Julia Justiss grew up breathing the scent of sea
air near the colonial town of Annapolis, Maryland, a fact
responsible for two of her life-long passions: sailors and
history! By age twelve she was a junior tour guide for
Historic Annapolis, conducting visitors on walking tours through
the city that was a hotbed of revolutionary fervor. (Annapolis
hosted its own tea party, dispensing with the cargo aboard the
"Peggy Stewart," and was briefly capital of the United States.)
She also took tourists through Annapolis's other big attraction,
the United States Naval Academy. After so many years of
observing future naval officers at P-rade and chapel, it seemed
almost inevitable that she eventually married one.
But long before embarking on romantic adventures
of her own, she read about them, transporting herself to such
favorite venues as ancient Egypt, World War II submarine
patrols, the Old South and, of course, Regency England.
Soon she was keeping notebooks for jotting down story ideas.
From plotting adventures for her first favorite heroine, Nancy
Drew, she went on to write poetry in high school and college,
then worked as a business journalist doing speeches, sales
promotion material and newsletter articles. After her
marriage to a naval lieutenant took her overseas, she wrote the
newsletter for the American Embassy in Tunis, Tunisia and
traveled extensively throughout Europe. Before leaving
Tunis, she fulfilled her first goal: completing a Regency novel.
Children intervened, and not until her husband
left the Navy to return to his Texas homeland did she sit down
to pen a second novel. The reply to her fan mail letter to
a Regency author led her to Romance Writers of America.
From the very first meeting, she knew she'd found a home among
fellow writers--doubtless the largest group of people outside a
mental institution who talk back to the voices in their heads.
Her second goal was achieved the day before her
birthday in May, 1998 when Margaret Marbury of Harlequin
Historicals offered to buy that second book, the
Golden-Heart-Award winning novel that became The Wedding
Gamble. Julia now inhabits an English
Georgian-style house she and her husband built in the country
where, when she closes her eyes and ignores the summer
thermometer, she can almost imagine she resides in the landscape
of Pride and Prejudice. Juggling the activities of
three children, her science teacher husband and a part-time day
job as a high school French teacher, she continues to avidly
pursue her first and dearest love--crafting stories.
NovelTalk asks
Julia: What prompted you to write this story?
Why did I write the book? T he best friend of the hero of
my very first book, The Wedding Gamble, was a
compelling man of few words, strong loyalties and
independent mind who fascinated me from the first. He
also garnered many requests from readers to have his story
told. So finally, I did!
NovelTalk asks
Julia: What are
you working on next?
Julia
replies:
I'm currently working on the
story of the third good friend from the original Wedding Gamble
group, Ned. A countryman who loves his land and disdains
the haut ton of London, Ned thought he'd met his perfect woman,
only to be cruelly disappointed. Turning his face against
love, he takes on the challenge of reviving a failing estate
whose incompetent manager his friend Nicky has just fired.
When his crested carriage is attacked on his way to the
property, however, he decides that rather than arriving as the
new owner, he will discover more of what is--and has been--going
on there if he poses as simply the new estate agent.
Meanwhile, when governess Joanna Merrill loses her position for
rebuffing the improper advances of her employer's husband, she
can think of no where else to turn but to her older brother,
manager of a small estate owned by a wealthy distant cousin.
She arrives at midnight, soaked through and exhausted, only to
discover her brother has been discharged and his place taken by
a grimly disapproving Ned Greaves!
