While visiting Montclair, an 18th Century Georgian country house located in the Peak District of Derbyshire, England, Maggie Joyce, a 22-year old American living in postwar London, is told that the former residents of the mansion, William Lacey and Elizabeth Garrison, were the inspiration for the characters of Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen's masterpiece, Pride & Prejudice, and that Montclair is the novel's Pemberley. During her visit to the nearby Village of Crofton, Maggie meets Beth and Jack Crowell, both of whom have ties to the Lacey family and Montclair, and who know if the legends associated with the house and Fitzwilliam Darcy are true. While exploring the truth behind the romance of Darcy and Elizabeth, Maggie is drawn into the love story of the Crowells, who married in the midst of the horrors of World War I, as well as her own love story with Rob McAllister, an American who flew on bombing missions over Germany during World War II, and who has returned to England for his own deeply personal reasons. Pemberley Remembered is a story of lovers who bridge class differences in Regency England, but it is also speaks to love and loss in postwar England.
From the time I read Pride & Prejudice in high school a long time ago, I have been tinkering with the plot line. What if Elizabeth and Darcy were based on real people? What was Georgiana really like? What if Anne De Bourgh actually had a personality? In 2007, I decided to try my hand at writing a novel, and the result is "Pemberley Remembered," which I self-published. I was very fortunate in that Sourcebooks Publishing, which specializes in Austen sequels, liked my book and bought the publishing rights to it. It will be out in December with a new cover and title, "Searching for Pemberley." This new book contains all of the original characters from "Pemberley Remembered," but it also continues the story of Maggie Joyce.
Having grown up in North Jersey (Elmwood Park), I had a lot of Italian friends, and they were a lot more interesting than my Irish relations. I loved their food, their enthusiasm, their culture, etc. So I recently wrote a story about love in the Italian-American community entitled "The Second Date," which is now available on Amazon.
I graduated from Elmwood Park High School in northern New Jersey. After marrying my wonderful husband, Paul, we moved to Texas and raised two beautiful daughters. After retiring from a career as a legal secretary in Dallas, I had a second career as a special education assistant in the Howard County, Maryland and Peoria, Arizona School Districts. I enjoyed both careers, but I'm really enjoying being an author more than anything I have ever done.
