A warm welcome to author Lisa Henry joining us to talk about new release “The California Dashwoods”. Lisa talks to us about the sense and sensibility aspect in the modern world and also brought a giveaway to participate in!
Welcome Lisa 🙂
Hi! I’m Lisa Henry, and welcome to the blog tour for my new release, The California Dashwoods. I’m visiting some of my favourite blogs around the place to talk a bit about writing The California Dashwoods, and sharing some of my influences, my ideas, and even an excerpt or two! Don’t forget to leave a comment, for your chance to win a prize of a $20 Amazon voucher plus a vintage copy of Sense and Sensibility that I’ll post worldwide. The winner will be drawn on May 10.
When it came to updating the characters in Sense and Sensibility and transporting them into the modern world, the one I struggled with most was Lucy Steele. In Sense and Sensibility, Lucy Steele is the young lady who is secretly engaged to Edward Ferrars, which ruins Elinor Dashwood’s hopes—for a few chapters, at least!
Lucy is described as artful and selfish in the text. She is clever and manipulative—but who can blame her? We know what happens to young women in this world who don’t marry well, right? They end up where Mrs. Dashwood does: in genteel poverty, relying on the charity of others. So while it’s easy to dismiss Lucy Steele as a gold digger, I think it’s more complicated than that. Lucy’s doing what any young woman with a brain should be doing—she’s securing her future, and Edward Ferrars with his modestly good prospects and his kind character is a hell of a good target.
When it came to updating Lucy Steele though—and turning her into Lucien—I didn’t want to go the gold digger route. Mostly because in the modern world, Lucien isn’t bound by the same conventions, or driven by the same ambitions, as Lucy Steele. He might be struggling financially, but he’s got his own life and his own career, and doesn’t need to hook his wagon to any man’s. And if he did, I decided that Lucien would unashamedly look for a sugar daddy, not a fiancé.
Which then left me with the dilemma, of course, of putting a romantic obstacle in the form of a fiancé between my endgame couple—no longer Elinor and Edward, but Elliott and Ned—who was actually a nice person who didn’t deserve to get hurt. Lucien is the person Lucy was pretending to be: he’s kind, big-hearted, and he’s Elliott Dashwood’s friend. Finding a way to approach that without making Ned a jerk and Lucien heartbroken was an interesting balancing act, and I hope I managed it!
Because if there’s one thing that all the characters in The California Dashwoods have to learn, it’s that people are complicated, relationships are messy, and sometimes things don’t work out exactly how you planned.
Title: The California Dashwoods
Author: Lisa Henry
Publisher: Self Published
Release Date: May 1, 2018
Length: 62 000
Genre: Romance
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Synopsis
Make a new future. Choose your true family. Know your own heart.
When Elliott Dashwood’s father dies, leaving his family virtually penniless, it’s up to Elliott to do what he’s always done: be the responsible one. Now isn’t the right time for any added complications. So what the hell is he doing hooking up with Ned Ferrars? It’s just a fling, right?
Elliott tries to put it behind him when the family makes a fresh start in California, and if he secretly hopes to hear from Ned again, nobody else needs to know. While his mom is slowly coming to terms with her grief, teenage Greta is more vulnerable than she’s letting on, and Marianne—romantic, reckless Marianne—seems determined to throw herself headfirst into a risky love affair. And when Elliott discovers the secret Ned’s been keeping, he realizes that Marianne isn’t the only one pinning her hopes on a fantasy.
All the Dashwoods can tell you that feelings are messy and heartbreak hurts. But Elliott has to figure out if he can stop being the sensible one for once, and if he’s willing to risk his heart on his own romance.
A modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.
Purchase at Amazon & Smashwords
Lisa likes to tell stories, mostly with hot guys and happily ever afters.
Lisa lives in tropical North Queensland, Australia. She doesn’t know why, because she hates the heat, but she suspects she’s too lazy to move. She spends half her time slaving away as a government minion, and the other half plotting her escape.
She attended university at sixteen, not because she was a child prodigy or anything, but because of a mix-up between international school systems early in life. She studied History and English, neither of them very thoroughly.
She shares her house with too many cats, a green tree frog that swims in the toilet, and as many possums as can break in every night. This is not how she imagined life as a grown-up.
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5/1 Love Bytes
5/2 Joyfully Jay
5/3 Divine Magazine
I adore Jane Austen’s books, looking forward to reading this one.