Hey, Everyone! I'm delighted to be part of the Longbourn's Songbird Blog Tour! This book sounds fantastic! I'm totally looking forward to reading it! Today, Beau North has a lovely excerpt for you to read, and at the bottom of the post you'll have a chance to enter to win a copy of Longbourn's Songbird!
First, I’d like to give bottomless and heartfelt thanks to everyone at So Little Time… for being a part of my blog tour and I can’t wait to get into further discussion with you all! Now, a little setup for this excerpt. I thought since this is my first excerpt in my first blog tour for my first novel, we would start with...well, first impressions. Without giving too much away, I can tell you that at this point in the story our Mr. Darcy has already encountered Elizabeth Bennet, though she is not aware of it. Enjoy!
Excerpt
“Ladies, it’s wonderful to meet you all. This is my friend Will Darcy.” Darcy felt something like a smile on his face, superficially polite over his clenched teeth.
Bingley joked, making the women titter. “He’s not normally so talkative.” The sound of her chuckle was like being poked between the eyes. Darcy forced his face into a smooth expression, silently cursing his friend. He murmured a terse “good evening” to the women.
The mother examined him keenly for a moment as if she were inspecting a piece of meat from the butcher. After a moment, she sniffed haughtily as though dismissing him. Darcy paid her no mind, turning his attention to the other Bennet girls.
The younger of the girls, he dismissed immediately; she was pretty but didn’t shine like the others. He allowed himself to look at her. Elizabeth. The name suits her, he thought. She smiled happily at Bingley, but when her eyes turned to him, he could see the spark of laughter in them—and something else underneath, something questioning.
She wasn’t as pretty as Jane, but in a way she was far more beautiful. Jane’s beauty was soft and genteel, whereas there was a natural wildness to Elizabeth’s looks, particularly in the intelligent expression of her dark eyes. They were like two pools of liquid ink, full of secret mysteries waiting to be explored, discovered.
A man could drown in those eyes.
Her eyebrow arched ever so slightly as if she had heard his thought. She played with her necklace, a locket of some kind. The gleam of the gold chain against her neck drove him to distraction. Again and again, he found his gaze drawn to the dip at the base of her throat.
Suddenly, she smiled at him, taking him aback. It was a smile of pure mischief, wicked without being lewd. No woman had ever smiled at him in such a way. And he was unsure he liked it. He looked to Bingley for help, only to find that Bingley and Jane were on the dance floor. Mrs. Bennet had wandered off, leaving Darcy with the other two girls.
“We’ve all been on tenterhooks for your arrival, Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth said in a low, melodious voice. To her credit, the younger sister gave her a scandalized look.
“Oh?” Darcy croaked. The sound of her mouth shaping his name affected him in a way he had never expected. An inexplicable, cold tension clawed up from the bottom of his stomach, tightening his throat, making it difficult to speak. Get a hold of yourself, man!
“Oh yes,” she said in mock seriousness. “We’ve heard so very much about you already. Tell me, how does a man manage the climb down from Mount Olympus these days?”
Darcy scowled. This had Caroline’s fingerprints all over it. It certainly was not the first time Caroline Bingley had put him in the situation of appearing to be more than simply her brother’s cantankerous friend. That Caroline should gossip about him was bad manners enough, but that this sassy miss should tease him openly...
Elizabeth tilted her head slightly, studying him with the same easy look of amusement. The spill of her dark hair distracted him, and his fingers itched to caress one of those glossy curls. He cleared his throat. “I assure you, Miss Bennet; whatever you may have heard, I am just a mortal man.”
Book Blurb:
“Someday some lark is gonna spell you with a song, Will Darcy. She’ll call you with music and you’ll be as good as lost.”
In the autumn of 1948, young millionaire Will Darcy comes to the sleepy, backwater town of Meryton, South Carolina to visit his best friend, Charles Bingley. When Darcy becomes enchanted by a local beauty with a heavenly voice, his business dealings with Longbourn Farms may close the door to his romantic hopes before they are given a chance to thrive.
Still healing from heartbreak, Elizabeth Bennet takes solace in her family, home, and the tight-knit community of Meryton. That foundation is shaken when Will Darcy makes a successful offer to buy the family farm. Blinded by hurt, will Elizabeth miss the chance to find in him the peace and comfort her heart truly needs?
Confronting the racial, economic, and social inequalities of the times, Longbourn’s Songbird is an imaginative romance inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice and told through the lens of postwar America, a story layered with betrayal and loss, love and letting go.
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About the Author
Beau North is a native southerner who now calls Portland, Oregon home with her husband and two cats. She attended the University of South Carolina where she began a lifelong obsession with English Literature. In her spare time, Beau is the brains behind Rhymes With Nerdy, an internet collective focused on pop culture. This is her first novel.
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Longbourn’s Songbird blog tour schedule
Congratulations to Beau North on the release of Longbourn's Songbird!! Thanks so much for being a guest on So little time...!
* * * GIVEAWAY * * *
It's giveaway time!! Meryton Press is giving away one e-copy of Longbourn's Songbird to one lucky winner! To enter, just fill in the Rafflecopter below and leave a comment!
- One person will win an E-copy of Longbourn's Songbird.
- Open Internationally.
- Last day to enter: November 17, 2015, midnight PT.
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Remember, to enter the giveaway you MUST fill out the Rafflecopter (shown above) and leave a comment below. If you need help entering, email me by clicking on the email icon at the top of the sidebar. Thanks and good luck! :)
What am I currently reading? I am currently reading Wolf by Wolf
by Ryan Graudin. I'm only a chapter or two into it, but it's good so far. It does creep me out a bit to even imagine that Hilter won the war!! This was the book that came in my Uppercase YA novel subscription box this month. It was my first box, and I was totally happy with this month's selection! It was one I was interested in reading, so that's good!
by Robin LaFevers. It was really good! I read this during the move, but I wish I had waited until later. I was so tired that I was having trouble engaging in the story. I could never stay awake long enough to get absorbed into it. 
