Other Tales: Stories from the Ballad of Gregoire Darcy is a small collection of short stories related to my series. Before discussing what went into it, let me first explain how to get it: for free on my website or on Smashwords, or for 99c on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. If you don’t have an eReader, just download the .pdf and print it – it’s only about 25 pages. As to why it costs money on some sites, it’s because they won’t let me sell it for under 99c unless they’re meeting a price on another site, and Smashwords does not count as “another site.” Hopefully this will all get sorted out and it will be free everywhere.

Now that you’re bored hearing about website pricing, here’s the deal: I had some short stories laying around and decided to write a third and turn them into a free collection. They involve material that happened before my books or happened during but were written at another time, and therefore didn’t make it into the initial material.

“Young Master Darcy” – This story is about Fitzwilliam Darcy’s father, Geoffrey Darcy the Elder (the younger is Darcy’s son). We only hear about him in glowing terms from Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, but in my books he had a bit of scandalous past – and an older brother who should have inherited Pemberley. I focused briefly on a pivotal moment in his young life that set him on the course to being the man Darcy knew.

“The Tale of the Brothers Maddox” – A lot of people have asked me why Dr. Maddox is so devoted to his scoundrel older brother, so I wrote this story about their childhood to explain that.

“Life in London; or, the Day Scenes of the Scoundrel Mugin and the Pure Young Miss Bingley” – This was supposed to be a spoof of Egan’s Life in London, but have you actually tried to read it? Because it’s impenetrable. It happens during the events of The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy, but in the background, as Mugin the Japanese ex-con spends the day in London with young Georgiana Bingley, doing all kinds of things a foreigner and a 12-year-old girl shouldn’t be doing. Despite the hard time I had writing it, I really do care a lot about this story because it’s the only material that really shows how Mugin, who has lived in Japan and China for most of his life, views Regency London. (Hint: He’s not impressed) I have a lot of characters who operate outside the norms of English culture, but I rarely do something entirely from their perspective because it’s jarring in a larger novel, so I did it here.

So pick up your digital copy today! Because seriously, there is no reason not to.

GIVEAWAY: You all win! Everyone gets one! Congratulations!