Janet Aylmer

How Janet became an Accidental Author

In October 1995, Janet and her daughter Rachel were watching an episode of the BBC TV serial of Pride & Prejudice, and Rachel said that she wished that she knew more about Darcy's side of the story.

So Janet wrote two chapters of 'Darcy's Story', and then went on to complete the novel. Members of the family said that the book should be published for more people to enjoy, and so 2000 copies were printed in the summer of 1996.

Any thoughts that they might not be sold for a long time vanished when the shop at the National Trust property, Lyme Park (used as Darcy's home 'Pemberley' in the BBC serial), sold 20 copies in 2 days, and asked urgently for more!

Subsequently, in 2005 Harper Collins in New York contacted the author, and they published the book in North America in the summer of 2006. More than 150,000 copies of 'Darcy's Story' have been sold in 40 countries around the world.

Janet went on to write a Regency novel for Harper Collins about the Maitland family and, in all, Janet has written 7 books with a Regency theme.

Biography

Janet was born in Peterborough, England. She was brought up in the county of Surrey before moving to London to go to college.

Janet Aylmer married John, and they lived in Surrey before moving to the beautiful city of Bath in the West of England, where they lived for more than 30 years. Janet and John have four children and three grandchildren.

Janet now lives in Lewes, Sussex, which has a splendid Norman castle.

Interests and Hobbies

Janet enjoys Regency romance and other novels, particularly those by Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen, and she likes most books about history and the way the world works. She enjoys visiting the theatre and cinema, and listening to music.

She enjoys travel and meeting new people, and she has visited (in no particular order) ten states in the USA, as well as France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Raratonga, Japan, Hongkong, Sweden, Singapore, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Monaco, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Madeira, the Canary Islands, Martinique and St Lucia.

Memberships

Janet is a member of the Society of Authors, and the Romantic Novelists' Association.