First, at the risk of sounding redundant, you must allow me to tell you how ardently I admired and loved your book. :-) It's been a great treat to read it with the group and your being here to answer our questions just makes it even better. Thanks so much!

One thing that I really enjoyed in this book were the quotations from P&P at the chapter headings. In some cases, they set the tone of the chapter for me. In others, they gave me a little teaser and I enjoyed looking for the quote to be "fulfilled". Of course, they also gave us fodder for some of our group read discussion. :-) Did you intend to have them just set the tone or did you use them to introduce clues as to what was really going on? Or is there another purpose to them entirely? Also, what made you decide to use them in the first place?

My other question has to do with the Darcys--particularly Lizzy--as detectives. One thing I've noticed very often in mysteries--especially when the protagonist is an ordinary person who just happens upon the mystery or when she is female--is that friction inevitably occurs when the people close to them want to stop pursuing it. To be clear, I don't mean to say that this is a formulaic element or anything--just that it's a natural thing to happen in that situation, so naturally it occurs frequently in this genre. I briefly thought this was going to happen with Lizzy and Darcy when she decided to call on Miss Kendall in order to get more information about the riding incident, but it didn't pan out that way.

Anyway, I know you said earlier that the two of them make a good team for detective work, but I wonder about how this undertaking will affect their relationship. What do you think the events of this book tell us about the Darcys' marriage and their prospects for future happiness? Are they the kind of couple that can handle the emotional baggage that goes along with mystery solving, time and time again? Or are they likely to fall prey to the arguments that go along with worries over one another's safety, disbelief and other related issues? Of course, I don't mean to ask for specifics on your future books; rather, in your writing of this book, how do you envision the Darcys balancing their marital relationship with the extraordinary demands of mystery-solving?