It’s my pleasure to welcome C.P. Odom back to Diary of an Eccentric to celebrate his latest Pride and Prejudice variation, A Covenant of Marriage. Colin is here today to share his thoughts on a PBS special, “I Hate Jane Austen,” as well as an excerpt from the book. Please give him a warm welcome!
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This guest post doesn’t really have anything to do with my new Pride and Prejudice variation, A Covenant of Marriage, but some time back my wife saw a program listed on PBS called “I Hate Jane Austen.” She’s not a big Austen fan herself, but she’s managed to put up with my writing in this venue for about the last fifteen years, first in the fanfiction arena and then being formally published by Meryton Press. So she thought I might be interested and recorded it for me.
When she informed me, I wasn’t too interested. I know there are people who don’t like Austen, but I didn’t think I wanted to listen to the arguments of someone on that side this question. However, when my fourth novel, Perilous Siege was published, it touched a chord in my wife and she read the freebie paperback copy I received from my publisher. The result was quite surprising to me—she read it cover to cover in two days and absolutely loved it! It was the first time she’d read more than a few passages in any of my books, and she began to enthusiastically convince friends and family to read it also.
It caught me so off guard that when she resumed her efforts to get me to watch this PBS program, telling me it wasn’t a negative hit-piece that I relented. How could I resist her arguments after she enjoyed my latest novel so much?
- The blurb for the program says that British columnist Giles Coren meets academics and fans of author Jane Austen to see if they can change his mind regarding his dislike for the author. Hour long program.
- Coren opens by reviewing all the hype for Jane Austen, her fame, her reputation as one of the greatest writers in English literature, all the books, movies, variations, and shows, saying, “It’s not enough to like her. You’re expected to love her. And I just don’t. In fact, I hate Jane Austen.”
- I hadn’t heard of Giles Coren before this point, though my wife said she was a bit familiar with him because he’s a restaurant critic in addition to being a journalist and English literature graduate. He says that possibly the germ of his dislike of Austen came from having been forced to read her as a teenager, which I could sympathize with because I’d been forced to read Herbert Melville and Joseph Conrad among other so-called “giants of English literature” during my high school years.
- The first of the experts he consults is Professor John Mullen, who’s been teaching Austen for more than thirty years and luckily is a neighbor. Coren asks what he is missing about Jane Austen, and Mullen’s response is to say that most people like Charlotte Bronte and Joseph Conrad who didn’t like Austen didn’t “get” her humor. Mullen thinks that’s one of the most delightful things about her works, and staggers Coren when he goes on to put her on a par with Shakespeare.
- Coren asks incredulously, “You put her with Shakespeare?” and is flatly incredulous when Mullen responds, “Definitely. Definitely.” After some back and forth, Coren finally states that he thinks he’s unsavable, to which Mullen advises him to forget about all the other Austenesque paraphernalia and “go back to the books.”
- So Coren starts with Sense and Sensibility, Austen’s first novel, and speaks with best-selling author Joanna Trollope, who wrote a modern version of Austen’s novel. His first question is, “Why?”
- Trollope makes a number of interesting statements that I had not encountered in my research into Austen. First, she addresses Jane Austen’s fans, and points out that her earliest admirers were men—in fact, other male writers—while Austen is promoted in modern times as a girly and romantic thing rather than the tough and sinewy observer that she was. This point made me remember that such perceptiveness was one of the characteristics Austen imbibed into her Elizabeth Bennet in contrast to most of her feminine contemporaries.
- In the ensuing conversation, Coren betrays what he had missed in his reading of Sense and Sensibility when he states that Austen seems to be portraying Marianne and Elinor as two wildly divergent personalities while it appears to his 200-year later viewpoint as if both sisters were rather similar. Trollope’s explanation centers on the fact that Coren doesn’t really understand the meaning of “sensibility” in the context of Austen’s time. As she explains, sensibility was a philosophical fashion in Europe when Jane Austen was growing up. When Austen started this novel, she was a victim of sensibility, being passionately emotional like Marianne. Sixteen years later, when she finally finished, she had come to realize that being sensible like Elinor—logical and rational—was more correct.
- With respect to Coren’s objection to money being so prominent, she points out that the money was hugely important and not to be casually dismissed. “In Jane Austen’s day, if you didn’t fall into poverty. You fell to utter destitution, to rags, the gutter, and starvation.” Because Coren didn’t understand this, she charges that he thus thinks that Austen is for a fluffy kind of girl, which is not at all the case.
