A Sweeter Prejudice

Release Date: 1991

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CF136Y4
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00CF136Y4

Sweet, old fashioned Abby is horrified when movie star Nick comes roaring into the calm Cotswolds village of Stynch Magna. Nick is ridiculously handsome, irresistibly charming … and American - everything Abby has learnt through hard experience to distrust. But one thing Nick isn’t is a man who gives up easily, and he’s not about to be beaten by Abby’s prejudice. Can she resist the overwhelming excitement and passion he brings to her peaceful existence?

A Little Bit Extra...

What were you doing in 1988? I was working in London, and living in a little flat in Balham. I’d cycle into work every day, and in the evenings I’d come home and sit at my kitchen table and tap away at my electric typewriter until midnight. I wrote at weekends, and on holiday, and I rarely went out. Ask me what music was big in 1988 and I won’t have a clue. The top films of 1988? Nope, don’t remember. What I do remember is the clatter of typewriter keys, and feeding page after page into the carriage, and the smell of the Tippex I used to correct typos.

Fortunately all this hard work paid off when A Sweeter Prejudice was accepted for publication by Mills & Boon. Reading it again after so long, it strikes me almost as a period piece. The Eighties don’t feel that long ago to me, but so much has changed since then. It was a world without mobile phones or computers or Sunday shopping. Supermarkets were a novelty. A trip to Sainsbury’s in Vauxhall was quite an event, as I remember. And there was nothing like today’s celebrity culture. It’s hard to imagine a movie star like Nick spending time in an English village today without being hassled by photographers or having his every move tweeted.

So A Sweeter Prejudice has a leisurely, old-fashioned feel to it. It was my first book, and I like to think that my writing has evolved a lot since then, but if you’re feeling nostalgic for the days before instant communication and 24 hour shopping, this story (and the others in the Jessica Hart Vintage Collection) could be just the thing …