I confess; I wrote it.

Then, I spent two years trying to get it published. I was told it was well written, but people don't buy books about Austen's minor characters. Well, why not? I wanted to know what happened to Charlotte Lucas after she married the odious Mr. Collins. I wanted her to have a romance. I thought others might care about her too. And now that I've discovered so much diverse fanfic on the web, I know that Austen fans love all her characters and want to read and write about them.

So here is my offering:

About Charlotte Collins
When Charlotte Lucas married Mr. Collins in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, she believed herself to be fortunate indeed. Her nuptials gained her a comfortable home and financial security. If she acquired these things at the expense of true love, it did not matter one whit. To Charlotte, love in marriage was nothing more than a pleasant coincidence.

As the years of her marriage dragged by, Charlotte began to question her idea of love as she suffered continual embarrassment at her husband's simpering and fawning manners. When Mr. Collins dies, finally relieving everyone of his tedious conversation, she must work feverishly to secure her income and home. She gives no further thought to the prospect of love until her flighty sister Maria begs her to act as her chaperone in place of their ailing parents. Hoping to prevent Maria from also entering an unhappy union, Charlotte agrees, and they are quickly thrust into a world of country dances, dinner parties, and marriageable gentlemen.

But when an unprincipled gentleman compromises Charlotte's reputation, her romantic thoughts disappear at the possibility of losing her independence. As she struggles to extricate herself from her slander, her situation reveals both the nature of each gentleman and of true love.

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Blurb
With Charlotte Collins, Jennifer Becton mines the rich vein of literary characters who've vanished into the mists of history. Her newly widowed Charlotte is an expert in social nuance, but does she know her own heart as well? Charming, witty, and grounded in period detail, Becton's debut novel will make Jane Austen fans rejoice. --Beverle Graves Myers, author of Her Deadly Mischief

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Stats and Random Info

•Paperback is 258 pages.
•Word count is approximately 77,000.
•Paperback consistently in the top 25 on the Amazon Women's Fiction list.
•If 1,000 copies are sold, thus proving a market for Austen's minor characters, Charlotte Collins will be picked up by a major publisher.
•The ebook version is only $2.99 and the paperback is $9.99. (Paper is expensive.)

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Thank you all for reading about Charlotte. I've just started posting some of my stories around the web, and I'll be adding them here soon. If you'd like to read one now, "Maria's Romance" is on my website: http://www.jenniferbecton.com.

Author of Charlotte Collins: A Continuation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.
Available at Amazon.com, BN.com, and Smashwords.com.