Regan Walker's Best of the Regency with Regina Jeffers

My guest today is Regina Jeffers, an award-winning author of historical Regencies as well as cozy mysteries and Austenesque sequels and retellings. She has worn many hats over her lifetime: daughter, student, military brat, wife, mother, grandmother, teacher, tax preparer, journalist, choreographer, Broadway dancer, theatre director, history buff, grant writer, media literacy consultant, and author.

Jeffers lives outside Charlotte, North Carolina where she writes novels that take the ordinary and adds a bit of mayhem.

Today Regina is sharing with us a Georgian romance set on the American frontier after the Revolutionary War.  

She is offering 3 copies of the ebook so be sure and leave your email with your comment.

 

From Regina…

While I admit many of my 27 novels fall under the big “umbrella” of Regencies, in my short seven years of writing fiction, I have written a variety of genres/settings: retellings, sequels, Regencies, paranormal, cozy mysteries, vagaries, contemporaries, and inspirationals.

The Road to Understanding is set upon the Great Valley Road between what is current day Roanoke, Virginia, and Johnson City, Tennessee. The time is 1787, and the five counties that now form part of eastern Tennessee had joined together as a new state: the state of Franklin, named after Benjamin Franklin. Early reviews say…

  “… the chemistry between our hero and heroine was such that this reader felt like I was watching a John Wayne/Maureen O'Hara flick. The dialogue was so sharp and the misunderstandings proved quite diverting and frustrating at the same time.”

The characters are NOT Austen’s most famous couple placed in a new setting, but you will recognize the pair, nonetheless. I am one who believes that although Austen writes memorable characters, her plots are masterful and easily translated into new situations. For example, Pride and Prejudice can be found in Bridget Jones’s Diary, You’ve Got Mail, North and South (from Gaskell), Bride and Prejudice, and any other book or film featuring an uptight censorious man and a “free spirited,” independent female. So, why not an American version of my favorite book?

The Great Valley Road began as a buffalo trail, used later by Indians as the Great Warrior Path from New York to the Carolinas. At Salisbury, North Carolina, it joined what was known as the Great Trading Path. The road held many names. As it passed through the Shenandoah Valley, it came to be called both the Great Valley Road and the Shenandoah Valley Road. The connection called the Philadelphia Wagon Road laced its way through Pennsylvania. This portion was also referred to as the Lancaster Pike, and its 63 miles was the most heavily traveled portion of the entire road. The section of the Great Valley Road near Fincastle (Virginia) and present-day Roanoke, Virginia, was known locally as the Harshbarger Road. The southwestern end of the road at Big Lick (Roanoke) was extended. Travelers could continue south into North Carolina or head southwest into eastern Tennessee. 

 In August 1784, four counties of western North Carolina declared their independence and formed the state of Franklin. In April of that same year, North Carolina had ceded the land between the Allegheny Mountains and the Mississippi River to the U. S. Congress. The settlers in the area worried that Congress would sell the territory to France or Spain to pay off war debts. As a result, North Carolina retracted its cession and organized a “governing” body for the territory. Simultaneously, the counties petitioned Congress to form a separate state of “Frankland.” The majority of the states agreed, but the proposition did not receive a 2/3 majority required by Congress. 

 

Franklin survived but four years for it could never achieve a strong enough economy. John Sevier, its governor, approached the Spanish for aid. North Carolina feared the Spanish claim to land within its control and had Sevier arrested. The territory returned to North Carolina’s protection in 1788 because the Cherokee, Chickamauga, and Chickasaw Indians increased their attacks in the area.

 

The Road to Understanding: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary

DARIUS FITZWILLIAM’s life is planned down to who he will marry and where he will live, but life has a way of saying, “You don’t get to choose.” When his marriage to his long-time betrothed Caroline Brad

ford falls through, Darius is forced to take a step back and to look upon a woman who enflames his blood with desire, but also engenders disbelief. Eliza Harris is everything that Darius never realized he wanted.

ELIZA HARRIS is accustomed to doing as she pleases. Yet, despite being infuriated by his authoritative manner, when she meets the staunchly disciplined Captain Fitzwilliam, she wishes for more. She instinctively knows he is “home,” but Eliza possesses no skills in achieving her aspirations.

Plagued with misunderstandings, manipulations, and peril upon the Great Valley Road between eastern Virginia and western Tennessee in the years following the Revolutionary War, Darius and Eliza claim a strong allegiance before love finds its way into their hearts.

This is a faith-based tale based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. 

Buy the book on Amazon, Kobo and Nook and keep up with Regina on her Website, Facebook and her blog.