Monica Fairview, Author

One could call 1814 the Year of the Hat. The fashionable young lady of the time was quite spoilt for choices, some of them quite extreme. There was always the turban, which was still in, though in lighter materials. But if you really wanted to be all the rage, then you had to be aware of two things. The first is that height was important – some of the hats could easily compete with a man’s top hat for height. The second was that elaborate trimmings were essential. If you were able to combine flowers with lace with different coloured silk, then you could count yourself successful.  (Image from Clarmont College Collection) Which leaves young ladies such as Georgiana Darcy with a difficult choice. Should she be fashionable, or should she not? Her cousin Clarissa advocates that she needs to take more risks with her outfits, and convinces her to buy a rather conspicuous hat. But is it the right choice? The following excerpt from The Darcy Cousin...

I can't believe there are only twelve days left for The Darcy Cousins to come out. And of course it's always thrilling to start reading the reviews and see all the different perspectives people bring to your writing. I've already had two reviews that I enjoyed very much -- Laurel Ann's over in Austenprose , and Jean Wan's on All About Romance .   Meanwhile, I've been having a great time reading Jane Austen's  Sanditon  with the group read, and following the guest posts on Austenprose. I've certainly learned a lot about the fashionable resorts of the time, what ladies wear to promenade, and Jane Austen's attitude towards the world of taking the waters. I particularly enjoyed learning that Colin Firth's modesty in Pride and Prejudice's wet shirt scene was actually historically inaccurate, since males at the time generally bathed nude in lakes and rivers. Well, the filmakers missed their chance...

My attention was captured today by the picture on the left, especially because I loved the caption The Guardian attached to it: ‘This brave creature made a one-swan sitdown protest in the middle of Kew bridge, south-west London, causing traffic chaos for over an hour before it remembered that is was mute and therefore incapable of communicating its demands or having them met. Whereupon it flew gracefully away. And the Daily Mail Scoffs: As excuses go, it sounds unlikely - 'Sorry I'm late, I got held up by a swan'. The picture resonated with me in several ways. The first was that it reminded me the flock of geese that impeded Caroline Bingley on her way to Pemberley in The Other Mr Darcy . She certainly had the excuse: ‘Sorry I’m late, I got held up by a flock of geese’. It also resonated with my new novel, The Darcy Cousins , in which swans are featured as a centerpiece -- so to speak. Both editions of my novels have swans on the cover, a reference to a boating trip ...