About the yellow dress

For those of you reading the new Kindle or paperback copies of A Constant Love who've been with me since the beginning, you may have been puzzled by this particular change:

"Elizabeth had been very pleased with how all of the dresses in her wedding trousseau had turned out, but among them she had a few favourites, and she was pleased to see when she went upstairs to change that Sarah had set one of them out. It was a lovely pale yellow muslin that flattered her complexion, and Jane – whose patience made her easily the best embroiderer of all the Bennet ladies – had done the trim. Sarah could not have known this, but Elizabeth was pleased her sister would be able to see the results of her handiwork."

In the original version of the story, Elizabeth was wearing a blue silk dress. I happened to think blue suited the Elizabeth in my head (who wavers between looking mostly like Jennifer Ehle and sort of like Jennifer Ehle), and was at the time under the mistaken impression that because silk is more of a luxury fabric today, it would have been so at that time, while muslin, being made of cotton, was popular, but more for day dresses. Further research showed that to not actually be the case -- Indian muslin was the hot new thing of fashion, and a fine, high-quality muslin would have been highly appropriate for a dinner dress and perhaps even worn by some women for balls. Other grades of cotton fabric, such as calico, would have been worn by lower classes of women.

So that explains the fabric change. But what about the color of the dress? Well, I read of one of Jane Austen's letters, written from London to Cassandra, in which she writes:

"I went the day before (Friday) to Layton's, as I proposed, and got my mother's gown -- seven yards at 6s. 6d. I then walked into No. 10, which is all dirt and confusion, but in a very promising way, and after being present at the opening of a new account, to my great amusement, Henry and I went to the exhibition in Spring Gardens. It is not thought a good collection, but I was very well pleased, particularly (pray tell Fanny) with a small portrait of Mrs. Bingley, excessively like her.

"I went in hopes of seeing one of her sister, but there was no Mrs. Darcy. Perhaps, however, I may find her in the great exhibition, which we shall go to if we have time. I have no chance of her in the collection of Sir Joshua Reynolds's paintings, which is now showing in Pall Mall, and which we are also to visit.

"Mrs. Bingley's is exactly herself -- size, shaped face, features, and sweetness; there never was a greater likeness. She is dressed in a white gown, with green ornaments, which convinces me of what I had always supposed, that green was a favourite colour with her. I dare say Mrs. D. will be in yellow."

And who am I to argue with that? After all, Mrs. Darcy is not my character, as much as I enjoy borrowing her. My stories have always been about honoring Austen's work and the real history of the time to the best of my abilities. So I decided she needed to wear yellow prominently in the story, and I thought this first time acting as hostess for a large dinner, her first time appearing in such a role as Mrs. Darcy, was the best time for Elizabeth to wear yellow.

GoodReads giveaway

I am giving away two paperback copies of A Constant Love on GoodReads. Feel free to join me there and check out my research list, as well.

And many thanks if any of you were behind the lovely review and ratings there so far! I have been amazed by the reception of ACL since I've published it.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

A Constant Love

by Sophie Turner

Giveaway ends June 01, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to Win

It's here!

So after a much longer delay than I expected, I am very pleased to announce that A Constant Love has finally been published!

You can find it here on Amazon.com, and it is also available in other Amazon stores worldwide (edit 5/19: and also on Nook). The Kindle edition is $2.99, and I intend to continue to keep the Kindle editions for the whole series at a low price. The paperback is $11.99 (but free shipping if you have Prime); I had wanted to set it lower, but the cost of printing and shipping just would not allow it. My goal in this has never been to make a lot of money, but to offset some of my research budget (if you've been watching my Goodreads feed, you can see there are a lot of books involved in making this series as historically accurate as possible). And I'm not going to lie, I got quite a rush when I first saw that Amazon page. A strange, surreal rush.

If you're reading this, I want to thank you for being a part of this journey with me. I'm here today because of the support, feedback, and encouragement of readers who told me it was worth publishing. I write these stories -- all right, I suppose it's probably time to start calling them novels -- because I love to do it. I love the research, and the planning, and the times when the plot just clicks into place, and when I finally put down all of those words in a way that honors Jane Austen's work as much as I'm able to. And I love to publish (although it is by far the most nerve-wracking process out of all of this), because it means I get to hear from people who are reading my work.

