Non-Austen Reads for Austen Readers: Homespun Bride

So this is something I started a while back. We all love Jane Austen and it is such a bummer that there isn’t more of her works to read.

Variations are a ton of fun, and there are great ones out there, but sometimes you don’t always want to read the same story. You want Austen-like works, but what to read?

Hmm…

That’s why I started this series. I will review books that have the things we love about the Austen novels, but is something fresher than a retelling.

Homespun Bride (The McKaslin Clan Historical #2) by Jillian Hart

Thad McKaslin has returned home after being away for eight years. He always wanted to live in Montana-dreaming of owning a plot of land and having a ranch for him and his wife-who he hoped to be Noelle Kramer. There was no happier day than when he proposed and she said yes.

How sweet!

But it was not to be as her father, the banker who owned the mortgage on Thad’s family farm, threatened to evict his family-including his sick mother-if he didn’t leave his daughter alone.

Choosing not to meet to elope with Noelle at their meeting place, he instead left for the West and cattle drives-planning to never return, but did when his family needed help-his younger brother (who got into trouble) has just been released from jail and his older brother widowed.

Aw, that’s sad.

He expects Noelle to be married to her father’s choice, have children, and to never run into her. But as he is out running an errand, a runaway horse almost plunges two women and their carriage into a river. He helps them and is surprised to see they are Noelle and her Aunt Henrietta, and Noelle is blind!

Huh?

Noelle was heartbroken when she went to meet Thad and he wasn’t there. When she returned him crying, she confessed to her father who assured her she was better off than to be with that cad-probably persuaded by the thrill of going out West and sowing oats than being married. Noelle had given up on love and planned on marrying her father’s choice as she didn’t care anymore…

But then Noelle was in an accident that killed her mother and father and left her permanently blind.

Her fiancé didn’t want “damaged goods” and left her-her aunt and uncle (and their four girls) moving from the East to take care of her. Noelle has never stopped loving Thad but having him back makes her anger come out-how could he have been persuaded by the Wild West, how could he have left her.

Thad realizes that Noelle doesn’t know the truth of what happened, but decides to not say anything as he knows how much she loved her father and he doesn’t want to taint her image of him. He decides to stay far away, but her matchmaking aunt who worries about all her girls being settled and her uncle Robert who has no horse sense and is in severe need of aid, keep him coming around.

After Robert has an incredibly dangerous fall, Thad joins the household by taking care of the ranch and spending more time with Noelle, his love reigniting. Will the two be able to move forward? Or be stuck in the past? Will each be able to overcome their insecurities of not being enough (Thad’s “lower class background” and Noelle’s blindness) or will they let that keep them far apart?

So the first reason why I recommend this for Austen fans is that it instantly made me think of Persuasion. Two people in love, separated by youthful persuasion, reuniting wiser and more experienced, a bad fall bringing them together, etc.

In this, Thad is like Anne Elliot- In Persuasion Anne wants to marry Frederick Wentworth, but is persuaded by the fear that he could die, she’d be left alone, etc outweigh her love and she refuses him-him thinking that it is because he is lower than her, not knowing really how Anne loved him. Thad is the same way as he knows the full reason why the engagement ended and has both hurt and pain, but not anger or bitterness.

Noelle is more like Frederick. Both have misunderstood the reason why the person they loved left and start the first half of the book angry and bitter, but then after a bad fall (for Noelle, her uncle Robert and Fredrick, Louisa Musgrove) they realize who they love and want to be with that person. While Frederick writes a letter of his love for Anne, Noelle anonymously sells the land she owns that Thad has been dreaming of buying to show her love for him.

Aunt Henreitta reminds me of a combination of Mrs. Bennet, Mrs. Jennings, and Aunt Gardiner. Aunt Henrietta is the mother of four girls and is constantly worrying about marrying them off, providing dowries, etc.

Hardly a page goes by when she isn’t plotting some sort of matchmaking, but unlike Mrs. Bennet she isn’t silly or has gauche behavior. Like Mrs. Jennings she wants to marry off any eligible man or woman she likes and has a forceful presence. Like Mrs. Jennings, Henrietta will back and protect anyone she cares for, so don’t mess with either one’s girls.

But unlike those two ladies, Henrietta is also very sensible and has a great relationship and love with her husband Robert. She reads the emotions of Thad and Noelle early and tries her best to get them together.

I thought it was a cute story and recommend it for Jane Austen fans.

