Tag Archives: Jane Austen Centre

Something romantic for Valentine’s Day? A Jane Austen Daydream is a FREE eBook for a limited time!

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A Jane Austen Daydream

“Scott Southard’s Jane is a delightful creature.” -Austenprose.com

This February 14th and 15th A Jane Austen Daydream is available as a FREE eBook! You can find it on amazon.com here (http://amzn.com/B00CH3HQUU). Grab your copy now!

“…quick paced novel unlike any you can ever have read, which injects new ideas and possibilities into the world of Jane Austen.” -The Jane Austen Centre

All her heroines find love in the end–but is there love waiting for Jane?

Jane Austen spends her days writing and matchmaking in the small countryside village of Steventon, until a ball at Godmersham Park propels her into a new world where she yearns for a romance of her own. But whether her heart will settle on a young lawyer, a clever Reverend, a wealthy childhood friend, or a mysterious stranger is anyone’s guess.

Written in the style of Jane herself, this novel ponders the question faced by many devoted readers over the years–did she ever find love? Weaving fact with fiction, it re-imagines her life, using her own stories to fill in the gaps left by history and showing that all of us–to a greater or lesser degree–are head over heels for Jane.

A Jane Austen Daydream is published by Madison Street Publishing. You can learn more about the work, read reviews, and read excerpts via this page for the book.

“…Lovely, thought-provoking novel. Fans of Austen will adore this book.” – Lori Nelson Spielman, author of The Life List

“A bit of fun” Austenprose Reviews A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM!

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An Illustration from AustenWhen A Jane Austen Daydream was released there were two reviews I was the most nervous about. The first was with the Jane Austen Centre (which you can read here), the second was with Austenprose, probably the most prominent voice in new Austen literature. Seriously, if Entertainment Weekly or the New Yorker found the book, I wouldn’t feel this amount of stress. (Okay, I might as well… and I would love to be tested on that, by the way! Do you hear me book reviewers?)

Yes, A Jane Austen Daydream is my novel and can be read by those who are not schooled in the works of Miss Austen (with some post-modern twists in it), but I really, really wanted my book to be accepted by the Austenites as well. Well, today, I got the review from Austenprose (here) and I am right now breathing a deep sigh of relief.

Here is an excerpt from the review, the reviewer’s response to my depiction of Jane Austen:

The good news is Scott Southard’s Jane is a delightful creature. She is clever and witty and determined to do the best she can for herself, even when things take a turn for the worst. Jane’s dialogue is one of the bright spots in the novel and her thoughts and comments had me smiling (and even laughing) on more than one occasion.

A Jane Austen DaydreamYou can read the rest of the review here. If you would like to learn more about A Jane Austen Daydream, you can do so on this page for the book (here). A Jane Austen Daydream is available via Amazon (here), where you can find it for the low price of $3.99 for eBook and $13.46 for print.

Unpredictable! Entirely New! The Jane Austen Centre reviews A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM!

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The Jane Austen CentreNow and then, you get a review that you know will stick with you as an author. Sometimes they are good, sometimes they are bad, but they will be part of your makeup as an artist from that moment on, adding to your personal resume, changing you.

Today, I was honored to have The Jane Austen Centre in Bath review my latest novel A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM. Here is a quote from their review:

If asked to sum up this book in one word, I would have to choose “unpredictable”. Going into it, all I knew was that it was not a biography, and its purpose was to satisfy the author by giving Jane the happy future he would have chosen for her. Safe to say, even for the advanced Austen scholar, it will be impossible to predict where the tale will twist and turn. For those of you who are exhausted by the innumerable retellings of Austen’s novels, this is a style entirely new.

And then there is this from the review:

If you are looking for something new this summer—something light, for reading at the beach, perhaps—and can, like a purveyor of fine fiction, willingly suspend your disbelief, you will, in the end, be rewarded by a quick paced novel unlike any you can ever have read, which injects new ideas and possibilities into the world of Jane Austen.

A Jane Austen DaydreamI could not be more honored. I am speechless (and for those that know me or follow my blog that is a trick to pull off). You can read the rest of the review via this link.

A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM is available via amazon.com where you can find it in print for just $9.85 in print and only $3.99 for the eBook. Here is the link: http://amzn.com/0983671923

I hope you enjoy A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM

Need a book to read this weekend? Want to learn more about my new novel A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM?