So thank you. A Constant Love and A Change of Legacies are the first of a planned six stories in this series (a few weeks ago, it was only five, so who knows how many it will actually be before I hit the end!). I hope you'll all be with me for the whole ride.

Watch this space

I am hoping to have a very exciting announcement sometime this week.

It might have to do with publication. ;-)

A little musical interlude

I heart Ralph Vaughan Williams; even though he came well after the Regency and as such won't ever be able to be used in my work, I listen to him pretty frequently, and his music is just so evocative of England. I particularly love that he takes themes from old folk music and hymns, and turns them into something new and beautiful. Like "Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus."



You can just barely tell that it uses bits of "Star of the County Down:"

Captain Stanton's real-life counterpart

Jane Austen famously said that in order to get a Mr. Darcy, you have to create him. But there is at least one example out there, from her time, of a man I think you could call quite worthy of a romantic story. Meet Admiral Sir Philip Broke:

I'm slowly making my way though his biography. It was published in 1866 and is packed with primary source info, which is great, but there are also things like a full accounting of every shot that hit the ships in the battle of HMS Shannon vs. USS Chesapeake, so it reads slowly at times. That battle, in which Captain Broke defeated an American frigate, following several high-profile defeats of British frigates at the hands of the Americans, earned him a baronetcy and made him famous.

Broke was undoubtedly a gentleman, who, despite being an eldest son and due to inherit Broke Hall, still joined the navy -- attending Portsmouth Naval Academy at the same time as Charles Austen -- and rose through its ranks. What will really warm your heart, though, is his relationship with his wife. Broke was grievously wounded in the battle against the Chesapeake, and when they took him to the surgeon's cockpit, they found that he had been wearing a lock of his wife's hair in a little silk case hanging from his neck.

These are excerpts from the second letter he wrote his wife after the battle, the first being a very short note to tell his wife of the victory and that he was recovering of his wounds:

"Halifax, June 19th, 1813.

"I am, thank God! recovering fast, though it will be yet some days before my wound is sufficiently closed to allow me to live well and get in good condition again. The constant headaches are now leaving me; I wished my beloved L––––'s were as surely removed: they made me think of you, poor Gentle! I have been living on rice milk, but am now going to eat vegetables, &c.; in another week I shall live like other people. The doctors ordered me not to talk or think; indeed, I could not, without painful exertion, till lately. But now Wodehouse and my other friends come and chat with me, and I walk about upon the lawn. I wish it was in our shady old avenue at Nacton, with my sweet L––––. I read idle books to kill time, but cannot study yet. The dictating of my public letter was a painful effort to me, but I am stronger now. The neighbouring gardens have sent me some pretty bouquets of flowers for my room; indeed, everybody is most attentively kind to me, and to all my officers and crew, and they richly deserve it... A doubtful droit has been decided in my favour, so I shall send home soon a thousand pounds more to Child's; so spare no money that can procure you comfort. Please God we shall soon meet; but live happy till we do, my beloved L––––, and enjoy yourself with the dear children God has blessed us with, and with the amiable friends you have round you. Tell mamma I will write her soon. Give my love to all round you and in Suffolk. Heaven bless you all for your affectionate

"P. B. V. Broke."

I think Captain Broke would certainly have been a husband worthy of any Austen heroine. And I'd say Sarah Louisa Broke was quite a fortunate woman, excepting the fact that she had to bear all of the births of their 11 children!

The full set of Captain Broke's correspondence with his "beloved L––––" following the battle can be found here, for those interested in reading more.

A few antiques

I recently got on a bit of an eBay kick and scored good prices on a few things that will be helpful in the future for my writing. Hopefully this is not going to turn into a full-blown antique book-collecting hobby, as it will be quite an expensive one!

One is an 1820 edition of the Book of Common Prayer -- it's only just a bit later than when my stories are set, and so likely very much what my characters would have heard (and used, in the case of the clergymen). I thought I'd share the marriage portion, since that's likely to be one of great interest to those reading this blog. The ceremony itself has not changed very much, but much greater import is given to the banns in the 1820 version.

Two other items I've picked up are two old maps of Derbyshire, one before and one after the advent of the railways. Yes, a transportation revolution is on the horizon, and it's eventually going to impact our beloved characters, at least in my stories...