Jeanette Watts – Jane Austen Lied to Me

Today, author Jeanette Watts is guesting. She’s talking about her latest audiobook release Jane Austen Lied to Me, a romantic comedy. Don’t forget to enter the Rafflecopter giveaway.

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What inspired Jeanette to model her hero after Mr. Darcy:

Mr Darcy is, in a way, entirely what inspired Jane Austen Lied to Me.

Being a Janeite myself, I am a member of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA), and I get to a lot of Jane Austen events. And talk to a lot of people.

There are a lot of different kinds of people who gravitate to Jane Austen. There are the serious scholars who give presentations at JASNA symposiums (symposia?), who dissect her use of language, her insights into human nature, other aspects of her writing techniques. There are those who love the excuse to play dressup in period costume, and take great delight in bonnets and veils and reticules and spencers (the short jackets of the era). Some love her for being a snarky observer of human nature, similar to Mark Twain. Others crave romance in their lives, and adore her perfection of the different tender tropes.

It’s this last category that caused Jane Austen Lied to Me to happen.

It is an oft-heard sigh at many a Jane Austen event: “Mr. Darcy! He’s sooo romantic.”

My entire life has been an exercise in getting in trouble for asking too many questions. At least I’m not so rude as to say anything to the armies of middle-aged/Millenial women sighing over Colin Firth/Matthew Macfadyen. But it gives me food for thought for those drives home that create new books so much faster than I can write them. And as I drive, I’m asking them in my head, “Did you read the same book I did?”

Rich guy is a jerk at a party. What’s romantic about that? Would it still be romantic if he wasn’t rich? We never really get a justification of why he was such a jerk. Even when we learn that he’s shy, it doesn’t justify his poor manners. He refuses to dance at a ball with poor gender balance. The etiquette manuals are very clear about these things. You do NOT come to a dance if you are not inclined to do so. A gentleman would not sit out when there are an abundance of ladies in want of a partner. In fact, a GENTLEMAN would be on the lookout for wallflowers. (Ever think about the lovely euphemism in that term? You aren’t a loser that no one will ask to dance. You are a FLOWER along the wall.)

So, as someone who teaches historical dance, I know I am more sensitive than most to the horrible breach of decorum that Darcy commits at the beginning of the book.

Jane Austen was a product of her time, when all England was a-flutter over the real-life rich Bad Boy, Lord Byron, so through her character of Mr Darcy, she writes a story about redeeming him. But I’m a product of MY time, and so my Lizzie looks at my Darcy, and has to make her own conclusions.

I won’t say anymore, spoilers! You’ll just have to get the book, e-book, or brand-new audiobook, and find out for yourself what happens.

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Title: Jane Austen Lied to Me
Series: N/A
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Author: Jeanette Watts
Length: 249 pages
Release Date: September 26, 2017
Publisher: Self-published

Blurb: What college girl doesn’t dream of meeting Mr. Darcy? Lizzy was certainly no exception. But when Darcy Fitzwilliam comes into her life, he turns out to be every bit as aggravating as Elizabeth Bennett’s Fitzwilliam Darcy. So what’s a modern girl to think, except….

How could my hero be so wrong?

Goodreads | Amazon

Feb 28

I’ve been thinking about my conversation with Professor Jacobson over and over. The thing about formulas and people. It makes a certain kind of sense, but does it lack a romantic sensibility?

Ha! Sense and Sensibility!

This is the second time that Professor Jacobson has me thinking about S&S. Well, if I’m no Lizzie Bennett, there are worse things in life than being a Marianne Dashwood. She had youth and beauty and high spirits. She wasn’t good at the dating thing, either, and overlooked the better man at first. Why was that? Did Colonel Brandon seem unromantic at first impression?

Even though I’ve got an assignment due in Spanish, as well as the inevitable calc and chem homework, I grabbed Sense and Sensibility to take with me to read while I went to dinner. I wanted to read everything in the book about Colonel Brandon.

Anne spotted me in the dining hall while I was halfway through a tuna sandwich and a really big pile of potato chips. “Hey, Roomie.” She slid her cafeteria tray onto the table across from me and plopped her book bag down beside it. “You having a really bad day?”

“Um, no I don’t think so, why?” I asked.

“Usually, if you’re having a bad day, you pick up Jane Austen and read a little something before you start to study. Since instead of sitting here doing your homework, you’re sitting here reading Jane Austen, I take it you had an exceptionally bad day today.”

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Jeanette Watts has written three Jane Austen-inspired novels and two short stories for Jane Austen Fan Fiction anthologies, two other works of historical fiction, stage melodramas, television commercials, and historical dance manuals. She is a regular contributor to MOMCC Magazine.

When she is not writing, she is either dancing, sewing, or making videos for her YouTube channel and TikTok accounts, “History is My Playground.”

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