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Jane Austen talking to agents and publishersRight now I am suffering from a literary internet addiction. With the release of my new book A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM I can’t stop looking at amazon.com and GoodReads.com. I want to know what people think of my new work. I know the book has only been out for a few days, but I can’t help myself. I want everyone to read this book! And I want everyone to like it. It’s kind of like the feeling of being dropped off at camp for the summer and wondering if you will have any friends.  Will you be my book’s friend? Please? I’m sure we have much in common.

Seriously though, if you would like to know more about my surprising, touching, and witty new book there are some great options out there for you.

  • Before the release of the novel, I gave an interview with the Jane Austen Centre in Bath. You can read that interview here.
  • Recently, author and book blogger Deborah Kalb interviewed me about the book on her site. You can check it out here.
  • I have written three different introductions to the book on this site over the last few weeks. The first dealt with having the courage to write the book (Braving Austen), the second was about finding the character of Jane (Visiting Austen), and the third was about how I wrote the book as a surprise for my wife (Austen in Stealth).
  • A Jane Austen DaydreamAlso, this week I shared an excerpt from it. It is from Volume II of the book and I think it introduces the character of Jane and the style of the book in a very fun way. You can read that here.

A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM is being sold exclusively through amazon.com. It is availale for $3.99 as an eBook and only $13.46 in print. You can buy the book via this link- http://amzn.com/0983671923

I hope you enjoy my new novel.

Visiting Austen: Introducing My New Novel A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM

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A Jane Austen DaydreamA JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM is published by Madison Street Publishing and can be purchased in print and as an eBook for only $3.99 via amazon.com here.  

I went to England to find Jane Austen.

To be honest, I also went to find Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, George Elliot, John Keats, William Shakespeare (or whoever wrote his plays), J.R.R. Tolkien, and Winnie-the-Pooh.

(Winnie-the-Pooh? Yeah, with some research, I figured out where the real 100-Acre Woods is located and spent a day wandering the fields, visiting Roo’s Sandy Place, sitting at the Enchanted Place, finding the north pole, playing poohstick on the actual poohstick bridge. As a kid who has fond memories growing up with A.A. Milne’s classic books, I was in children literature heaven. It is a magical and natural place, please don’t tell Disney!)

That was me at age 23, Scott the explorer, the new college grad, future “bestselling” author (in my mind), chasing down the legends, my heroes. I’m not sure what lofty goals I had, per se, in making the six-week solo trip to England. I mean, I wasn’t expecting any “haunting” encounters or secret treasures to discover, but it was a voyage I needed to take. I needed to escape the confines of my small West Michigan world, and chase down the locations that made my heroes… well… heroes. Continue reading →

An Interview for A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM by The Jane Austen Centre!

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The Jane Austen CentreI’m incredibly honored to have an interview for A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM (my new novel coming this April from Madison Street Pubilshing) in the Jane Austen Centre online magazine! (You can’t see me right now, but I am doing quite the happy dance.)

In the interview, I share some of my thoughts on Jane, the book’s influences, and how I found Jane.  But that’s not all! There is an excerpt from the book included as well as the very first glimpse of the new cover of the book!

You can read the interview (and see the cover) here: http://www.janeausten.co.uk/an-interview-sd-southard-author-a-jane-austen-daydream/

A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM will be available in eBook and print in April.

Stay tuned for more information!

“Definitely a classic read with a humourous touch, well done!”

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A Jane Austen DaydreamAn interesting new review for A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM has appeared on The Jane Austen Centre.

In many ways it is “real-time” review (here) as a very well-read Austenite goes through the book almost chapter by chapter (she even calls me cheeky!). A lot of the clash of history versus fiction in the book is discussed and for her as an Austenite it was a little distracting seeing the very intentional differences (which to me is understandable, since I’m dipping into new fictional territory here, re-imagining a life as something very new), but the end says it is a “a classic read with a humourous touch, well done!”

Please be aware! There are a A LOT OF SPOILERS in the review, including the big twist in the book.

–So read this at your own warning!–

You can learn more about the book, read interviews and excerpts, and find links where to get it via the A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM page here.

The Jane Austen Centre Has a New Interview & Excerpt from A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM!

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A Jane Austen DaydreamI’m honored to have an interview and excerpt from A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM shared on the Jane Austen Centre Forum!

In the interview you can learn a bit more about my inspiration for the book, my thoughts on it, and my experience with Ms. Austen.

The short excerpt included is from Volume I in which Jane meets the interesting Mr. Lefroy. You can read both the excerpt and interview here:

http://www.janeausten.co.uk/forum/topic/sd-southard-a-jane-austen-daydream-the-interview

And, as always, if you want to buy the book in eBook ($4.99) or print ($9.99), you can find it here:

I hope you will consider checking out my new novel!