Mary Lydon Simonsen Interview

We had so much fun with Mary Lyndon Simonsen and so many unanswered questions, we asked Mary to come back and visit with us. So settle in and relax with author, Mary Simonsen. If you have questions too, please leave them below and we'll try to get more answers.

What was the first Jane Austen book you ever read? Did you read it for pleasure or because it was part of a course you were taking and was required reading?

MS: My first Austen novel was Pride and Prejudice, and it was assigned reading in my high school English class. However, I loved it so much that I went on an Austen marathon and read all of her books one after the other.

SEARCHING FOR PEMBERLEY takes place in two centuries, and involves three separate love stories. Where did you get the idea for the separate stories and to put them together in one book?

MS: The three periods in my story are World Wars I and II and Regency England. I first became interested in World War I when I saw a picture of my grandfather sitting in from of a pup tent. He was the father of two, but he had been drafted and was on his way to France when the war ended. Being a baby boomer, I grew up hearing stories about World War II, and I had watched tons of wartime movies with the requisite romance. I was inspired by their sacrifices, and so I wanted to write a love story involving those conflicts. However, I also wanted to write a novel with a tie-in to Pride and Prejudice. Those are three distinct eras, and I needed something or someone to pull it all together, and Jane Austen obliged. All three stories are connected to Montclair, a Georgian manor house, in Derbyshire, which may be the home of the real Mr. and Mrs. Darcy.

Do you think that by writing a book based on the novels of Jane Austen will inspire young people today to pick up an Austen novel?

MS: I hope so. But I also know that a lot of people only know Austen’s work through A&E’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice or the Keira Knightley movie. But if they don’t read the novel, then they are missing out on Austen’s genius. Her use of language is one of the reasons she is still a bestselling author in the 21st Century.

Is SEARCHING FOR PEMBERLEY your first attempt at novel writing? Can you tell us about the sales call?

MS: SEARCHING FOR PEMBERLEY’s predecessor, my self-published novel, PEMBERLEY REMEMBERED, was my first effort at writing a novel. But by the time Sourcebooks contacted me to buy the publishing rights to PEMBERLEY REMEMBERED. I had already written a sequel. However, I was encouraged to combine the two stories into one novel. It was the right call.

There are thousands of authors out there, and your chances of getting picked up by a publisher are between slim and none. But after seven months of promoting PEMBERLEY REMEMBERED, I decided to try Sourcebooks because they are the world’s largest publisher of Austen-related fiction. I sent my manuscript by e-mail to Sourcebooks, and that afternoon, Deb Werksman, my editor, called to tell me that they had already read my novel, and when my e-mail came in, they had been looking for my contact information. I took that as a sign that we were destined to work together. Needless to say, I was elated. Working with Deb and the other Sourcebooks personnel has been a pleasure.

What was the best thing you learned about doing research? What aspects of researching a novel are your favorite and which are your least favorite?

MS:I’ve been reading history and biographies for decades. I knew a lot about my subjects, but it’s always fun when you happen upon something you didn’t know. Because of the film and TV adaptations of P&P are set in the Regency Era, many people do not realize that Jane Austen lived most of her life in the Georgian Era, when the French Revolution was at its height and George III experienced his first descent into insanity. In order to get a feel for what it was like to live at that time, I read a lot about Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, and the fight to end the slave trade. A lot of that was new to me.

I enjoy doing research, even the detailed research involved in reading census documents for my family history. My favorite part is dropping the research into the novel so that it informs the reader without slowing the story down. I do have a pet peeve. If the book doesn’t have a good index, it can get frustrating when you try to retrieve some historical nugget. Fortunately for me, I dog ear the pages, so I usually have a backup.

What do you have planned in the future? Do you plan on doing another Austen based book?

MS: I believe I have found a home at Sourcebooks, because they have bought the rights to my next two novels, both P&P re-imaginings. In the first one, LONGBOURN TO PEMBERLEY, the minor characters of Georgiana Darcy and Anne De Bourgh move Lizzy and Darcy through the story to their destiny at Pemberley. In MORE THAN TOLERABLE, I have Darcy realize how rude he was to Lizzy at the Meryton assembly. The next day, he goes to Longbourn to apologize to her, and because of that apology, their romance travels a different path. Thanks for asking and thanks for having me on your blog. This is a really fun site.

SEARCHING FOR PEMBERLEY
IN STORES DECEMBER 2009
Set against Regency England, World Wars I and II, and postwar England, three love stories intertwine in surprising and fateful ways

American Maggie Joyce, touring Derbyshire in 1947, visits, Montclair, an 18th century Georgian country house, that she is told was the model for Jane Austen's Pemberley. More amazingly, the former residents of the mansion, William Lacey and Elizabeth Garrison, were the inspiration for the characters of Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.

Through letters, diary entries, and oral history, Beth and Jack Crowell, a couple who lives in the nearby village of Crofton, share stories of the people they say inspired Jane Austen. They also tell their own love story, made difficult by their vastly different backgrounds-she was one of the social elite while he was the son of a servant. When their son, Michael, travels home from his RAF station in Malta, Maggie may have just found her very own Mr. Darcy.

About the Author

Mary Simonsen grew up in North Jersey with the exciting venues of New York City easily accessible. She is especially interested in American and European history and 19th Century novels. In SEARCHING FOR PEMBERLEY she was able to combine her love of history (World War II and postwar England) with Austen's characters, Miss Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy, and being a romantic, the novel includes three love stories from three different time periods, all thanks to Jane Austen. She lives in Peoria, Arizona. For more information, please visit http://searchingforpemberley.weebly.com/