- With considerable reluctance, Coren attends a Regency ball in Bath in period costume. He’s willing enough to dress up, but he resolutely states that he does not do dancing. In addition, he inserts jibes at various points as he prepared for the ball, including “Jane Austen is an icon, and once a person becomes an icon, it becomes impossible to think critically about them” and “crucially she’s out of copyright.” But even with this jaundiced prejudice, Coren is surprised to enjoy himself at the ball. He even dances (which must have taken some practice, since he danced Austen’s favorite dance, a cotillion), and later says that he won’t be reading Austen more often but that he does look forward to the dancing which she enjoyed so much.
- The next topic is Pride and Prejudice, to which Professor John Mullen interjects that the best thing about this novel is Austen’s dialogue. He goes on to say that Austen wrote the best dialogue that’s ever been written in novels, a statement that Coren still has a hard time swallowing. It gets no easier when he looks into the Bollywood version of P&P, Bride and Prejudice, since the director of that movie, Gorinda Chudha, tells him he is misguided and he doesn’t understand what the story is about. When he says that, no matter what Austen tries to tell the reader, all her stories are about who they’re going to marry in the end. The director notes that Austen was instead highlighting the boundaries and constraints on women at that time. She says Austen was writing about what she knew, the cultural mores around her world, but she was constrained against explicitly making the point about how limited was the world for women at the time. Instead, she had to be deft and witty in how she said it. She says that Jane Austen is witty and she would pick up Austen and read her at any time, to which Coren responds slyly, “Better you than me.” Obviously, he hasn’t been convinced by the arguments made so far.
- Chudha’s comments are made more relevant to today’s world when he visits with the Jane Austen Society of Pakistan for tea and reading Austen. From their discussion, he realizes that many of the social problems facing women that he thought to be long solved were still relevant in that part of the world. All the women laugh at the passage where Mr. Bennet says he will never see his daughter again if she marries Mr. Collins, and one of the participants says that she has lived the Mr. Collins scene. Coren is flabbergasted to realize that the 200 year gap which he thinks makes Austen irrelevant does not exist for these women.
- Coren’s old friend, David Beddiel, writer and comedian, is a big Emma fan and is anxious to inform Coren of his mistakes. Coren believes that Austen only had six themes (in her six novels) and they’re all the same, while Beddiel believes she is more important than Shakespeare. The reason for that, Beddiel says, is that Austen single-handedly created the modern realist novel. Before Austen, there were novelists like Stern, Nash, and Smollet with their mad, direct to the reader explanations of everything that was going on. What Austen did was to let the reader see the world through her character (Emma, in Beddiel’s example), her thoughts and dialogue, and trust the reader to work out what was going on. Previous novelists didn’t know how to do that and just explicitly told the reader what was happening.
- As Coren goes on to relate his reactions to Austen’s other works, he adds to what he has already related about Austen, some of which were quite surprising to me. I thought I was relatively well-informed about Austen, but I was taken aback by Austen biographer Paula Byrne’s argument that Jane Austen was not at all the romantic writer I thought her to be, that she’s actually subverting it. Her arguments make sense, but I confess I had never comprehended it before. Even in my writing, I considered that I was writing romances. Oh, well. I studied engineering at college, not English Literature. I had thought I had the subject covered, but now I’m not so sure.
- By the end, Coren says he’s reached the final chapter and it was time to confess all to John Mullen, where his journey started. Mullen asks if Coren had talked to anyone who had changed his mind, and Coren says that several people had convinced him that Austen’s novels were not conventional romantic novels. In my own case, I hadn’t thought Austen’s works were conventional, but I had thought they were essentially romantic novels. So this program was educational to me.
- Coren also admits that he has come to believe that we could not have got from Shakespeare, whom he admires (as do I) to today’s writers without Austen in between. He also confesses that his skepticism has collapsed and that her novels are actually brilliant.
- This program may not be as informative to more perceptive readers than it was to me, but it set me back on my heels, jarring my confidence in my perceptions. I had previously considered her novels as brilliant but not in the way I do after watching “I Hate Jane Austen.” I recommend it wholeheartedly to serious readers, even those to whom it might not be as educational as it was to me.
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An excerpt from Chapter 8 of A Covenant of Marriage
She cried aloud with a great mourning cry for all that she had never known in this life and the agony of a bereavement unguessed till this moment.
— Marion Zimmer Bradley (1930–1999)
American science-fiction and fantasy author, The Mists of AvalonWednesday, December 23, 1812
Longbourn, HertfordshireThe coming of Christmas did not presage the usual joy of the season since the fate of Miss Lydia Bennet was still the preferred subject of conversation about the neighbourhood. Hardly any gathering among the better families passed without an exhaustive review of what was known or speculated. Of course, since the Bennet family was never included in any of these gatherings, they were not able to comment on the accuracy of those conversations.
