Thursday, August 9, 2012

DEAR JANE

Just by accident I caught the second half of a documentary on Jane Austen. The show centered around how she is celebrated in England today. There is one day (her birthday?) where lots of people, men and women, dress up in Georgian costume and parade around. It was lovely to see the cotumes and to know that I am not alone in my love for her writing. 

That show started a craving in me to reread Mansfield Park. So I started last night. It is always an adjustment to read something written over 100 years ago, but once I get into the rhythm of it, I find I can read pretty fast. Mansfield Park is not my favorite of Jane's novels, Pride and Prejudice will steadfastly remain my all time beloved book, but I thought instead of reading that one for the tenth time, I should try again to get through MP.

Sigh, the manner of speech, the profuse politleness, interesting pursuits of country life absolulty capture me. And of course, Jane always weaves in one or two ridiculous characters to make the stories real.

So entranced by Jane's writing, once I even wrote out the first chapter of Pride and Prejudice with pen and ink on parchment, just to have a feel of what it might have been like to be like her. To walk in her "slippers." 

I guess you could say I am an obsessed Anglophile with Jane Austen overtones :)

Sunday, August 5, 2012

TOP TEN BRITISH MOVIE LIST

Top Ten British Movie List

1. Pride and Prejudice (BBC version)

2. North and South

3. Wives and Daughters

4. Pirates of the Caribbean series

5. King Arthur

6. Persuasion (BBC version)

7. Gosford Park

8. Sense and Sensibility (Emma Thompson version)

9. Howard's End

10. Under the Greenwood Tree

Friday, July 27, 2012

FREE BOOK!

Dear British Missives reader, you are getting the first peek at my new book cover for the second book in the British Missive series called, Forever and a Day...
This book comes out Sept 1. and I am so excited that,
 I am giving away for free the first book in the series, Blue Africa...
So for the next 5 days,
BLUE AFRICA WILL BE A FREE DOWNLOAD, STARTING JULY 28TH

Go to
and type in Blue Africa and enjoy a book on me!

Therese Stenzel

To love at all is to be vulnerable.

Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, --safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable . . . . The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers. . . .of love. . .is Hell.

-C. S. Lewis 1898-1963

Monday, July 9, 2012

A Message From Jane

A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.
Jane Austen

Top 100 Romance Novels of the 20th Century


Top 100 Romance Novels of The 20th Century

by the readers of The Romance Reader. Here are the first 20:

1. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

2. Dream Man by Linda Howard

3. It Had to Be You by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

4. McKenzie’s Mountain by Linda Howard

5. Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Devereaux

6. Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale

7. The Bride by Julie Garwood

8. Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase

9. Nobody’s Baby But Mine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

10. Morning Glory by LaVyrle Spencer

11. Whitney, My Love by Judith McNaught

12. Naked in Death by J. D. Robb

13. Shanna by Kathleen Woodiwiss

14. Honor’s Splendor by Julie Garwood

15. Paradise by Judith McNaught

16. Almost Heaven by Judith McNaught

17. Heaven, Texas by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

18. The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss

19. Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon

20. Born in Fire by Nora Roberts