Jeff Bigler, author

I’m a few days late in mentioning it here, but on Friday, I had the honor of visiting Rita Deodato’s wonderful blog, From Pemberley to Milton, for an interview, an excerpt from Rewinding Time, and a giveaway of an epub of the book for every ten people who leave a comment on the post.

The excerpt I chose was when Elizabeth turned Mr. Collins’ proposal on its head and convinced him that Lady Catherine had actually meant for Collins to propose to her! Commenters responded that they would love to read a scene in which Collins actually did propose to Lady Catherine, so as a thank you to the people who commented, I wrote a scene in which that actually happens and left it as a comment on the blog post.

You can read the interview, excerpt, and the bonus scene in the comments. While you’re there, be sure to check out the other posts as well!

https://frompemberleytomilton.wordpress.com/2024/03/22/rewinding-time-an-interview-with-jeff-bigler-excerpt-giveaway/

Rewinding Time – An Interview with Jeff Bigler, Excerpt & Giveaway Good Afternoon everyone, I am delighted to welcome to From Pemberley to Milton Jeff Bigler, author of the recently released P&P variation Rewinding Time. This is Jeff’s debut novel so if you ha…

My life has been busy this week between my job as a high school teacher and rehearsals for one of the orchestras I play in, so I am a little delinquent in announcing this. On Tuesday, I had the honor of spending the first day of spring paying a visit to Meredith Esparza's wonderful blog, Austenesque Reviews. Check it out for an interview and a chance for an ebook giveaway.

Interview + Giveaway with Author Jeff Bigler!!! Hi friends! It is my pleasure to welcome author Jeff Bigler to Austenesque Reviews for his first visit! I had the good fortune to meet Jeff and his wife, Nancy, at the JAFF Writer/Reader Get Togeth…

I was excited to see that rewinding Time has an orange banner on Amazon right now!

My JAFF novel, Rewinding Time has been out since February 2. The novel is a time travel variation of Pride & Prejudice, in which Darcy and Elizabeth separately find themselves in possession of a potion that enables them to travel back in time one hour. The idea for the story was inspired by the 1988 ten-minute play "Sure Thing", by David Ives.

A large majority of readers have enjoyed the book, with ¾ of readers rating it 4 or 5 stars on Amazon and Goodreads.

Things readers have liked about the book include:

• It is a new take on the time loop trope, and one that most readers hadn't encountered before. (It's different from Groundhog Day in that the time loop is shorter, and that Darcy and Elizabeth have full agency to use it when they need it.)
• Readers get to experience multiple versions of some of their favorite scenes in P&P, including the insult at the Meryton assembly, Collins' and Darcy's horrid proposals to Elizabeth, and Lady Catherine's visit to Longbourn.
• The scenes when Elizabeth is about to "erase" the previous hour and realizes that this gives her free reign to act with impunity are humorous.
• The climax is exciting.
• The epilogue is sweet.

Some of the choices I made that readers have criticized include:

• Some scenes happen for the first time exactly according to canon (i.e., before the potion is used to change the outcome), which means those scenes quote heavily from Jane Austen's original text.
• The way Darcy and Elizabeth acquire the potion is heavily contrived.
• When Darcy or Elizabeth goes back in time, the scene starts out the same way it did one hour previously, which means portions of the text are repeated.

If you enjoy JAFF that is whimsical at times and includes a little bit of magic, it is likely that you will enjoy Rewinding Time. The novel is available from Amazon, as a paperback and as an ebook on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

Rewinding Time: A Pride & Prejudice Variation Rewinding Time: A Pride & Prejudice Variation

I did not write a 77,000-word novel. I wrote a 6,572-word novel, but I used some of those words more than once. 😁

$ tr '_' ' ' < rewind.txt | tr '[:digit:]' ' ' | tr '[:space:]' '\n' | tr '_' ' ' | tr '"' ' ' | tr '\.' ' ' | tr ',' ' ' | tr '!' ' ' | tr '\?' ' ' | tr "\'" ' ' | sed s/\ //g | sort -fu | wc -l

6572

It's actually much fewer even than 6,572 unique words, because different forms of the same word are counted separately.

