The Courtesan by Julia Justiss

Product Details

Synopsis

After years of dangerous fighting on the Peninsula, Captain Jack Carrington has returned home to take up family duties and find himself a wife. But his life is thrown into turmoil when he views a fencing lesson unlike any other. The talented student is no student at all, but a beautiful young woman, and the most infamous courtesan in all of London--Lady Belle.

Who is the mysterious Belle? A jaded cyprian seeking her next protector? A kind friend helping those in need? Or a mistress of sensual delights that tempt a man to madness? Eager to uncover the true woman behind the facade, Jack wagers he can win a kiss from Belle if he bests her at fencing. And though Belle is a woman he can neither afford to keep nor dare to marry, he's willing to risk it all to win her to his bed.

Biography

Julia Justiss grew up breathing the scent of sea air near the colonial town of Annapolis, Maryland, a fact responsible for two of her lifelong passions: sailors and history!

In high school she worked as a junior guide for Historic Annapolis, conducting visitors on walking tours through the colonial city and to the town's other great attraction, the U.S. Naval Academy. That fond association with the navy led her to eventually marry a Naval Academy grad--and they now have a son at Annapolis.

But long before embarking on romantic adventures, she read about them, transporting herself vicariously to the pyramids of ancient Egypt, World War II submarine patrols in the South Pacific, the mansions of the Old South and the ballrooms of Regency England.

She also began writing in grade school. From jotting down story ideas for Nancy Drew mysteries in her third-grade spiral, she moved on to writing poetry in high school and college, then worked as a business journalist.

After her marriage to a naval lieutenant, she wrote the newsletter for the American Embassy in Tunis, Tunisia, and traveled extensively in Europe. In Tunis, she also completed her first Regency novel, which fortunately never made it farther than the inside of her desk drawer.

But she learned from that work and kept reading between children and moving twelve times in ten years. When her husband left the navy to return to his Texas homeland, she began her second novel, discovered Romance Writers of America and built an English Georgian house in the piney woods of East Texas, where, when she closes her eyes, she can almost imagine she inhabits the world of Pride andPrejudice.

That second novel, which she finished while working a day job as a high school French teacher, won RWA's Golden Heart Award for Regency in July 1996. Then in May 1998, her long-cherished dream of becoming a published writer came true when Margaret Marbury bought the revised manuscript for the Harlequin Historical line.

Her works, all set in the Regency period and generally including at least one military character, include: The Wedding Gamble (May 1999); A Scandalous Proposal (October 2000); the novella "An Honest Bargain" in the anthology The Officer's Bride (April 2001); The Proper Wife (July 2001); My Lady's Trust (January 2002); My Lady's Pleasure (June 2002); My Lady's Honor (October 2002); Seductive Stranger, in the two-in-one volume Forbidden Stranger (July 2003); Wicked Wager (November 2003); the novella "The Three Gifts," in the anthology Christmas Keepsakes (October 2005); and The Courtesan (December 2005).

She still teaches French and lives in that Georgian house with her husband, three children and two lazy dogs. Readers can reach her via her web site, or by writing to 179 County Rd. 4112, Daingerfield, TX 75638.