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    The Earl and the Austenite
    The Earl and the Austenite
    The Earl and the Austenite
    Ebook84 pages1 hour

    The Earl and the Austenite

    By Miranda Markwell

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Josie's romantic relationships seem to always follow the same storyline: The guy is initially interested in her quirky, literary sensibilities, but right when things start to get serious with a gentleman caller, Josie has to take the risk of disclosing her nerdiest secret: She's a Regency era reenactor, complete with the gowns, the country dancing, the teatime spectacle, and the Complete Works of Jane Austen lovingly displayed on her mantelpiece. Once they see her spare room — dedicated entirely to sewing dresses modeled after Austen's heroines — they inevitably stop texting back.

    But when Josie befriends an awkward history professor who joins her reenactors' group to bolster his own research on the Napoleonic Wars, she starts to wonder why it is that Sam seems to be so natural at playing the part of the Regency gentleman. (It could just be his British accent.) Her suspicions only increase when Sam offers to use a "research grant" to bring a few friends on a trip to an historic estate in the English countryside. But Josie can't get over how friendly everyone who works at the estate seems to be with Sam, as if they've known him all his life.

    What secret is he hiding from her? And why does he seem so unbothered by her own Austen-loving quirks? Is it possible that Josie's life-long fascination with Austen's stories of human frailty and affection have prepared her to fall in love with… an earl?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBryant Street Shorts
    Release dateJul 14, 2020
    ISBN9781094412139

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    Reviews for The Earl and the Austenite

    3.5/5

    34 ratings5 reviews

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    • 1/5
      Awkward, not well written. The story doesn't flow. Waste of time.
    • 5/5
      Better than any Hallmark movie! Another great read. I sense a little bit of the author’s personality in each of her main characters.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      What a lovely blend of regency and contemporary romance all in one!

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This is SO GOOD. All of the yearning of a traditional historical romance but with the quick communication and comfort of the modern rom-com. The characters are so sweet, fun, and dreamy! Plus, a bearded dragon.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I liked this but wanted more. A full novel would allow the story to become full or Ed instead of an express version of events until the end. It would be more natural and Sam could offer Josie work to use the property for regency events.

      Again, maxim of “show don't tell” applies but the short format hardly helps with that. I think I will give a full novel a go by this author because I love the ideas just not the execution.

    Book preview

    The Earl and the Austenite - Miranda Markwell

    The Earl and the Austenite

    By all accounts, Josie looked like she lived a perfectly normal life. She worked a steady day job as a tour guide at her city’s botanical garden, and to make extra money over the holidays, she would often take her type-A, hyper-focused personality to the local department store to do a little artisan gift-wrapping. She lived alone in her apartment with her bearded dragon Jake and prided herself on having built a life for herself that didn’t include a great deal of fanfare or drama. She liked things to be precise, and she especially liked for her life to have an air of precision that never allowed her to stumble upon any unwanted surprises. In short, Josie liked everything to be as uncomplicated as possible.

    Josie didn’t like surprises in her day-to-day life, but she often worried that some of her wilder obsessions and secrets would certainly surprise others. Her chief secret was something she guarded closely, and she had learned from experience to never reveal it unless she wanted a friendship or romantic relationship to suddenly go radio silent. Normal people can only handle so much, she reasoned, and adulthood had taught Josie that she was perhaps not as normal as she thought she was. And so, Josie tried to be as normal as possible in all other aspects of her life (aside from her great secret).

    The acquisition of Jake, for instance, was an example of her desire to participate in the world at large (i.e., normal people had pets) while still maintaining her distance from anything unseemly. Bearded dragons require a thorough setup for their habitat, but they do not need a great deal of daily attention, and their routines are simple and predictable. Jake received his regular portion of freeze-dried crickets each day and rarely wandered from the bathing rock that was carefully positioned under his heat lamp. Jake was quiet, interesting to look at, didn’t make sudden movements, and seemed pleased with Josie’s company.

    She did many other normal things, too, like go on coffee dates with friends, pay her bills on time, purchase life insurance, take her car to be detailed regularly, and drink no more than two strong cups of coffee per day. She dressed unassumingly, had a pleasant physical appearance, and was a stunningly good conversationalist when given the opportunity. All of these were tricks she had learned to hide the fact that in the (locked) spare room of her apartment, her mortifying secret was stored away with the utmost level of discretion.

    Jake’s terrarium was positioned in a corner of Josie’s living room, and the still-as-a-statue Jake was the subject of Josie’s gaze on this particular Sunday morning. She always rose promptly at 6:30 a.m., regardless of the day of the week or if she had an overnight guest, and so this daily communion with Jake was a normal activity for Josie. Jake calmed her down, especially the fact that he did basically nothing except lie on his belly and pretend to be a dinosaur. He was just weird enough to be considered a quirky pet for Josie (a trait she learned was often attractive to guys), but not giant python weird. It was a good balance for her performance of normalcy.

    Last night’s experience, though, made Josie question how long she could keep up the act of her normalcy. She didn’t frequently have overnight guests in her apartment (in fact, she usually proposed that they go to his place), but the still-sleeping presence of the beautiful Travis in her bedroom made her wonder how long she could keep up the compartmentalization of her life.

    Josie did not have a very long list of former lovers, but Travis was absolutely the most dashing, successful, and aristocratic of all the men with whom she had ever shared a romantic evening. They had met at a fancy event at the botanical garden that his company was sponsoring. Josie had picked up an extra shift as a server for the evening and was surprised that the company’s CEO took an interest in her beyond the massive tray of tiny crab cakes that she hauled around all evening. He had proved himself to be a down-to-earth rich guy (at least, he was rich in Josie’s eyes). Josie felt swept away by his apparent lack of concern that she a) did not come from money, b) had remoulade all over her shirt from serving drunk partygoers all evening, and c) did not know the first thing about how a data company (whatever that means?) makes money. He had charmed her by claiming to want to escape the drudgery of his boring colleagues, and what began as a fling with a waitress blossomed into something much more interesting.

    Josie liked Travis — she really liked Travis, actually. She thought that he was only looking for a one-night fling (a notion which she was completely unopposed to), but he had spent every other night at her apartment for the past three weeks. And she had had her fair share of evenings at his (much fancier) apartment downtown. His charm made it so easy for them to have long, winding conversations deep into the night. He would pick her up and take her to a new restaurant with very expensive cocktails made with bougie ingredients like apple cider vinegar or activated charcoal; they would spend the whole meal talking; they would go back to one of their respective apartments, talk some more, and then fall asleep in one another’s arms. It was lovely, exciting, and new. Even Josie, who was often apprehensive of surprises that upset her perfectly planned routine, found herself reveling in the excitement of this new relationship with Travis.

    Travis even liked Jake! On his first night at Josie’s apartment, he had confidently scooped Jake up into his arms and rattled off trivia about bearded dragons that even Josie didn’t know. He stroked the scaly skin under Jake’s chin and laughed excitedly when Jake opened his mouth wide with pleasure (which is apparently what bearded dragons do when they are happy).

    For Josie, one of the most attractive things about Travis was that he reminded her of the heroes that filled the pages of her favorite Jane

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