and final book in the series—The Grail: The Saving of Elizabeth Darcy. Other Meryton Press books by Jacobson include Lessers and Betters, In Plain Sight, and The Longbourn Quarantine. All his works are also available as audiobooks (Audible).

Jacobson holds an advanced degree in history. As a college instructor, he taught United States history, world history, the history of western civilization, and research writing. He is in his third career as an author and is a JASNA and Regency Fiction Writers member. He is also a member of the Always Austen collective.

Besides thoroughly immersing himself in the Austenesque world, Jacobson enjoys cooking, dining out, fine wine, and well-aged scotch whiskey.

His other passion is cycling. He has ridden several “centuries” (hundred-mile days). He is incredibly proud of having completed the AIDS Ride–Midwest (five hundred miles from Minneapolis to Chicago) and the Make-a-Wish Miracle Ride (three hundred miles from Traverse City to Brooklyn, both in Michigan).

When not traveling, Jacobson lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, with his wife and co-author, Pam—a woman Miss Austen would have been hard-pressed to categorize.

Bibliography

Miss Bennet’s First Christmas (2015)

The Bennet Wardrobe: Origins (2016)

The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary Journey (2016)

Of Fortune’s Reversal (2016)

The Maid and The Footman (2016)

Henry Fitzwilliam’s War (2016)

The Exile: Kitty Bennet and the Belle Époque (2017)

Lizzy Bennet Meets the Countess (2017)

The Exile: The Countess Visits Longbourn (2018)

Lessers and Betters (2018)

The Avenger: Thomas Bennet and a Father’s Lament (2018)

The Pilgrim: Lydia Bennet and a Soldier’s Portion (2019)

Cinders and Smoke in Falling for Mr. Thornton (2019)

In Plain Sight (2020)

The Longbourn Quarantine (2020)

The Grail: The Saving of Elizabeth Darcy (2022)

Kiss Me Goodnight Major Darcy (editor) (2022)

The Sailor’s Rest (2023)

Don Jacobson’s Newsletter Austenesque Thoughts: https://austenesque.substack.com/ 

Don Jacobson’s Amazon Author’s (US) page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Jacobson/author/B001IQZ7GC 

Don Jacobson’s BookBub Author Page: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/don-jacobson-ef9f09e3-96b8-475e-b988-54505cd1ec36 

Don Jacobson’s Goodreads Page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15235321.Don_Jacobson

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Before the big reveal, here is what Don has to say about the art cover 🙂

“The cover art is Shipping on the Clyde (1881) by John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893). I found this painting particularly evocative. The nighttime setting and the almost abstract treatment of the masts and rigging contribute to the tone I sought to set for the book. Many mysteries hide in the darkness…that gloom on a waterfront is even more lonely and profound.

That emotion characterizes the mystery and the chase. Both pairs (note, not couples) feel their loneliness and loss in their own ways. I would say that three of hem (Elizabeth, Anne, and Darcy) are most deeply immersed in their separation. Wentworth feels it, but aboard Persephone, his mind can turn to duty and a resolution of the situations where the others can only wrap themselves in their thoughts.”

And now…here is the beautiful cover of The Sailor’s Rest!

What do you think about it? Isn’t it lovely? I love the fact that the cover is a painting and I particularly like this style. The fire keeping the two people warm gave this cover a sense of warmth and coziness, and it made me feel right there with those two individuals. The cover transported me into a different era, and it made me immediately imagine several scenes occurring there, so it somehow made the book much more visual for me. Never underestimate the power of a cover in the readers immersion in the story!

I also think the colors and font style of the title give it that extra charm that really pulls readers into the book. Using two different fonts for the title and placing it in a beautiful and classical frame made it really appealing for me 😊  

And you know I am a sucker for back covers because I think they are just as important as front covers, so I couldn’t do this reveal without showing you the full cover!

I particularly like the warm colours we see reflected in the sidewalk of the back cover, and how shiny it is. It demonstrates the rain is now gone and it gives it a feeling of hope. I also like how the spine colour binds itself so well with both front and back covers and the classy beautiful detail of the frame where the blurb is placed. Plus, there is a certain asymmetry but also connection between the front and back cover that works really well.

This is a beautiful work, and the designers deserve my congratulations! Not only the cover is beautiful, but it also reveals taste. Can you tell I really loved this cover?!

It is a beautiful cover and it will look really well on people’s shelves 🙂

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Don Jacobson brings with him a very generous giveaway! He will be giving away 10 e-book copies of The Sailor’s Rest to randomly selected winners. Please use the link to Rafflecopter below. No purchase necessary. 

Raffle link

Good Luck Everyone!