The Time Baroness

Hey Georgina, once in a while I read something that lingers like a delicate perfume hours after having explored it.
This is one such time. I popped in to read and comment to honor the promise made to do so for anyone that supported Nick Poole's Mirror in The Sky this month. I must thank him later, I may have missed this marvelous journey.

Your dedication to detail is astounding and outstanding. The characterizations are warm and intensely visual. Even to Cassandra's concern that she may have contributed to a hairstyle trend that wouldn't have normally transpired.

The superlatives have all been used.

I love it. I read it, I backed it.
Suzannah Burke
Dudes Down Under.

THE TIME BARONESS:

Gina,

What an absolutely lovely, unique premise, fraught with possible pitfalls and intrigue. Anything about Jane Austin these days is bound to draw a huge audience, and the time travel aspect adds another dimension to it. Crisp, lively dialogue keeps the action moving forward and the characterisation is excellent.

A compelling story that I predict will do very well in the charts.

Backed with pleasure,
Sheila (Pinpoint)

This book begs to become a screenplay. Drew Barrymore... do you see this? Backed with pleasure.
Barbara Silkstone The Secret Diary of Alice in Wonderland, Age 42 and Three-Quarters

Georgina:

What an original premise for a novel about time travel. It is obvious you have spent a great deal of time researching Jane Austen's era, and it shows. You blended the past with the future and ended up with a book to be proud of. I would have this beside my Austen novels at home.

Job well done.

Backed with pleasure,

Candace Bowen Early (A Knight of Silence)

Georgina, this is great stuff. I like the way you start out, not giving us an info dump like so many others do, but by showing us a scene between a mother and her son. Casual conversation about something interesting that gradually leads us to what is going on. Beautifully done and you have a premise with promise. Thank you for sharing, and I’ve shelved this, of course, for you. -- Dave

I realize you're not hanging around here much but wanted to add a late voice to the chorus of admirers. I love your story and can think of several friends that would lap it up once published! Excellent work.

---Mary
The Qualities of Wood

Okay, so this is different! I think the first thing that comes across is that you can write...you don't simply tell a story, you know how to put it together. Then there's that story...kind of caught me off guard at first but it was easy to get wrapped up in this.

Good read!

Lockjaw

The Time Baroness

Wow, what a fantastic shifting timeline this is so special in that it talks about the shift, yet the narrative stays in the era where the story is being told – very, very good!!
You have a very credible character in Cassandra and a great way with dialogue that transposes itself also in time – This is so well written!

Georgina -

Fascinating premise, payed off with superb writing. I'm not much of a fan of sci-fi, but I truly enjoyed what I read of BARONESS.

Backed.

Best of luck to you here, and if you have a chance, could you please take a look at my book?

Thanks.

- Jeff Lee
THE LADIES TEMPERANCE CLUB'S FAREWELL TOUR

Hi Georgina
A great plot with lots of action. Time travel is quite hard to pull off, but I think you've done it well. You seem to have done your research as well. Best of luck with this.
Backed
DP Walker
Five Dares

This is wonderful and unique, intriguing from the start and it's definitely got me hooked!

Backed
Abi xxx

Elegant writing style. Fascinating story . I loved it . Backed.

Thanks for your story, Georgina. Hope you'll read mine, He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not & my unedited version, Tell Me True Love Stories of He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not.
Please back my TWO books.Thanks, Susie :)

What a fantastic idea you have created. As a Jane Austen fan, I'm sometimes a little worried about author's who abuse her name, but this is fantastic! She would approve, I'm sure.

I wish you all the success with getting this noticed, it will be well deserved!

If you could take a look at my book it would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks :)

Time travel is always an interesting topic. It's really interesting here because Cassandra and her yearning for a less stressful life is so easy to like. Your writing styel is good. Like the way you describe 1820 - just enough detail so we can appreciate the differences, not so much it bogs down the story. Well done. Burgio (Grain of Salt).

Thoroughly enjoyed. I wish the best of luck with it. kind regards pinkcoffee 'In The Moment'

Thoroughly enjoyed. I wish the best of luck with it. kind regards pinkcoffee 'In The Moment'

Georgina, much to admire here: great premise, catchy title, fine prose, and very humane and likeable characters.
on my shelf.
best wishes with this work. andy

This does a good job of getting your book off to a good start. It is also an interesting idea.

