Mischief and Mistletoe: Modern Austen Short Story

Mischief and Mistletoe: Modern Austen Short Story

First of all, yay! The book is released! We are so excited to share the book with you.
Published by Indie Jane Press

Here's the gorgeous cover, made by the talented Victoria Austen-Young.

Buy now on Amazon!

My short story is based on NORTHANGER ABBEY. Jane Austen wrote NA as a tongue-in-cheek response to the Gothic romance/horror novels of the day. The heroine, Catherine Morland, is obsessed with reading these novels and they scare her and fill her head with nonsense. She has the opportunity to travel to Northanger Abbey and she imagines it to be a setting from one of her Gothic novels. In the Austen novel, Catherine is from Fullerton, a small village in England. I live in Fullerton, a city in California. I knew that I had to write this book because of that connection. :-) I've read NA three times and I like it the more I read it. (The first time I read it, I didn't really understand it to be a type of satire, poking fun at the popular gothic novels of the time. I read it again in college and my professor is an expert at Victorian literature. She was able to make the book understandable and therefore, awesome.)

In "Mischief and Mistletoe", Cate is still a pastor's daughter who has had a sheltered life. I gave her an occupation - she "thrifts" clothes from yard sales and thrift stores and makes them over into awesome clothes and sells them on a website. She gets to travel to Santa Barbara (instead of Bath) and meets Henry Tilney. He was a fun character to write. In the original, he is attentive to Catherine but not super flirty. I wanted to keep him the same in my short story.

All of the "gothic novel" references in my book, including "The Mystery of the Mirror", are from my own imagination. (Those were fun to make up.) I wanted Cate to be likeable, a bit naive, but not annoyingly so. I love Christmastime and I threw in a few of my own personal Christmas memories into the story. (My mom makes the best chocolate pixie cookies! I'll post the recipe later.)

And if you're wondering, yes, I have thrifted clothes in costumes. One of my favorite projects was making over a dress for a Jane Austen costume party. Here's my blog post on it.

GIVEAWAY

We have a giveaway to celebrate the release of the book.
We'll also be celebrating with a "12 Days of Christmas Cheer" as we get closer to Christmas. Lots of fun, presents, and Austenesque shenanigans coming your way!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

BLOG HOP

You can hop on over to the other authors' blogs for the week.

Monday, October 27 – Indie Jane

Tuesday, October 28 – Jennifer Becton

Wednesday, October 29 – Melissa Buell

Thursday, October 30 – Rebecca M. Fleming

Friday, October 31 – Cecilia Gray

Saturday, November 1 – Jessica Grey

Sunday, November 2 – Kimberly Truesdale

Monday, November 3 – Indie Jane post to announce giveaway winners

And if you're wondering which Austen heroine you're most like, you can take this quiz!
For more Austenuesque quizzes, here you go!
Test Your Knowledge