My Jane Austen Summer: A Season in Mansfield Park

spending so much energy arranging old books, we hadn't taken time to order new books. Vera, still in England, suggested I investigate the catalogues clogging my in-box and place some orders. But these days, I was more concerned with the Amazon in the living room and how little indies like us might avoid getting swept under the carpet.

As I kicked off my covers, enjoying the open windows, soon to be shut for the summer, my gaze snagged a title at the top of the page. Vampire Priest. I sat up to focus the words under my reading lamp. Debut fiction by Willis Somerford: a vampire priest hides his curse from his beloved and ultimately must sacrifice either his love or her mortality. I clutched my throat and read it again. Descending to the dark office, I checked online and learned that Willis's book had been published two weeks earlier. Looking the other way, I clicked the one-day delivery option.

*   *   *

When the slim brown box arrived, I left Chutney in charge of Vera's empire and locked my apartment door. Once the phones were silenced and Vera's floral quilt dragged to the sofa, I sat shivering beneath the warm glow of the reading lamp, nervous, as if I might meet Willis in the flesh after all this time. I tore open the box and removed the brand-new hardback. The perfectly smooth dust jacket featured two people dressed in black: a man whose head is cropped just above his priest collar and a woman playing a cello. Vampire Priest by Willis M. Somerford. The stiff binding and crisp title page offered subtle resistance as I turned to the dedication:

To Lily, who dreams of living in a novel

I heard the words in his voice. The essence of Willis emerged from the blurry distance, recalling his powerful attraction, the joy I'd found in my own life through him. Pressure started in my chest and pushed like a hot wave into my head, leaving my eyes wet and my throat aching. As I turned pages, Willis spoke to me through the story of two people who sounded much more like Lily and Willis than they had when I'd read the pages on his screen last summer. Luna plays Bach in F Minor for Father Kitt, the same music I'd played on the old record player for Willis that day in the music room. She seeks Father Kitt after every concert, oblivious to the fact she's fallen for a vampire. On a backstage tour of the dark music hall after closing, she lures him to the undercroft and asks, 'How long must we know each other before our relationship can move forward?'

Father Kitt is dangerously tempted by the hope of sharing his immortal doom...'She has no idea how I burn to be with her, how close I am to marking her as my own forever.' Tortured by the guilt of his deception, he tells her, 'I'm not strong enough to resist you.' But when she tells him she loves him, he remains silent. In anger, she announces she won't wait for him, but will leave to tour with the orchestra at the end of the symphony season. Desperately torn, he watches from his seat in the audience, seeing her for the last time, knowing he cannot allow Luna to forfeit her soul, to make the irrevocable decision to become something she could not possibly anticipate. Afraid of losing his resolve, he leaves the concert hall before the performance ends and returns to lonely despair.

He never meets her again. But even so, he never stops feeling her presence.

Long after her life reached its mortal end, she still comes to find me at the musicians' entrance. Wisps of brown hair blow across her eyes, her smile beckons me inside—a timeless, sparkling memory, swirling in my subconscious, folded into my existence. And every time I find her at the stage door, I tell her I love her.

Willis Somerford lives in London. Vampire Priest is his first novel.

After a long while, faint sounds of life rose from the bookstore below.

Selected Bibliography

Austen, Jane. Mansfield Park: Authoritative Text, Contexts, Criticism. Claudia L. Johnson, ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1998.

Fleishman, Avrom. A Reading of Mansfield Park: An Essay in Critical Synthesis. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Press, 1970.

Le Faye, Deirdre, ed. Jane Austen's Letters. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal, no. 28. Susan Allen Ford, ed. Jane Austen Society of North America, www.jasna.org.

Tomalin, Claire. Jane Austen: A Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998.

Wiltshire, John. Jane Austen: Introductions and Interventions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

Wiltshire, John. Recreating Jane Austen. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

A+ Author Insights, Extras & More...

From Cindy Jones And William Morrow

Your Private Austen: Six Steps to a Closer Walk with Jane

Prerequisite to friendship. You must read all six novels. The films are beautiful adaptations but they lack the sparkling narrative that is the essence of Jane Austen. Choose your edition and start reading—or rereading.

Step 1: Getting to know Jane Austen. Not easy since her relatives enforced a posthumous rebranding, establishing Aunt Jane as a saint. Contemporary biographies do a good job of bringing her to life, conveying an awareness of her poverty and dependence, and describing the struggle of her homeless years. Imagine Jane Austen hand-carrying hard copies of her unpublished manuscripts each time she moved. The story of how she nearly married a man she didn't love in order to have food and shelter will establish instant sympathy.

Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin.

Jane Austen: A Life by David Nokes.

Step 2: Trade confidences. Consider your favorite Austen novel and listen to what she has been saying to you between the lines of her text. For instance, my favorite is Mansfield Park: Jane Austen and I totally agree that it is hard to be Fanny Price in a Mary Crawford world. And we both believe that men should fall deeply in love with intelligent wallflowers.

Which Jane Austen heroine are you?

Which novel would you choose to live in?

Step 3: Do things together. Become a Janeite. Join the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) and get involved in the activities of your local chapter. Or visit Jane in England. Gaze upon her writing desk, walk where she walked, find her grave in the floor of Winchester Cathedral, and knock on her door in Bath. Dress in period attire and celebrate at one of the many Jane Austen festivals around the world:

Jane Austen Society of North America: www.jasna.org

Jane Austen Festival in Bath: www.janeausten.co.uk

Jane Austen's House Museum: www.jane-austens-house-museum.org.uk

Jane Austen Festival in Louisville, Kentucky: www.jasnalouisville.com

Old Mandeville Jane Austen Festival in Louisiana: www.janeaustenfestival.org

Jane Austen Festival in Pittsburgh: www.janeaustenpgh.org

Jane Fest in Fresno, California: www.jasnacenvalcal.com

Jane Austen Festival in Australia: www.janeaustenfestival.com.au

Step 4: Get obsessed. To get even closer, find out what Jane Austen really thought; read her correspondence. Discover what she