I didn't see any real problems with your prose, and your story telling is economical.

All in all, a good read. Well done!

How many of us have wished we could do this! Cassandra is a sparky MC and quickly engages the reader's attention and sympathy. The settings are very good, (love the soup thing at the start!) Good read Jim Darcy (no relation, I'm afraid) Serpent's Blood

The Time Baroness:

The italicised Prologue captures, I think, the suffocating pettiness of prestige - particularly at the dinner table, and I felt for Cassie as she has to endure all the pretense.
The crisp dialogue, mirroring the intimacy of son and mother, neatly and succinctly carries your storyline and leaves the reader in no doubt that time travel is on the agenda, the more fascinating because Cassie is to experience Hampshire, presumably even Alton itself, which would have still resonated powerfully amongst villagers whose path Jane Austen and her talent graced.
The scope this provides for taking the reader into a real time/on stage experience of the period so soon after Austen's death in 1817 is exciting, and balanced by the trauma, for Cassie and son, of James' imprisonment.
Bearing in mind the time travel; the help which comes from a 'surprising source' will be an enigma, over which I will want to puzzle until revealed - in romance. Backed
Ray
(A Child from the Wishing Well)

As promised, I am back for a second peak. You have managed this very well. The first question that came to my mind as I read this was how your time traveller would manage the practicalities. Most people on here use such questions as a hook to keep one reading further. That doesn't work for me. What you did was to anticipate my need, as a reader, for such details to be properly handled by having Jacob sent sent first with gold coins. Well done.

That tells me you don't write for yourself, and to hell with the reader, as most people do. Your style is appropriate to the period as well. Good on ya. Glad I backed it, even if it was somewhat random. You will find there are times when you must take radical action to get yourself off a very slippery slope.

I was sold when I read your pitch. You've obviously put a lot of thought into this. I think it is going to make a lot of female readers quite happy.
One nit...in the first chapter, her son says, Mom, you just used a contraction...and she says thank you...so you've established the importance of trying to talk like the times of the 1820's but then in the next paragraph she promptly uses another contraction. Wasn't in stead of was not. Maybe that was intentional to show us that she was going to be a bumble butt..or was it an accident?
Best of luck,
Dawn De Remer

Backed

shah

Hello Georgina,
This is delicious, the premise is a wonderful idea. It has a bit of a 'Back to the Future' feel about it but updated and from the perspective of a modern woman. Setting the novel in the future adds extra interest (I liked the beauty innovations - a herbal supplement that prevents graying hair, imagine!) and credibility with respec to the time-travelling. I very much enjoyed the adaptations the team had to make to ensure Cassandra and Jake fit in at their destination, such as Jake changing his name to avoid anti-semitic prejudices. It is all very well thought out/researched. There were also some lovely moments of humour arising from this, such as the 'Soothing Tablets for Ladies'!

I read two chapters but only because of time limitations - I could easily have read on. I found Merriweather quite a battleaxe, she reminded me of Mrs Danvers in 'Rebecca' but I was hopefully she might soften a bit. Perhaps not though.

I can't think of any suggestions - if I had to come up with something, some of the paragraphs are quite long and could perhaps be split.

Great story, wonderfully original and well-written.

Very best of luck with it,

Amelia (Everything You Ever Wanted)

Time travel and a period romance are an inviting combination and your pitches did a splendid job in drawing me in. Great cover too.
I've read four chapters, enriched on every page with your superlative prose. I'm impressed with the depth of your research into the period, even more so with the adroit manner in which you use the language of your characters to extend the sense of the era in which Cassandra finds herself. Technically adept I'd expected the narrative to be flawless and so it proved. The final word of chapter 4 - should it be 'novels' rather than novel? I'm hesitating to ask.
This is excellent. Backed with admiration.
Jared.
Mummy's Boy.

Hi,

I have backed you book because I found it eminently readable
and have to cover 25 books a day just to keep my place on here.
If you would like a more specific comment please return the favor.
Good luck with it.

Tim Chambers
Moonbeam Highway: With Apologies to Miguel de Cervantes.

