When Juliet was published in Denmark, it was criticized for its liberal interpretation of the legendary love story. When Fortier set out to write her book, she knew she 'would have to make it really action-packed,' she explains, 'not weighed down by research, but pulled together by action and plot and love and fear - and all those emotions that make us want to turn to the next page.' a pox on both their houses, if you will.įortier grew up in Denmark and emigrated to the United States in 2002. As Julie Jacobs investigates who might have murdered her parents, she meets long lost relatives in Siena, who suggest that there might be a curse on her family, and the members of the feuding family in Siena. Though Fortier is inspired by Romeo and Juliet's legacy, Juliet is intentionally light on historical research and more focused on applying the love story to the modern day.

The author notes that this uneasy truce mirrors the setting of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In 1337, a massacre between the two families forced the local government of Siena to intervene, and the two families were coerced into signing a peace agreement. 'It very much resembles what you imagine as having been those old family feuds,' Fortier says.Īnd, Fortier says, the truce between the Tolomeis and the Salimbenis is a historical fact. In modern day Siena, the biannual Palio horse race is characterized by competitions between rival contrade, or wards, throughout city. The author argues that the love story was inspired by historical events. They have been at each other's throats since the 14th century. She quickly discovers an ongoing feud between the Tolomeis and other powerful families in Siena. Her retelling of Romeo and Juliet is a contemporary fairy tale that mixes medieval and modern mystery - a time-shifting, semi-historical maze that unravels the 'unknown' story of the feuding families in fair Verona.įortier's protagonist, 25-year-old Julie Jacobs, inherits a key to a safety deposit box in Siena, Italy - where she travels under her birth name, Giulietta Tolomei. The Bard is rolling in his grave - and according to novelist Anne Fortier, that's a good thing. In her novel, Juliet, Anne Fortier merges a little fact and a lot of fiction to elaborate on the tale of the young, doomed lovers. Romeo mourns his beloved Juliet in an 1895 production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet at the Lyceum Theatre in London.

Anne fortier new book