The arrival of the Gardiners provided the only relief to the general gloom at Longbourn, and Mrs. Gardiner continued her usual practice of distributing presents to all the girls. It made it seem, just for a moment, like any other Christmas season, but her discussion of the fashions in vogue in London was not received with the same attention as in previous years, for fashion was not a topic much discussed at Longbourn.
At least, the subject drew little attention until Mrs. Gardiner happened to mention Mr. Darcy’s name in passing when discussing the declining interest of long sleeves among the fashionable ladies.
“Mr. Darcy?” Elizabeth said immediately. “How did you come to hear his opinion?”
“Why, did I not mention we have had occasion to meet Mr. Darcy?” Mrs. Gardiner said, trying to make her voice sound casual, for she had not intended to mention his name.
“No, you did not. Jane, did Aunt Gardiner talk of meeting Mr. Darcy in any of her letters to you?”
“I do not believe so. I cannot remember hearing of it until now.”
“Well, I thought I mentioned it,” Mrs. Gardiner said. “He dined once at our house, and he extended a like invitation before he returned to Derbyshire.”
“Mr. Darcy dined with our uncle?” Elizabeth said, almost angrily. “A man who makes a living in trade? I cannot believe it, Aunt. He would consider such an acquaintance a degradation. You must be making a joke of some kind.”
Mrs. Gardiner winced at the tone in Elizabeth’s voice. She was aware of her niece’s antipathy for the man, but her mood had become somewhat bitter. The rejection of her family by the neighbourhood seemed to affect her open and cheerful spirit more than it did her sisters.
“It is no jest,” Mrs. Gardiner said. “After what you related about that gentleman being so disagreeable, I was surprised to discover Mr. Darcy quite amiable. In light of the disappointments of the past year, I think you ought to give a person a chance to redeem himself.”
Elizabeth immediately realized her misstep and apologized. “You are right as usual. I suppose I am too disposed to be critical these days.”
Mrs. Gardiner was well aware of the gloom pervading Longbourn, which was not improved since her sister Bennet spent most days in her room, coming downstairs only rarely and then for not very long. “Well, we must invite you girls to visit us in town. A change in scenery might be just the thing to improve your outlook.”
All of the sisters except for Mary were exceedingly pleased by this proposal, and it was determined that Jane would visit first, followed by Elizabeth and then Kitty. With these decisions made, Mrs. Gardiner gathered her courage and departed upstairs to try to cheer her sister and persuade her to join the family.
The Gardiners stayed until a few days prior to the New Year before returning to town, taking Jane with them. Longbourn was a dreary place with Mr. Bennet ensconced in his library and his wife confining herself to her sitting room. No one visited save Mr. and Mrs. Philips.
With her aunt and uncle gone, taking her elder sister with her, Elizabeth returned to her long rambles when the weather allowed. She was not due to take Jane’s place until after the end of March, and she looked forward to it eagerly.
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Friday, April 23, 1813
Covent Garden, LondonElizabeth’s turn to visit her aunt and uncle began in April, and she felt her spirits lighten as soon as she departed the environs of Longbourn. Her aunt had planned a number of engagements especially suited to Elizabeth’s lively nature, and one of the most appealing was a visit to the theatre.
On the scheduled evening, Elizabeth looked about her curiously as she descended from her uncle’s carriage in front of the Theatre Royal. She had not had many chances to attend the theatre since her father was not fond of London, and tonight’s excursion had been highly anticipated. A steady stream of people converged towards the entrance, all dressed in the latest fashions, many of which must have cost incredible sums of money. She and her aunt discussed which finery was in fashion and which ladies—and gentlemen—seemed not to know whether they looked well in the attire they had chosen for the night or not.
After being shown to their seats, Elizabeth saw much to engage and amuse her among the audience. She saw ladies walk slowly to their seat, conscious that many eyes followed them and enjoying the fact. Many a note was being passed to and from ladies who had already seated themselves. It seemed as though the drama executed by the audience might surpass the play soon to be performed on stage!
Mrs. Gardiner pointed out the two royal boxes. “As you know, relations between the king and his son were strained for years before the king became so mad he had to be restrained. There was an altercation here one evening in the Lower Rotunda between the two of them, and the papers were full of the sordid details for days. After this public display, the theatre would direct the King to the King’s side and the Prince Regent to the Prince’s side. I believe this theatre is the only one with that distinction, if it is correct to label such foolishness a distinction.”