This book begs to become a screenplay. Drew Barrymore... do you see this? Backed with pleasure.
Barbara Silkstone The Secret Diary of Alice in Wonderland, Age 42 and Three-Quarters

Hey Georgina, once in a while I read something that lingers like a delicate perfume hours after having explored it.
This is one such time. I popped in to read and comment to honor the promise made to do so for anyone that supported Nick Poole's Mirror in The Sky this month. I must thank him later, I may have missed this marvelous journey.

Your dedication to detail is astounding and outstanding. The characterizations are warm and intensely visual. Even to Cassandra's concern that she may have contributed to a hairstyle trend that wouldn't have normally transpired.

The superlatives have all been used.

I love it. I read it, I backed it.
Suzannah Burke
Dudes Down Under.

Georgina:

What an original premise for a novel about time travel. It is obvious you have spent a great deal of time researching Jane Austen's era, and it shows. You blended the past with the future and ended up with a book to be proud of. I would have this beside my Austen novels at home.

Job well done.

Backed with pleasure,

Candace Bowen Early (A Knight of Silence)

THE TIME BARONESS:

Gina,

What an absolutely lovely, unique premise, fraught with possible pitfalls and intrigue. Anything about Jane Austin these days is bound to draw a huge audience, and the time travel aspect adds another dimension to it. Crisp, lively dialogue keeps the action moving forward and the characterisation is excellent.

A compelling story that I predict will do very well in the charts.

Backed with pleasure,
Sheila (Pinpoint)

Now I wouldn't have thought mixing Jane Austen with Sci-fi would work, but it obviously does. You've mixed past and future and made a hell of a good job of it as far as I can tell. Considering I am not your target audience, you kept my interest and would have happily read on.
Best wishes
Sue
A Boy Called George

Historical Romance, is not my thing, but I did see quality writing.
Good luck, backed.
MickR - The NIghtcrawler

Georgina, this is an interesting concept, and it is well written. The story is fluent and the dialogue well done. Kind of cool envisioning what preparations might be involved when going back in time, and what takes place once one arrives there. Only nits I can see are: 1 -- There are some superfluous words you can eliminate to really make this shine. 2 -- The second (very long) chapter should be halved so as not to dissuade readers. Best of luck! Backed.
Thomas J Winton
(Beyond Nostalgia)

Interesting concept - deliberately going back in time to study the period. I like it. I also like the opening prologue and opening chapter. I would have liked to read more, but am overwhelmed by the number of reads on this site. I'm making a note to come back to this book when/if I have more time. Happy to back this book.

Dear Georgina Young-Ellis,

Thank you for sharing your story with us. You have a fascinating premise in that many love Jane Austen’s works and would likewise love to meet her. That you follow that up with the stigma of adultery and raising up a son who lands in London prison makes the story exceptional. I skipped to chapter seven to cover less-traveled ground and was rewarded by a scene involving Cassandra not feeling emotionally strong enough to marry Johnston. I’m wondering if “moving to America” is metaphorical for “returning to the present”. I like how you throw the scientist, Cassandra, out of her element into a world where a glance can cause scandal. As a vegan myself, I’m partial to your discussion that springs off hunting for sport, but this may go a bit far for most.

In my fallible opinion, you could make your short pitch even more exciting by putting some of the amazing specifics of your long pitch (I mentioned a few above) into one sentence. You have a great story here, but it gets lost in the generalities of your current short pitch. Also, the second to last sentence of the long pitch is an excellent cliffhanger, and you don’t in fact benefit from the last sentence, as it doesn’t add as much to tension.

And, yes, I have a history of obsessing over pitches, especially when I enjoy the story. Bravo! Backed.

Best wishes,
Alan Marling

Hi Georgina - I read to chapter four. It is very well written and you have the 'style' perfectly. Excellently researched by the look of it, too. Not my genre at all, but I can recoginise good writing when i see it. Good luck.
Barry (Little Krisna and the Bihar Boys)

Wow! Great prmise, title and pitch and with a strong start, particularly the prologue and with great writing, this is really very marketable and has great potential. Backed

This is fab!

Time travelling how great which gives us the best of both worlds. A wonderful premise combined with great writing... and add romance to the mix (my favourite) which will obviously occur during Cassandra's visit simply adds to the appeal. How will a modern women fare in the past... a great hook for reading on.

I wish there was more here to read.