About a year ago, when I decided to try my hand at writing a JAFF novel, I thought that I might do a job that was "tolerable, I suppose, but not appealing enough to tempt my readers". But I persevered because I also thought that:

1. It would be a fun project.
2. I could afford the time to write it while also teaching high school, as long as I took my time about it.
3. I could afford the costs of hiring a professional developmental editor and a professional cover designer.

And besides, what is the worst that could have happened? I might have written a book that had a small handful of readers, poor reviews, and I would have concluded that it was good to try it once and moved on with my life.

As it turns out, I seem to have done a pretty good job—the book has remained in the top ten in its niche category ("Adaptations and Pastiche Fiction”) all week, and readers have been enjoying it (based on about 80% of the reviews giving 4 or 5 stars, both on Amazon and Goodreads). I very much enjoyed the process of writing and editing it, and in the ten days since it was released, Rewinding Time has earned enough in royalties to cover the cost of my developmental editor, my cover designer, my domain (https://JeffBigler.com) and two rounds of ads on Facebook.

Squee!

My JAFF novel, Rewinding Time, was released on February 2. It has had a successful release, earning a 4-star rating on Amazon and Goodreads.

The novel is a Pride & Prejudice variation in which Darcy and Elizabeth separately (and unbeknownst to each other) find themselves in possession of a potion that enables them to travel back one hour in time. The potion enables Darcy and Elizabeth to go back and change their mistakes, sometimes only to make new and different ones, and occasionally with farcical results. You will enjoy reading multiple variations of some of your favorite scenes from Pride & Prejudice, much more than Darcy or Elizabeth will enjoy experiencing them…

If you like low-angst Pride & Prejudice variations with a little bit of magic, you will almost certainly enjoy this one. Here is what readers are saying:

★★★★★ This book is very inventive relating to the possible changes that could occur with a one hour “backstroke” in the river of time. I was a little nervous towards the end when Wickham complicates things, but justice wins out. This is a wonderful first published work by this author. I hope his imagination spurs him on to keep writing.

★★★★☆ It was a good story – I couldn’t put it down. I am looking forward to more of your work in the future!

★★★★★ I was happily surprised at how the scenes played out, and the depth it gave our view of our favorite couple. I think more of us could use the idea of “turning back the clock” to talk through our disagreements more easily. Highly recommend!

★★★★☆ I enjoyed this story, and it was a quick read without heavy angst.

★★★★★ I thoroughly enjoyed this take on the story, and the idea was beautifully developed, in my opinion. I would recommend it to anybody who enjoys magical takes of Miss Austen stories.

★★★★★ The book is in some parts rather witty. I like Mr Bennet’s comments and Elizabeth’s encounter with Lady Catherine led me to laugh out loud several times, even when the end of the first encounter was quite unexpected.

If you like a story where Darcy and Elizabeth are, with the help of a potion, able to correct their statements and behaviour and with this have a better understanding of each other, you should definitely read this book.

★★★★★ What a fabulous new variation. At first I worried I would feel a little like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day and feel bored of repetition, but every time I cringed inwardly at the original Austen events I was excited to travel back with our dear couple to see a different outcome.

There is a thrilling climax to this novel featuring the potential Lydia/Wickham elopement that had me on the edge of my seat.

I highly recommend it.

★★★★★ Cute and funny, with a lot of heart! This is a sweet book that imagines what could happen if Darcy and Elizabeth had a magic potion that would let them go back in time one hour. Perfect for Groundhog Day, or any time you just need a fell-good boost!

★★★★★ A fun read, with a bit of magic and some humor as our dear couple turn back time to correct errors made and fix things such as disparaging comments at the Assembly. I won’t add spoilers. Read this book. It will make you smile, and even chuckle.

★★★★★ I thoroughly enjoyed this take on the story, and the idea was beautifully developed, in my opinion. I would recommend it to anybody who enjoys magical takes of Miss Austen stories.

If you are one of the readers who has enjoyed the book, thank you for reading it! If you have left a review at Amazon and/or Goodreads, a second thank you and a shout out!

If you have not yet read Rewinding Time, you can read the first six chapters (which take you through the three versions of Darcy's famous insult at the Meryton assembly) using Amazon's "Look Inside" feature.

