October 17th, 2026
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HAUNTED HULA-WEEN
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October Reads Worth Falling For

Danger, desire, second chances, and unexpected romanceβ€”discover this month’s Fresh Fiction Featured Books.

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A poisoned cousin, a five-year-old's life, and a family with too many secrets.


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Supernatural sparks fly
between a bookseller
& her hard-boiled ghost.


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If Her Highness thinks I’ll let another man claim her and my child, she’s lost her royal mind. Sophaya’s mine.


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She found a body. Then she started asking the wrong questions.


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He ghosted her ten years ago. Now she’s stuck with him for Christmas.


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She’s the lady everyone overlooks. He’s the prince who can’t look away.

LADIES IN WAITING

Ladies in Waiting, November 2025
by Eloisa James, Adriana Trigiani, Sarah MacLean, Elinor Lipman, Diana Quincy, Nikki Payne, Audrey Bellezza, Emily Harding

Gallery Books
384 pages
ISBN: 1668204177
EAN: 9781668204177
Kindle: B0DWNJCJH4
Trade Paperback / e-Book / audiobook
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"It's Jane Austen's world and we're just living in it"

Fresh Fiction Review

LADIES IN WAITING
Eloisa James, Adriana Trigiani, Sarah MacLean, Elinor Lipman, Diana Quincy, Nikki Payne, Audrey Bellezza, Emily Harding

Reviewed by Jennifer Rummel
Posted November 4, 2025

Romance Historical

Jane Austen has so many secondary characters that get overlooked within the main story. In honor of her 250th birthday, eight authors have come together to celebrate her minor characters by giving them their own happily ever afters.
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There are stories from Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. There are no stories from Persuasion, Mansfield Park, or Northanger Abbey. There are two stories about Miss Bates. The other stories revolve around Mary Bennet, Lady Georgiana Stoughton, Margaret Dashwood, Eliza Brandon and her daughter Eliza, and Lydia Wickham. The stories are set in Regency England, modern-day New York City, and New Orleans.
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Mary Bennet lives in modern-day New York City, where she writes plays and looks after her crumbling family home. Caroline (Bingley) Bliguet is a Black woman living in New Orleans traveling West. She’s able to pass for white. The story with Eliza Brandon starts in Regency England, but ends in modern-day New York City.
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While these stories aren’t conventional Jane Austen, they do embody the characters. Fans will enjoy being transported into Jane Austen’s world.

Learn more about LADIES IN WAITING

SUMMARY

Celebrate Jane Austen’s classic novels with this short story anthology starring forgotten characters as they experience their own happy endings.

In honor of her 250th birthday, eight authors have come together with wildly imaginative reboots of the lives of several of Jane Austen’s minor characters. Written with plenty of love and wit, these clever stories star everyone from Pride and Prejudice’s snobbish Caroline Bingley to the modern descendant of Sense and Sensibility’s Eliza Williams and much more. Blurring genres and taking us across the oceans, Ladies in Waiting is a heartfelt celebration of Jane Austen and her timeless masterpieces.

 Narrated by Shiromi Arserio, Billie Fulford-Brown, Fiona Hardingham, Angel Pean 

EXCERPT

No excerpt available.

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