Elizabeth found the story amusing and was looking around when she noticed a pair of opera glasses focused on her. Equally startled and flattered, she looked closer and was stunned to recognize the distinctive Darcy jaw.
At first, it seemed as though he might be looking at her aunt or uncle since they knew each other socially, but a second look made it clear he was looking directly at her. Such a fascination seemed exceedingly strange. After her unrestrained rejection of him in Kent, she knew Darcy would take pains to avoid any meeting between the two of them. And with the scandal attached to her family because of Lydia’s elopement, his aversion to any encounter would be even greater.
Yet it was undeniable that he was looking at her, and now Elizabeth wondered whether they would meet again. It was impossible that any interest remained on his part—his letter had made his disinclination unquestionable—but if they did meet during her visit, how would he act? Would he be as proud and haughty as he had been in Hertfordshire and Rosings, or would his behaviour be more in keeping with what her aunt had described? She could hardly guess, and Elizabeth wondered whether she should talk to her aunt to make sure they did not accept any invitations from Mr. Darcy during her visit.
As she was watching, she saw Darcy lower his glasses, and he fixed her with a familiar, intent gaze—the one she had so often misinterpreted. He gave a slow, grave nod of recognition, and Elizabeth was on the verge of returning the acknowledgement when she noticed Darcy was not alone in his box. Beside him was a young girl who had to be his sister, and next to her sat Mr. Bingley.
Neither Miss Darcy nor Mr. Bingley seemed to have noticed the path of Darcy’s gaze because they were involved in what was clearly an amiable and amusing conversation. Elizabeth was shocked to her core to witness the exact scene predicted by Caroline Bingley in her cruel letter to Jane upon quitting Netherfield. Instead of returning Darcy’s nod as she had intended, Elizabeth turned in her seat to face forward, her cheeks flushed red with anger and despair at the final extinction of any hope for her sister and Mr. Bingley.
She had much to think on during the performance, and it quite ruined any possibility of enjoying the play. At the interval, she steadfastly refused even to glance over her shoulder in the direction of the Darcy party, but she could no longer contain her curiosity when the play ended. In the process of rising to her feet and retrieving her shawl, she was able to cast a casual glance at Darcy’s box and found it empty.
She did not see him as she made her way out of the theatre. It was obvious Darcy had made his departure early, and Elizabeth was certain he had done so purposely to avoid any possibility of encountering her.
She did not know whether to feel relief or disappointment.
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About A Covenant of Marriage
A Covenant of Marriage—legally binding, even for an unwilling bride!
Defined as a formal, solemn, and binding agreement or compact, a covenant is commonly used with regard to relations among nations or as part of a contract. But it can also apply to a marriage as Elizabeth Bennet learns when her father binds her in marriage to a man she dislikes. Against her protests that she cannot be bound against her will, the lady is informed that she lives under her father’s roof and, consequently, is under his control; she is a mere pawn in the proceedings.
With such an inauspicious beginning, how can two people so joined ever make a life together?
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About the Author
By training, I’m a retired engineer, born in Texas, raised in Oklahoma, and graduated from the University of Oklahoma. Sandwiched in there was a stint in the Marines, and I’ve lived in Arizona since 1977, working first for Motorola and then General Dynamics.
I raised two sons with my first wife, Margaret, before her untimely death from cancer, and my second wife, Jeanine, and I adopted two girls from China. The older of my daughters recently graduated with an engineering degree and is working in Phoenix, and the younger girl is heading toward a nursing degree.
I’ve always been a voracious reader and collector of books, and my favorite genres are science fiction, historical fiction, histories, and, in recent years, reading (and later writing) Jane Austen romantic fiction. This late-developing interest was indirectly stimulated when I read my late wife’s beloved Jane Austen books after her passing. One thing led to another, and I now have four novels published: A Most Civil Proposal (2013), Consequences (2014), Pride, Prejudice, and Secrets (2015), and Perilous Siege (2019). Two of my books are now audiobooks, Most Civil Proposal and Pride, Prejudice, and Secrets.
I retired from engineering in 2011, but I still live in Arizona with my family, a pair of dogs (one of which is stubbornly untrainable), and a pair of rather strange cats. My hobbies are reading, woodworking, and watching college football and LPGA golf (the girls are much nicer than the guys, as well as being fiendishly good putters). Lately I’ve reverted back to my younger years and have taken up building plastic model aircraft and ships (when I can find the time).