For more Non-Austen Reads for Austen Readers, go to Non-Austen Reads for Austen Readers: The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters

For more on Persuasion, go to You Ever Notice That The Gossip Girl TV Show is a Lot Like Persuasion?

For more Westerns, go to Will We Survive the Night?: Rawhide (1951)

In Rhapsody Over Clint Eastwood

How can you not be in rhapsody over him?

So as I have mentioned before I love Queen. I think they are such an awesome band with some of the greatest songs. I mean who doesn’t love  Under Pressure, Another One Bites the Dust, I Want it All, We Are the Champions, Radio Gaga, or Bohemian Rhapsody to name a few.

Well to understand this story you have to realize my iPod has an obsession with Queen, and not just any Queen song, a specific one; Bohemian Rhapsody. I don’t know why, but it just loves to play that tune over and over and over again. (That and Maria from The Sound of Music).

I love everything

What I can’t remember if I have mentioned before is my love of Clint Eastwood. It goes much deeper than fan appreciation, I mean I wanted to marry this man. Now I know several of you out there probably just thought to yourself, “but he is so old”; but you know what age doesn’t matter if you are truly in love.

 

Now I better bring this post back to reality, before I convince you all that I am completely crazy (I might have already done that…oops!). Clint Eastwood is dear to my heart. When I was six I saw Bronco Billy for the first time and was convinced that was the man for me. I wanted to be a cowgirl and everything about Clint’s character was exactly what I wanted in a man. Anyways, after that I saw all his films (with parental supervision or on TV), I was convinced we would get married in the future.

I mean look at this man! Can you blame me for being crazy about him?

Eventually I realized that was a pipe dream as I was too young for him and he was married. I had to give up that dream (although I’m older now so it could still happen). Anyways I still love him and his films.

Just a few of his films.

Now I know you are probably wondering to yourself what do Queen and Clint Eastwood have in common, well I am just getting to that.

So the other day I went to the gym, and when I got there one of the TVs had Hang ‘Em High on. I was so ecstatic-usually all they have are some garbage reality TV shows and I spend the night bored out of my skull.

So Hang ‘Em High?

Finally something GOOD!

Everything was going as normal when the funniest thing started happening, Bohemian Rhapsody kept coming on and playing perfectly in sync with Hang ‘Em High.

Yes!

For those of you who have never seen or heard of Hang ‘Em High it is a western staring Clint Eastwood (obviously). He plays the part of Jed Cooper, ordinary rancher taking his newly bought cattle home. On the way he is stopped by a posse claiming he stole the cowherd. He tries to show them his bill of sale and prove his innocence, but the men won;t listen. They string him up, steal all his belongings and leave him to die. However, he does not die, (it’s Clint after all), but gets saved by a sheriff passing through. He is taken in, tried, found innocent, and becomes a marshall. He then goes after the men who tried to kill him, in true handsome Clint Eastwood style.

The law never looked so good

So like I said the song started playing perfectly with the film. This was playing when the guys string him and leave him to die (start at around 10:00). I thought it was perfect with the song.

“Too late, my time has come
Sends shivers down my spine
Body’s aching all the time
Goodbye everybody – I’ve got to go
Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth
Mama, ooo – (anyway the wind blows)
I don’t want to die
I sometimes wish I’d never been born at all”

Later when he is Marshall, he finds one of the guys who had strung him up. By this time it got to one of the most famous parts, and one of my favorites, when Clint confront the guy and says, “when you hang a man, you better look at him“(start about 7:50ish), this was :

“So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye
So you think you can love me and leave me to die”

Kinda describes that part perfectly.

So then he gets derailed by having to go after these cattle rustlers and murderers. He is taking them in when one asks to be let go (about 2:30). At that point my iPod was playing the song again and it was right at this part:

“Will you let me go?
Bismillah! No – we will not let you go – let him go
Bismillah! We will not let you go – let him go
Bismillah! We will not let you go – let me go
Will not let you go – let me go (never)
Never let you go – let me go
Never let me go”

I thought to myself, “no one is going to believe that this happened”. I mean it was too perfect.

Well it did, and I wish I could have stayed to see the rest, but unfortunately it was getting really late and I still needed to walk home.

But I have to say that was one of the most amazing things to happen to me. It was too perfect.

Boom, that’s how I roll.

For more Clint Eastwood, go to Here I Go

For more on Bohemian Rhapsody, go to Bohemian Rhapsody

For more of my favorite songs, go to Eye of the Tiger