Hello, my friends! I'm delighted to have Don Jacobson on the blog today with his thoughts on the power of love in The Bennet Wardrobe series and an excerpt from his final book in the series, The Grail: The Saving of Elizabeth Darcy.
Don't forget the giveaway! Details are at the bottom of the page!
The Power of Love
If the Wardrobe has taught me anything, it is that love is the driving—and unifying—force behind everything good that happens in this or any other universe.
Yet, love’s coruscating glory was unseen that evening in October 2015 when I laid down the opening lines of Miss Bennet’s First Christmas. That novella became the second book (Origins being the first) in the opening volume of the series—The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary Journey. However, this is not a book report. Rather, you may consider it a forensic consideration of the power of love as it was revealed across the eight volumes of the Bennet Wardrobe series.
The loves are articulated in the front of the final volume: The Grail: The Saving of Elizabeth Darcy.
C.S. Lewis, in his 1958 lectures on the BBC,
elucidated the four types of love found in the Bible:
Storge: empathy bond
Philia: friendship bond
Eros: erotic/romantic bond
Agape: unconditional love
***
The Bennet Wardrobe operates
in the service of these and other loves.
The Fifth Love being
exagoras agapis: redemptive love.
This is the love where we strive to become
better versions of ourselves.
Niebuhr identified the Sixth Love:
synchotikà agape, or forgiveness.
Such love makes all human life possible.
***
In the end, though, the first six Loves
are bound together by the greatest of
all…the Seventh Love:
thysiakà agape, or sacrificial love.
There is no greater love than this, for a man
to lay down his life for his friends. John 13:15
From today’s vantage point, I can look back through seven years of examination of the varied destinies planned for and endured by the main characters laid down by Jane Austen. Instantly apparent is the presence of the search for love and Home—that place, according to Thomas Bennet, where your love can grow. From the first lines of Keeper, we see Mary Bennet reaching out for the foundation upon which all other loves must necessarily be built: self-love (the Zeroeth Love?). But, at this early stage of writing (I had not conceived a unified series but rather three stand-alone books on Mary, Kitty, and Lydia), I was unaware of the importance of love within the context of what I was writing.
None of the love powers the universe thinking began coalescing until late in the third volume—The Exile: Kitty Bennet and the Belle Époque—when Kitty’s therapy with Freud began to open new vistas for the chronicler of her story. Even then, that place where the Bennet sisters went to commune with their Guides not really described. Rather, their state of concentration and focus was all that was seen by readers. What we observed was Henry Fitzwilliam, a Darcy-like character of the 1880s, break through his pride and prejudices to execute a Fifth Love (although not identified as such) turnaround.
Volume Five saw multiple excursions into the realm of the guides, that otherworld where those who watch over all of us exist. You may call them angels or handmaidens. They are the ultimate expression of the Universe’s love. Kitty’s freezes us all with her embrace of the Seventh Love—again unidentified and unarticulated.
Volume Six—The Avenger: Thomas Bennet and a Father’s Lament—marks the beginning of the complete unfolding of the Fifth and Sixth Loves. Mrs. Bennet, now a most sensible lady after the double weddings in 1811, educates her husband about their mutual need to become the best versions of themselves to play their part in the great design. From here on (and, if you are playing the word count game, about the last 60 percent of the series), the conversation of esoteric love serves as the dominant theme of each book.
My own journey through the Wardrobe leaves me wiser. Where I had started my trek appreciating the way Austen and Austenesque writers incorporated Lewis’s Four Loves, I now saw three others…and perhaps a fourth. How rich life can be when those who inhabit it are powered not only by descriptive loves (Lewis’s Four) but also by those of the deepest action. I pray that you, too, will discover all the loves in your life.
The Grail: The Saving of Elizabeth Darcy
by Don Jacobson
Blurb
“You must throw away notions of what you want.
Only then will you be free to accept what you need.”
—The Brown Guide to Fitzwilliam Darcy, 1840
Long has the amazing Bennet Wardrobe involved itself in the affairs of Longbourn. Where before its actions have been cloaked in mystery, its purpose now becomes clear. The fey cabinet has molded the universes to strike a balance that can be achieved only by saving the greatest love story ever told.
Follow the paths taken by Pemberley’s master and mistress after their children are grown. See Elizabeth Darcy struggle to rekindle the love glow that has dimmed after a quarter century. Grasp the unaccountable pain her departure levels upon the entire Derbyshire family. Watch Fitzwilliam Darcy learn that which he must in order to become the best version of himself: worthy of his Elizabeth.
The Grail: The Saving of Elizabeth Darcy closes out the Bennet Wardrobe series. The disparate threads spun by the remarkable women born to a Hertfordshire couple of insignificant fortune are woven together. These lives have become the tapestry that records the destiny of Jane Austen’s lovers, immortal in any here/now or where/when.
FTC Disclaimer: Link to Amazon US. I am an Amazon Associate. Should you purchase a copy of the book through the link provided, I will receive a small commission. Thanks!
Advanced Praise
Here is what Lory Lilian, one of the leading authors of Austenesque fiction, has to say about the Wardrobe story arc.
As an author myself, I admit I would never be capable to craft such a complex, enchanting, and exciting story, not to mention an entire series! Congratulations to Don for a masterful work! I highly recommend The Bennet Wardrobe series to all readers, not only those who love Pride and Prejudice, but anyone who enjoys time travel, mystery, originality, and history.
About the Author
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 has re-edited and republished Keeper and the subsequent six volumes in the series. The Grail: The Saving of Elizabeth Darcy is the eighth and concluding volume. 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 with a specialty in American foreign relations. As a college instructor, he taught United States history, world history, the history of western civilization, and research writing. He is currently in his third career as an author and is a member of JASNA and the Regency Fiction Writers.
Besides thoroughly immersing himself in the Austenesque world, Jacobson also enjoys cooking, dining out, fine wine, and well-aged scotch whiskey.
His other passion is cycling. Most days will find him “putting in the miles.” He has ridden several “centuries” (hundred-mile days). He is especially 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.
Connect with Don Jacobson
Blog Tour Schedule
March 1 So Little Time... (you are here!)
* * * GIVEAWAY * * *
It’s giveaway time! For this blog tour, Meryton Press is giving away 6 eBooks of The Grail: The Saving of Elizabeth Darcy.
A huge congratulations to Don Jacobson for the release of The Grail: The Saving of Elizabeth Darcy and the completion of The Bennet Wardrobe series!! Wow! Just wow!
So, friends, any thoughts? Are you looking forward to reading The Grail: The Saving of Elizabeth Darcy?
