Merits and Mercenaries - Free Kindle Book

Merits and Mercenaries ('The Bath Novels of Lady A~') 
by A Lady and Leslie Bell 


Merits and Mercenaries is the first of a collection of seven books entitled The Bath Novels of Lady A~. The concept behind the Bath Novels came from two things: a very intriguing incident that occurred in Jane Austen's travels and the 'claim' that she wrote nothing substantial during all the years that she lived in Bath and Southampton. That gave me an idea to 'suppose' that 'Lady A/ A Lady' (JA's pen names) was, surreptitiously, working on 'something' during that time; and catalyzed by the aforementioned 'incident'. In short, seven secret, 'dissident', companion novels that were as stylistically similar to her six sublime classics, as they were definitively different in their 'controversial' content. Each a story with themes that Jane Austen might very probably have wished to write about, but, just as likely, dared not do so as a (19th-century) clergyman's daughter.

Merits and Mercenaries, as the debuting Bath Novel 'dissident', is replete with such things provoking. The characters, though leaning every way 'Austen', have a very modern and universal 'feel', as they evolve before a 21st-century audience's eye. Men share their private thoughts/deeds with men and the ladies behave very badly amongst them! In every facet of this book, as with the upcoming Bath Novels, I wanted to use all I could of Jane's literary DNA to create a refreshingly original 'hybrid' for the Janeite community. Something unique to read, follow and collect besides the 'sublime six'; and all that their plots and characters have generated over the course of time. Rather like Jane herself, who was mutually inspired by the likes of Edgeworth and Burney, I wanted to make my own way in the 'comedy of manners' genre. In doing so, I have endeavored to write a singular set of Regency-Austenian (Regaustenian) novels about the English gentry that at once reflects contemporary social values, but is deliciously cased in the 'bonnet drama'--and comedy--of the bewitching Regency period.