Connect with C.P. Odom on Facebook | Amazon Author Page | Goodreads | Meryton Press
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Giveaway
Meryton Press is generously offering 8 ebook copies of A Covenant of Marriage as part of the blog tour. You must enter through this Rafflecopter link. Good luck!
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Thank you, Colin, for being my guest today, and congratulations on your new release!
I never heard of the program before but it definitely sound like one to check out.
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I’m not sure how to find it either. It was listed on my PBS channel, and I recorded it to my DVR. I just did a search to see if it could be purchased anywhere, but I drew a blank. Sorry.
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What you miss when you don’t watch television (actually not very much)
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If I watched very much TV, I’d have NO time to write! There’s little enough as it is–and I thought before I retired that I’d have all the time in the world!
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I have read many of this author’s books and look forward to reading this one. Thanks for a chance to win.
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Thanks for your interest, Sheila! Good luck!
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I would like to know if that program is available to watch. Sounds interesting.
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Like I said above, it doesn’t look like it’s available for purchase. All I can think of is to contact your local PBS station and ask them. I’m sorry to have whetted your curiosity about something that’s not available. But if you do stumble across it sometime, give it a watch. I learned a few things.
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I enjoyed your post and the excerpt, Colin. I had never heard of the TV program before, though the title “I Hate Jane Austen” was certainly chosen to garner attention. 🙂
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It got my wife’s attention and, after my Sweetie worked her magic on me, it got mine too. Glad you enjoyed the excerpt.
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Hi! At one point last month you said you might be able to have this book on sale on the Canadian Amazon.ca. Is that still looking feasible?
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I think so, Beatrice, but I wonder if that was someone else who made the comment about Canadian Amazon. I’m really surprised to hear that it might take special care to get to our neighbors to the north.
P.S. I just went to amazon.ca and ACOM was there! Thanks for your interest!
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Interesting comments Colin. Congratulations on another release. I read it a few years ago and I thought it was realistic. Looking forward to reading it again.
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Thanks, Kate. I worked with my editor to make a bunch of changes in it while getting it ready for publication. It should read easier and there are a some twists and turns that are new. Certain parts of it are a bit gritty, since that was a different time in the Regency, but women didn’t have the same rights or even expectations that are possible today. But my paramount thinking was that Darcy’s love of Elizabeth would make things right in the end, no matter how difficult it would be to take a contract of marriage to her father instead of her. That was going to inflame her anger, even back then, when fathers could still command their daughters to marry — hence, arranged marriages, which I’ve talked about in previous blog stops. They were getting much scarcer in the Regency for the gentry, but they hadn’t disappeared completely.
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Thank you for the excerpt. I hope GD and CB are just close acquaintances. I prefer Cb to end up with JB. Looking forward to reading this new P & P variation. Thank you for the chance to win a copy.
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Thanks for your interest, Buturot, but the lion’s share of the novel takes place four years after the events of P&P. By this time, Bingley is already married and has a son. You wouldn’t want Jane to be a spinster, would you?
🙂
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I like this recap of this program about “not hating” Jane Austen. The excerpt is intriguing too
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I just wish it were more available, dang it! Thanks for your interest.
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Thanks for hosting me on your blog, Anna. Sorry about the delay, but I’m having trouble with my computer for the past few days. It started when I incautiously accepted the latest updates from Microsoft and from Firefox, and I started having problems making comments. It took several tries to get comments made for most readers, but the last two attempts, to Buturot and sagustocox, never showed up. I’m going to do a system shutdown and try again. But I really appreciate your work in maintaining such a blog.
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My pleasure! I’m sorry you were having trouble. It does look like those comments came through, though.
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Thanks for sharing about that program!
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And thanks for stopping by Anna’s blog for A Covenant of Marriage.
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Now I have to look for the I hate Austen show, it sounds interesting. I’ve got all the C P Odom books already, so, sooner or later I’ll pock this one up. Thanks for the great post
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Good luck with finding it! I guess it was a one-off, as the British say, and that’s why it doesn’t seem to be available to watch. However, I did find a 30-second preview of the program on Youtube.
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I’ve never heard of the program. I will definitely look out for it. Loved the excerpt from the book! Good luck with it.
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Thanks, Lucy!
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This program sounds amazing! Thanks for writing about it. I loved the excerpt too–fingers crossed for the giveaway!
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Thanks for stopping by, and good luck with the giveaway!
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Thank you for an informative post. I am very intrigued by the excerpt and look forward to reading your work Thank you for the opportunity to win this book.
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I’m pleased that you found my post informative, and I hope you enjoy the book when you read it. Cheers!
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