Jeanna Ellsworth Interview + Giveaway!!

Today I am interviewing Jeanna Ellsworth, author of Mr. Darcy's Promise. I hope you enjoy learning more about Jeanna, her inspiration for Mr. Darcy's Promise, and what she has in store for readers. Don't forget to enter the giveaway below for a chance to win an ebook copy of Mr. Darcy's Promise!

Briefly tell us a little about yourself. If you could sum up yourself in three words, what would they be and why?

I am a mother of three daughters who have been true inspirations to me. I enjoy all sorts of things. I love feeling motivated and inspired no matter what the source. I suppose I am passionate. I would say I am deeply personal, deeply honest, and deeply spiritual. Really . . . I’m just deep. I write from these sources of my personality. I love getting to know people on a personal level. I am somewhat like Mr. Darcy where I lack the ability to have superficial conversations; I would much rather discuss what is really going on in your life. When I ask how you are doing, it isn’t “How are ya?” It is truly asking about your hopes, dreams, and fears. I think this is why I feel so fulfilled as a nurse in my Neurological ICU position because there is no way you cannot get to know a patient or family member on a personal basis when you are supplying their basic needs or helping them through a crisis. I am deeply honest and my kids know very well that they will get in far more trouble if they lie to me than any stupid choice they make. I have been known to overshare a bit because of this honesty. I also have found that my spiritual beliefs are so ingrained in every facet of my life, yes, even my writing. I have been more confident in sharing and intertwining these beliefs in my writing as well.

OK, so you are a mother, a nurse, have a menagerie of chickens and rabbits, an author, blogger, and I’m sure I am forgetting something. How do you do it? When do you sleep? J

Ha Ha. All true! However I am not defined by my titles or hobbies.  I grew up with a strong work ethic. I am the 8^th of 13 children and so we had to learn the value of work and helping around the house. As adults, my sisters and brothers and I laugh about how disappointed we were when it was a snow day. Why? Because that is when my mother or father would whip out the “projects” like wallpapering the house, painting the house, or shampooing the carpets. Even today, I find myself ecstatic when my day opens up for some reason and I have hours to fill with a project I had been putting off. I’m not afraid of hard work, but with the move, publishing my book, and the remodel etc. on my new house, I found that my normal vocabulary which is 100% free of swear words, found a new four letter word: BUSY! I got very tired of saying I was busy! Trust me, my kids will tell you how grouchy I get if I do not get my 8 hours of sleep. It may seem like I stay up all night writing or doing things, but I do make sleep a priority.

What was your inspiration for this book?

Mr. Darcy’s Promise is a book about a forced marriage because Darcy is accused of compromising Elizabeth. On the day of her marriage she is very distraught and he makes her an honorable promise, one that he feels shows his love and devotion. What was my inspiration to write this as I did? Elizabeth felt she was in a loveless marriage and she was quite disappointed that she couldn’t marry for love, but learns to accept her supposed fate and in fact works very hard to erect a certain level of companionship; for if she couldn’t have love in her marriage, at least she could have companionship with her spouse. That was my motivation. I had been divorced for two years and never understood why I did not even have companionship in my relationship with my husband as it seemed others had in their marriage. So writing about Elizabeth and Darcy developing not only companionship but a deep emotional foundation for their relationship was somewhat healing and renewed my faith in marriage in general. It was 2 months after I wrote the book that I began dating again. So with risk of oversharing, I wrote the book to heal my heart, of which, it did. I would very much like to find my Fitzwilliam Darcy now, a mindset that I admit feels new and foreign still– and a little scary too!

Have you always been a lover of P&P?

Believe it or not, no! I’m kind of a late bloomer! In fact, I can’t say I fell in love with Pride and Prejudice (as in the kind of obsessive-compulsive-crazy for the next fix- kind of love) until January 2012! I’m just a newbie! In fact, my weakness in my writing is that I do not have the entire book memorized, as I assume most JAFF writers do.

Any words of advice for aspiring authors?

Honestly? If you feel the need to write – just start! Write down a plot outline, see if it has the potential to keep your own interest. Does it have a conflict, an ability to pull at the readers emotional heart strings? If so – then try writing the first chapter! One thing I would also suggest is to not have just good friends or family members give you feedback unless they can be very honest, but look for a beta or editor from the very beginning that you can send chapters to in order to get good feedback. I have learned a lot as I went through the editing process and learned even more as I used fellow authors to give me feedback.

Do you have anything in the works right now? I see from your website, www.HeyLadyPublications.com, that you have written two other P&P variations. When will we see them published? How is your muse now?

I do have two other books, Pride and Persistence, and To Refine Like Silver. Neither are sequels or related to Mr. Darcy’s Promise and each is totally different. If interested, you can read the first chapter of each on my website WWW.HeyLadyPublications.com. Pride and Persistence is light and funny and the plan is to start the editing and cover design in October for a March publication. Yippee! To Refine Like Silver is a lovely story of Elizabeth helping Darcy and Georgiana find peace with their trials and so could easily be described as deeply spiritual and uplifting. I personally think it is my best work but because there is such a strong spiritual subplot, I fear it will receive the most varied of reviews. We will work on publishing it after Pride and Persistence. How is my muse? I just finished chapter 4 of my fourth book, Hope for Mr. Darcy, and I pour even more of myself into this book than any of the other three, which is really saying something.

Thank you so much for this chance to discuss me, Mr. Darcy’s Promise, and my writing! I hope you all get a chance to enter to win a copy of Mr. Darcy’s Promise!

Thank you so much for joining me, Jeanna! It was a pleasure having you on Leatherbound Reviews. I wish you much success with Mr. Darcy’s Promise.

***GIVEAWAY TIME***

Jeanna Ellsworth is giving away ONE (1) ebook copy of Mr. Darcy's Promise to one lucky commenter. To enter, leave a comment for Jeanna. Please provide your email address. No email address, no can win. I need to know how to contact you. :) As always, tweet for extra entries. 

Stop by on Thursday for Leatherbound Reviews' review of Mr. Darcy's Promise and more chances to enter!

Winner will be announced Tuesday, September 10!

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