Captain Wentworth in His Own Words

“Shannon Winslow does it again. She brings our imaginations alive with the excitement and details never before seen while always maintaining the standard we’d expect from a Jane Austen book.” – Amazon customer review

Captain Wentworth in His Own Words has arrived! It’s available here in Kindle, paperback, and audio.

As with the other novels in this series, I’m giving an Austen hero a chance to tell his own story – all of it. This is not just a retelling of the original novel but much, much more! And he does have a lot of explaining to do!

For one thing, why did he fly off in such a rage when Anne tried to break off their engagement until he was more financially secure? Why didn’t he come back to try her again when his improved situation made their marrying much more supportable? So much time was wasted! Then, we need some explanation for his bad behavior when he met Anne again years later, flirting with not just one but two other women right in front of her! Was that really necessary?

Perhaps the clues to all these questions are hidden in his past. And that’s where this novel takes you. In fact, over half of the book is prequel story! – a glimpse of his difficult childhood and how he ended up in the Navy; how he first met and fell in love with Anne; along with a taste of his adventures at sea before their eventual reunion.

Captain Wentworth has travelled the globe and packed a lot of adventure into his young life. He’s risen from being a “nobody” to a definite “somebody,” rich and respected. Yet, without Anne, he knows he’s still missing the only thing that can crown all his other success. Now he tells how it happened.

Captain Wentworth in His Own Words is not a variation from but a supplement to the original story of Persuasion, chronicled in our hero’s point of view. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at the things Jane Austen didn’t tell us, featuring key events from Wentworth’s past – events that still haunt him and yet have shaped the better man he has now become, a man worthy of happiness with the equally worthy woman he’s never stopped loving.

To get you off to a running start, here’s the Prologue:

December, 1814

I am not insensible to the irony of my situation – that I am caught fast in a trap of my own making. Meaning to punish one who I am now convinced did not deserve the half part of my censure, the due penalty has fallen upon my own head. There is a perverse sort of poetic justice in that, and surely somewhere my enemies are laughing. But it is no more than I deserve.

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools…

It is so very true of me. I have been used to the gratification of believing myself to have earned every blessing I enjoy. I have valued myself on honorable toils and just rewards. Well, here is a just reward indeed. Due to my own folly, I am bound by honor to be wed to a woman I do not care for, whilst knowing myself divided forever from the one I love to the depths of my soul. May God forgive me!

I have only one choice before me, only one path ahead. I must do what any man of integrity would in my situation; I must do my duty.

I try to become reconciled to this truth as I walk and ride the environs surrounding Lyme with a kind of furious desperation, driven on by emotions I do not fully comprehend. There is more anger in me than anything else, I believe, directed primarily at myself. And regret deep enough to drown a man. There is also determination, however – determination to get the better of this thing, to regain mastery of myself, to reestablish a measure of control and calm.

My only hope – and it is a slim one at best – is that I should be immediately called to sea again. Under no other circumstances could I honorably leave Lyme at present, not until I know Louisa will recover. And likely not even then. Yet I cannot bear to stand by idle either. Hovering day after day at the Harvilles’ house, waiting in awful anticipation for any slight change in her situation for better or for worse, I should go mad. So I make a brief appearance there every morning and evening to enquire after the fair invalid. Otherwise, I stay away.

Louisa is an innocent. She must never know the truth. She must never guess that my presumed courtship of her was all a careless game designed to make Anne Elliot jealous, to pay back some of the pain and offense she gave me years ago. No, Louisa must never suspect that my seeming to prefer her over all others was a lie. I have acted it so well as to be believed by everybody, even by myself for a time. And I must go right on pretending. Only in this way can I acquit myself of some of my guilt. I must be the model husband. I must make my wife happy and affect being happy myself. I have successfully played a part to her for these few weeks past, but can I do it for thirty years? That is a different matter.

And what of Anne? I have little doubt that I have injured her, as I had intended to do. To what degree, I have no way of knowing. There have been those occasional looks between us, those particular words that went very far towards seeming to restore the sentiments of the past. But then the accident occurred and everything, all such considerations, were entirely at an end.

Oh, how I wish I could make amends! How I wish I could tell Anne my true feelings – that though I have been weak and resentful, though I have cruelly courted the attentions of another in front of her face, I have never been inconstant to her in my heart. But to impose such knowledge upon her now would be the height of selfishness.

I am a selfish creature, however! And here is proof. Even though the situation is hopeless, I want to know that she still cares for me. I want to know that she has remained unmarried at least in part out of some remembrance of what we once were to each other. I want to know she will be grieved by my marriage to Louisa Musgrove when it occurs. I suppose I want to know that I will not bear the pain alone. Of these feelings, I must repent, however. I do repent. And I resolve to daily pray that Anne will suffer no more – for my cruelty, for her family’s disregard, or for any other reason. I resolve to sincerely pray for Anne’s peace and happiness… even if that means she will find them in the arms of another man. This I swear, and may God help me.

I hope you’re intrigued and want to know the rest of Captain Wentworth’s story! The paperback and Kindle versions are available now at Amazon, and the audio version will follow shortly.