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Alice McVeigh's avatar

Yes, I appreciate your conscientious scholarship AND the feel of what you write. It feels much more plausible than most, and more historical ly-based as well.

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Don Jacobson's avatar

Thank you. Part of what you read is the historian in me coming out. I feel that if I my work builds an authentic universe, the readers will be able to understand character and plot motivations that much better. For instance, in Ghost Flight, I have just backstoried a bordello owner, Madame Margarethe LaMotte, a mid-40s woman who rents Elizabeth a room down the hill from Will's La Ferme. She is an adherent of the Resistance (--see A Woman of No Importance, Ch 3).

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Alice McVeigh's avatar

I agree. The effort put into research almost always shines through!

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Kim's avatar

Don, such a compelling scene. The casual cruelty that underpinned much of Regency society is often elided in many romances. As it is today in many contemporary books. To have the Bennets encounter such a scene would have been shocking in the extreme to gently bred ladies. The horror of it, now as then, is very clear. And what a cliffhanger at the end of the scene.

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Don Jacobson's avatar

Reading Canon in isolation is an entertaining experience, to be sure. I try to add context so that readers understand WHY and HOW the Dashwoods, Bennets, Woodhouses, etc., were able to leave these lives where care did not impose itself. If my work and search for authenticity disequilibrates readers, I can only hope that it also takes them to a new understanding of the world in which Austen existed and about which she wrote.

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Rosanna Hanson's avatar

Powerful. I’m looking forward to learning more through this variation.

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