I was at Costco today about noon, and my timing was perfect. You know what I mean. Stationed around every other corner was a demonstrator, card table set up and offering samples of new culinary delicacies. The highlights? Chicken tenders, tortilla chips and salsa, with vitamin water to wash it all down – in other words, lunch!

They give you a taste of their product in the hope you’ll like it enough to want more, that you’ll then plunk down $12.95 to buy a Costco-sized package of P&Q garbonzo beans or whatever. They do the same thing with books at online stores like Amazon and B&N. You might be wavering about buying a particular book, even if you’ve heard good things about it. But if you get to read and like the sample chapters, you’ll feel more confident it will suit your literary tastes and perhaps go ahead.

That’s kind of what’s happening this week with my second Austen-inspired novel, “For Myself Alone.” There’s a free sample available at two separate locations.

My new post on Austen Authors (“Jane’s Next Novel”) tells about my inspiration for the book and how it relates to Jane Austen’s writings. Then there’s an excerpt – prologue plus part of chapter 1. To read the post and excerpt, please visit here.

If you want a bigger taste, go to Austenticity, where For Myself Alone is the featured novel this week. You can read all the way to the end of chapter 5 there if you hurry. It should be available for a few more days.

Speaking of a few days, that’s all the longer you have to enter my little book give-away here. If you like your free sample, I might even be able to save you the cost of buying the rest. Good luck!

“You are speaking of London. I am speaking of the nation at large.” “The metropolis, I imagine, is a pretty fair sample of the rest.” (Mansfield Park, chapter 9)