Poisonous Plants

As I wrote A Windmill with a View, I kept handy an online resource that told me which vegetables and fruits were in season during various months in England. I also referred often to Regency era cookbooks for insight on how Elizabeth could use the fresh produce. Before she marries Mr. Collins and becomes his unpaid cook and housekeeper, though, Elizabeth is handy in the Longbourn stillroom and knows something about plants. The opening scene has her grinding plants to obtain a poison.

I have described the flowers as having “bright yellow petals” and blossoms with “blushes of red and darker striated markings.” The poison itself will make its recipient ill and unable to hold down her meals.

The flower I found for this small but important duty in A Windmill with a View is called Alstroemeria.

GardenersWorld.com advises gardeners in the UK to be careful around the flower, as it can cause “mild vomiting or diarrhoea, while skin contact can cause a rash or irritation and, rarely, blisters and eye irritation.”

This flower was too good to pass up even though it was not actually present in England in 1811. “They were only introduced to Europe from South America in the mid-18th century by botanist Baron Clas Alströmer,” when they became a popular Victorian flower for their symbolism of friendship. Kind of ironic.

In A Windmill with a View, Elizabeth actually does have friendship in mind far more than any evil intent when she extracts the Alstroemeria poison. Read the book to learn how that works out.

A Windmill with a View

My first novel, an alternate imagining of Pride and Prejudice, starts at Longbourn about four months before Jane Austen begins her story. I changed a few key aspects of Austen’s story, but my blurb, below, is not very specific on tropes contained in the book because I didn’t want spoilers. If you do want them, other readers have put them in their Amazon reviews, or you can ask me. If you have read the book, do you wish you had known more about Darcy’s situation before you started? Go to the Contact page to send me a note to let me know.

I had a lot of encouragement from my husband, sons, and author friend Summer Hanford as I wrote this book. Thank you!

The best preparation for writing the book was my reading hundreds of Austenesque novels and Jane Austen’s own works for the past three decades. The internet was also my good friend as I wrote. I do not know how people researched JAFF in the 1990s or earlier. Really good libraries? Personal travel?

I really appreciate all the universities, organizations, and historians who post papers and articles online for all to learn. I also appreciate being able to find online facsimiles of original 1700s and 1800s books of recipes (receipts), sermons, and children’s stories, as well as church and government records.

We are truly blessed to have so much information to sift through from home.

As you read A Windmill with a View, I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit about how the Church of England was structured and the various ways clergymen and their families might have lived in the early 1800s.

Elizabeth is unprepared to be a clergyman’s wife.

Elizabeth Bennet is forced into marriage with her father’s heir to save her sisters and preserve her family home. She believes endurance and duty will be enough to see her through, only to find she is bound to a cruel, controlling man who will not consummate their union and risk children, denying her the only solace her marriage could possibly bring. Now, Elizabeth must learn how to survive, and eventually reclaim herself, by developing new skills and cultivating unexpected friendships—or risk losing her spirit entirely.

Fitzwilliam Darcy has weathered disappointment and betrayal that has forced him away from his beloved Pemberley. He never expected his greatest trial to come in the form of a married woman who challenges his convictions and awakens his heart. As circumstances draw Elizabeth repeatedly into his path, Darcy strives to honor restraint and propriety despite growing attachment and an increasing desire to protect her from her husband. In the end, will she be the one to save him?

A Windmill with a View is a Regency-era Pride and Prejudice variation novel of approximately 100,000 words featuring a sweet, medium-angst romance centered on resilience, faith, and starting over. This story includes a previous unconsummated marriage for Elizabeth, Christian themes, verbal abuse by a narcissistic spouse, and character deaths (not the happy couple), but it ultimately delivers a well-earned happily ever after with Mr. Darcy. Please note: At no time is either Darcy or Elizabeth unfaithful.

(I had to add the note at the end of the blurb to counteract a false summary of my book that Amazon’s AI generated.)