The Circulating Libraryby Cara Salvo
The Circulating Library presentsCara SalvoAusten & Gaskell variations

Same drawing-room. Rather different consequences.

Welcome in. These shelves hold more than forty quick-read variations of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion, and Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South. Comedy, ghosts, magic, mysteries and slow-burn heartache, each rated for heat and angst so you know what to expect.

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Pride & PrejudicePersuasionNorth & South

Painting of a Regency gentleman and lady standing back to back among snow-laden branches and blue flowers, with a ghostly silhouette of the two of them about to kiss above
Two proud people. One very long winter.
15–35kwordsMost stories are novellas and long novellas: a whole courtship, without the commitment of three volumes.
1–2eveningsFinish before the candle gutters, or before your nightcap goes cold.
3worldsPride and Prejudice, North and South, and a little Persuasion.

For busy people (and busybodies): a quiet hour before bed, a long commute, or a very dull afternoon.

New to the library

New on the shelf

Two books from A Thousand Chances, and a free short story to start with. Each one stands entirely on its own.

Cover of A Glimpse of Pemberley by Cara Salvo
A Thousand Chances · Book I

A Glimpse of Pemberley

by Cara Salvo

Snowed in at Netherfield, Elizabeth and Darcy glimpse the life they could have, and must decide whether to choose it.

A winter snowfall shuts up Netherfield, and two people who have never agreed on anything are shown, in a single uncanny evening, the corridors, studies and nursery of the Pemberley they might share. An old woman named Sarai offers three roads. Elizabeth distrusts every word of it; Darcy cannot stop believing it. Sweet, witty and full of banter, with a long look at the future in two epilogues.

Story
Magic & Time Slips
Length
Long novella25–35k words
Heat
Sweet
Angst
Low

Content notes: Mild fantasy; no violence; kisses only.

Buy on AmazonAmazon link coming soon
Cover of The Corridor at Netherfield by Cara Salvo
A Thousand Chances · Book II

The Corridor at Netherfield

by Cara Salvo

A ghost walks the corridor at Netherfield, and the gentleman who insulted Elizabeth at midnight is the only one who has heard her too.

Elizabeth Bennet goes down to the library for a book for her sick sister and meets something in the corridor that does not walk like the living. She flees into the nearest room, which is Mr. Darcy's, and he answers her terror with the cruellest thing he has ever said. Then the ghost comes for both of them. To lay her to rest they must find a chambermaid's name, her innocence and the truth about what is easy to believe of a woman with nobody to speak for her.

Story
Gothic & Ghostly
Length
Novella15–25k words
Heat
Sweet
Angst
Mid

Content notes: Ghost; fear and dread; a midnight compromise and a refused proposal; a girl who died in the snow.

Buy on AmazonAmazon link coming soon
Cover of Sufficiently Ungentlemanlike by Cara SalvoFree
Drunk Darcy · Book I · Free with sign-up

Sufficiently Ungentlemanlike

by Cara Salvo

He was found foxed on a wall in Hyde Park. She was improper enough to take him home.

It has been eleven days since Hunsford, and Fitzwilliam Darcy has written a letter he cannot bring himself to send. He drinks until he cannot stand, and at dawn he is found by the one woman in England who has reason to leave him there: Elizabeth Bennet.

She should walk on. Instead she puts him in a hackney coach and takes him home. With a little help from Georgiana, what follows is a slow thaw of sharp banter, bookshops, a tea shop and the truth about Wickham, which the unsent letter was meant to tell her.

A witty, short, and romantic Pride and Prejudice variation with a happily ever after.

Story
Light & Witty
Length
Short storyunder 15k words
Heat
Sweet
Angst
Mid

Content notes: A man who has drunk too much; no violence.

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A word from the proprietress

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a variation in want of a happy ending must be in possession of a very good scandal.

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Free stories

Read one on the house

Join the letter list and your free story arrives by email, with no payment needed.

The Circulating Library, this evening

Dear Subscriber,

Subscription to this library costs nothing. Write your direction below and I shall send you a free novella by return. As a subscriber you will hear first when new volumes arrive on the shelves, and when free stories are to be had.

I promise no more than one letter in a fortnight, and you may cancel your subscription whenever you please.

Unsubscribe any time.

I remain, your obliged librarian,Cara Salvo

The catalogue

Every series, out now and on the way

In Jane Austen's day, readers borrowed novels by subscription from a circulating library. This one lends variations on her stories. Browse series by series, or narrow by story, world and heat. Tap any cover for the premise, length and content notes.

New to the ratings? Read the heat and angst guide.

Ask the librarian

Allow me to recommend

Four questions, answered as honestly as you would to Mrs. Bennet. The librarian's choice updates as you answer.

i.What are you in the mood for? Choose as many as you please.
ii.In whose drawing-room?
iii.How warm a fire?
iv.How many handkerchiefs?
Heat and angst, explained

Heat

  • SweetKisses and an embrace. The wedding night is not shown, or is a single line.
  • WarmPassionate kissing and sensual touch. The wedding night is implied and the door closes.
  • SensualAn on-page love scene, tender and euphemistic, with no graphic anatomy.
  • SpicyA longer, more charged on-page scene taken through climax, still euphemistic.
  • ExplicitGraphic, detailed love scenes. No book in the library is rated 5.

Heat rates the most explicit scene in the book, even when it is only in the epilogue. Violence or assault is not heat: look for it under Angst and the content notes.

Angst

  • LowBanter, comedy and light worry.
  • MidGrief, scandal, a refused proposal, or a hurt that heals.
  • HighSustained pain, depression, peril, assault, captivity or a long separation.

Details for unreleased books are provisional. Length: short story under 15,000 words, novella 15,000 to 24,999, long novella 25,000 to 34,999, short novel 35,000 and over.

Portrait of a Regency lady in a white gown, seen in profile

About the author

Cara Salvo, always brewing a story

Ever since she was a little girl, Cara Salvo has had a story brewing in her head, and she is still sometimes caught delivering its lines to the empty air. She won a small award for creative writing as a teenager, then wandered off into graphic design, and later became a technical writer in the education field, where her sentences are very well behaved.

She met Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy in the 2005 film, then devoured Austenesque fan fiction, and later fell for Gaskell's North and South, which is sadly talked about far less. Now she writes variations of her own to quiet the plot bunnies that keep her awake. So far, they refuse to be quieted.

She lives with her own Mr. Darcy and a daughter who, like Elizabeth Bennet, dearly loves a laugh. She has no cause to repine.

Banter first. Angst second. Happy endings always.

I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book!Caroline Bingley, in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

Assembly Rooms, Meryton

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