The birth of my heroine

Juliette Irving is 24. She is intelligent, witty, curious about people and the world.
She is, at least initially, a little wary of men and their motives.

She is inclined to be impulsive, frequently having to remind herself to “look before you leap.”

The death of her father was a terrible blow which she didn’t acknowledge sufficiently at the time.

She’s of medium height. She’s blonde. She’s lithe and limber. She swims 100 lengths every day at the local indoor swimming pool.

She loves cats. She has one—whom she calls Paul—at home.

She loves pot plants, but they invariably die on her. She has the opposite of a green thumb.

She has a younger brother still at school.

Her father died when she was ten.

Her mother, a fiercely independent woman, has her own three-hour daily slot on a talk-radio channel.
She lives in a sparsely furnished flat in Greenside, with her best friend, Bronwyn Barber. who is dumpy and irritating and full of advice, some of it unnecessary, but all of it on the nose. She’s the sort of friend you hate to love, because her criticisms are often so deserved. Does she has a boyfriend - if she does, his name must be Brian - who’s been a faithful attendant since they hitched up at school seven years before.

Juliette is not preoccupied with her looks. Praise of them is something she never expects and dismisses too easily. She could just as easily (she imagines) have been born with a bulbous nose and flat feet. She doesn’t care to take credit for something she inherited.

She is, however, very proud of having done well at university, where she took a BA (Hons) in English and Law.

She has subsequently done a variety of jobs. Toyed with writing a novel. Worked in an African crafts shop. Sub-edited for a web-based business. Waited at restaurants. Worked in a bookshop. Laboured briefly as an au pair. Her mother, who is very directed, very controlled (and, when she’s allowed, controlling) can’t understand why she doesn’t pursue the legal option. It’s what her father would have wanted, after all. Juliette resists this. Conflict. Her mother’s so sure of herself and what she wants. (There hasn’t been a man of any real description in her life since Magnus died 14 years before.)