Juliet Archer
Juliet Archer describes herself as “a 19th-century mind in a 21st-century body – actually, some days it’s the other way round.” The youngest of four girls, she was born and bred in North-East England, where she met her future husband. Unlike Anne Elliot in Persuasion, she resisted well-meant advice and married young, before graduating from the University of Nottingham with a First in French and Russian. Over thirty years later, she is still married, with two teenage children and a teenage cat, and lives in Hertfordshire – “Pride & Prejudice country”. Like many authors she juggles writing with work and other commitments, so has a very supportive and understanding family – or so they keep telling her!
She has been writing romantic fiction since 2005 and joined the Romantic Novelists’ Association in 2007 – she is currently Chair of their London and South-East branch. Her debut novel, The Importance of Being Emma, published in the UK by Choc Lit, is the first in her series “Darcy & Friends” and was shortlisted for the 2009 Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance. The second novel in the series is Persuade Me (release date September 2011) and she is currently writing Northanger Nights.
Juliet gives talks all over the UK – and in the US – about why and how she’s updating Jane Austen. One of her sisters is married to an American and lives in Ohio, where her son will also be attending college from Fall 2011.
“I once wrote you a letter and you never replied, which makes me wonder if you ever received it. This time it's a more personal delivery - and I need a reply, even if it's not the one I want.I'm listening to you - I can hear every word, however softly you speak - and I'm half-agony, half-hope. You're saying that men are realists - that, when the woman they love is no longer available, they move on. Well, believe me, I tried - and I thought I had. But seeing you again, after so many years, just proved how little I knew...You told me to trust myself. So here I am back in Bath, putting everything on the line for a second chance with you. Is that what you want, too? Whatever your answer, remember this: I may not deserve you - when I think of how I've behaved, I know I've shown little self-control and even less forgiveness - but I've never stopped loving you.You're talking about heartless men... But I have a heart, and it's the same one you almost broke ten years ago, and it belongs to you, and only you, even more than it did then. And yes, I'm a realist: if you no longer love me, I will accept it. But don't say that only a woman can keep on loving someone who's no longer part of her life! Because I will keep on loving you until there are no stars in the sky.Tell me tonight how you feel. If there's any chance of you loving me back, then I'll wait for you as I should have waited before. If not, say the word and I'll leave you in peace. But I'll never forget you, or what we had, or what might have been. Rick”