Backed

Jo xx

Spoilt

What a well thought out piece of writing this is - I want a tablet to balance blood sugar! One of my major complaints against science fiction/speculative writing is that it's very rarely logical - authors seem to abandon the rules of normal life with gay abandon. But you have thought of everything and it not only flows logically, but is an interesting read as well. Backed with pleasure.
Annabelle

I'm not a great fan of time travel, but I do think this is excellent in it's attention to detail, allowing me to suspend my disbelief. I am also a fan of Jane Austen. Backed BADD

Georgina, this is great stuff. I like the way you start out, not giving us an info dump like so many others do, but by showing us a scene between a mother and her son. Casual conversation about something interesting that gradually leads us to what is going on. Beautifully done and you have a premise with promise. Thank you for sharing, and I’ve shelved this, of course, for you. -- Dave

Okay, romance in general is not really my thing, so take whatever I say as just being my opinion. Whether it’s of any value or not, I don’t know. I also tend to nit pick; my logic is that we miss minor errors like typos in our own work as we see what we think we wrote. But they leap out at readers.
So …Good pitch, which made me decide to have a look at this. (Made me think of the good doctor!)
Loved the simulation scene!
Aha! I noticed the lack of contractions and was about to remark it looked clumsy, then discovered why. Good.
I like the relationship between Cassandra and her son. Nice.
‘The place was spotless; I set it to self clean once a week.’ I want a place like that! * grin *
I think the convention is to use words rather than numerals, except for dates, years and times. But many people ignore that one.
Okay, straight out romance stories tend to leave me cold, but this is more than that. I’ll shelve it and come back to read the rest.

Georgina, if there is a winning formula for a book it surely must be this. And you follow it up with writing to match. Love it, as will many. Shelved. Lynn

I was going to go off on a rant about the italics at the start and end but really I can't think of anything that's actually wrong with it. In general terms, this is just good writing I guess lol! Well done and good luck. Backed! :)

Jane Austin, a great writer. You have clearly researched that time period wonderfully and it makes this a really intriguing and well written piece. I will be back to read the remaining chapters as time permits me to stop at chapter 9. Backed.

We are reading something truly different here. Very original and highly entertaining.

Happy to back this exceptional piece of writing.

Melxx
Impeding Justice.

Ok... your premise is unbelievable.... with a time machine, any right minded person would go back and watch doors, or zeppelin, or something. Never mind.

Ok, so the premise utterly unbelievable... but your writing - ah... magic. Tight, evocative, believable.... classy.

Who is this jane austern bird anyway? Didn't she play the drums or somethin' ?

Actually, really enjoyed your work.


BACKED

Georgina
I think you have done a great job in recreating the Jane Austen experience. Her following is huge and I'm sure another twist on the legacy she left behind will be welcomed with open arms. Backed
Rosali
Fieldtrip to Mars

Wow. This is a truly original concept, and well-executed. Terminator meets Sense and Sensibility. This has huge potential... I am truly impressed.
Frank

This is beautifully and carefully written, with so many correct period details. The idea is very attractive in itself, and Cassandra is a good central character, pleasant, easy to relate to, and suitable for her role as a woman of 1820. You get the language right (as far as anyone can tell!) and your descriptions of the streets and the inn are excellent, making us feel as if we are there. The inventions of the future which Cassandra brings with her , such as the insecticide, and the pill which will balance her blood sugar content, are very cleverly thought of and explained. A very attractive book, full of enjoyable things, and with promise of much more to come. Backed.
Gerry McCullough,
Belfast Girls.

Hi, Georgina. This is interesting. A bit different from what I usually read but is well done so held my interest. You describe, or let's say 'define' Cassandra very nicely through her ideas and feelings. I especially liked the last paragraph of chapter 3. I think all us dreamers have a little of the gothic wish in us...haha.The writing is comfortable and easy to read and the story develops well, at least as far as I read. Finished chapter 3 so I didn't really get into the meat of the story. I'm intrigued but I think one would have to read the whole book for a real appreciation of it. I think your style would insure that once someone started it. Nice pitch, by the way.
I think think the book deserves attention. On my shelf and I wish you the best of luck with it.

John Harold McCoy - Bramwell Valley

If you look at my favourite reads you will know why I read this...and what a treat and how cheeky!
I loved it.
Backed
I see you're going down the charts, let's hope this helps it start going back up!