The book is available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and as a paperback. https://www.amazon.com/Rewinding-Time-Pride-Prejudice-Variation-ebook/dp/B0CR8JTWCN/

You can also read more about the book and about me, or report any errors you find, at my website, https://jeffbigler.com

Rewinding Time: A Pride & Prejudice Variation Rewinding Time: A Pride & Prejudice Variation

As a new author, I’m doing what almost every experienced author advises against: reading the reviews of my book.

I don’t regret doing it. I knew several things from the outset:

• I’m a new author. I know that I’m not as good at writing as I will be with more experience.
• Every book has imperfections, and I expect that my first book has more of them than later books will.
• No matter how good a job a book does at being what the author is trying to make it, some people will like it and some won’t. This is why libraries and sites like Kindle Unlimited are so wonderful—readers can try a book at no cost, and can abandon the book at any point if they’re not enjoying it.

However, there are a couple of things I wish reviewers understood:

1. Ratings are nice, but reviews are much better. If I am curious about a book and it has a two-star rating, I will almost certainly read the review to find out what the reviewer disliked, so I can decide whether it makes me want to avoid the book, or whether it actually makes me more interested in reading it. But I will ignore a two-star rating without a review, because it gives no information other than that a particular reader did not like it.

2. Speaking as an author, If you liked my book, but especially if you disliked it, I would like to know what made you feel that way. If you felt that the writing, character development, plot development, story line and/or voice were inadequate, I would like to know why so I can work on improving those things in the future. If you felt that some of those things were great, I would also like to know that, to make sure I don’t change things that are good.

3. It’s important to review the book that the author wrote, not the book that you wanted to read. For example, if you don’t like books with magic, that’s a perfectly valid opinion, but giving a book a poor rating or a poor review because it has magic in it does a disservice to people who like books with magic and are trying to figure out whether or not this particular book is a good example of its type.

This is posted on my blog, at

Reviews – Jeff Bigler

Happy Friday, happy Candlemas, and for those in the United States, happy Groundhog Day! What better way to start the weekend than being among the first people in the world to read a brand new JAFF novel, for today is the day that Rewinding Time is released.

I have just posted about the book's release in several Facebook JAFF groups, most of which have about 1200 members. It seems as if many of the same people are in all of the groups, which makes crossposting feel a bit like a pub crawl with 1200 friends!

But back to the book...

Imagine the mistakes you could fix and the situations you might escape if you were in possession of a potion that brought you back an hour in time. Imagine how you might use such a potion if you were Fitzwilliam Darcy and you had just made one of the two worst proposals in the history of the English Language, or if you were Elizabeth Bennet and you had received both of them.

My new novel, Rewinding Time, is your chance to read multiple versions of your favorite scenes from Pride & Prejudice, as ODC try to repair the damage and navigate a path to their HEA. Everyone who has read this book so far has enjoyed it, saying that it is at times funny and at times tender, and the climax kept them on the edge of their seats for several chapters.

You can read it on paper, or on Kindle/Kindle Unlimited. And if you are so inclined, I invite you to leave a review.

Happy reading!

Rewinding Time: A Pride & Prejudice Variation Rewinding Time: A Pride & Prejudice Variation

My first JAFF novel, Rewinding Time, will be released this Friday on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.

Rewinding Time is a novel in which Darcy and Elizabeth separately (and unbeknownst to each other) find themselves in possession of a potion that enables them to travel back one hour in time. The potion enables Darcy and Elizabeth to go back and change their mistakes, sometimes only to make new and different ones, and occasionally with farcical results. You will enjoy reading multiple variations of some of your favorite scenes from Pride & Prejudice, much more than Darcy or Elizabeth will enjoy experiencing them…

I'm excited to find that as of this moment, the book is #1 on Amazon's list of New Releases in Romance Adaptation eBooks.
The book will be released as an ebook and paperback. You can pre-order at https://www.amazon.com/Rewinding-Time.../dp/B0CR8JTWCN/ or start reading it on the release day on Kindle Unlimited.

Rewinding Time: A Pride & Prejudice Variation Rewinding Time: A Pride & Prejudice Variation