(And you’re all the first to know!!!!) 

Have to say, it’s been a toughish birth, as my husband’s operation was less than a fortnight ago. However, being forced to do marketing helped to distract me, at times, from worrying about his biopsy results (still unknown).

Though Sense and Sensibility isn't even in my top three Austens, I’ve always related to Marianne more than any other of Austen's heroines, as she's much the most impulsive and musical. (I have late-diagnosed ADHD, and impulsiveness is specialite de la maison. I also wasted years of my life playing cello professionally with London orchestras, so I’m prob. in in Marianne’s league, musically... She favours the uninterested Middletons with “a magnificent concerto” at one point in S&S.)

I also relate to her younger sister, Margaret Dashwood, whom Austen almost entirely ignored, but whom I've chosen to turn into a wannabe writer. (She writes every bit as badly as I did when I was a teenager - verbose, pretentious, addicted to adjectives…)

But my version of Margaret, in Marianne, seems to have gone down brilliantly. My ARC readers here – and THANK YOU A MILLION TIMES, those ARCers who are reading this❤️❤️❤️ - have loved young Margaret and her overwritten novel!

In my Marianne, the gorgeous Marianne Brandon, 21, widowed and determined to remain single, is pursued not only by the silly Rushworth (from Mansfield Park), but by her ex, John Willoughby, and by Henry Crawford, whose behaviour, when young Margaret Dashwood gets into serious trouble, might well surprise you.

The reviews have certainly surprised me. Have never had so many – again, truly grateful thanks, to those ARCers who have already done yours!!!!! ❤️– or such amazing ones, either.

"Marianne captures the essence of  Austen... McVeigh throws together favorite characters that readers love, or love to hate, to see how they gel. The result is funny, heartwarming and everything lovers of Austen’s universe could hope for."   BookLife Prize review in PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“A masterpiece! Dive in!” – Editor, HISTORICAL FICTION COMPANY review

"Invigorating, self-aware, contemporary... This series continues to be an immersive delight, extending, honoring, and doing justice to Austen."  SPR editorial review

“I've never even considered the possibility of Sense and Sensibility needing to be expanded on, but this is a gift. Stunningly new while keeping Austen's heart to the last page.” Lauren Gerock (The Bookstagrambabe)

“Spectacular! With smooth pacing and classic style, McVeigh delivers a sequel that is sure to please.” READERS FAVORITE (editorial review) *****

This book has been on my wish-list ever since I heard about it, but when she posted on Facebook that she’d be giving a lecture in London the next week it skimmed to the top of my to-be-read pile. I’d felt a little intimidated by her academic achievements and depth of her knowledge – I wasn't sure I was up to it, intellectually. How wrong was I? - Her style is erudite, but also light and easy, her insights fantastic.

Here's one: "That slippery free indirect style… allows Emma to appear to think worthy thoughts while not quite being mistress of them." Emma has much to learn, partly thanks to her behaviour towards Jane Fairfax – for Todd, ‘that clever, handsome woman whose vulnerability she never grasps."

Another example of professorial daring with regard to the turning-point of Persuasion: "There’s something beyond painful pleasure and pleasurable pain in the climactic scene at the White Hart Inn. Here Anne’s speech reaches out from the book. It’s like an operatic aria of passion, demanding attention and reducing the reader to a single response..."

Todd delivered a brilliant lecture full of elegance and wit - and now I am the mega-proud owner of a signed copy ("to Alice with every good wish") of her beautiful book, Living With Austen. Which I highly recommend. 

And so, Facebook IS good for something. Who knew?