What author, when writing romance, is not in some way inspired by Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet? It is one of the most romantic works of literature ever created. Take this proclamation from Romeo:

If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

I simply cannot read this without sighing! And Juliet’s expressions of love are just as beautiful, as in:

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.

Without doubt Romeo and Juliet inspires the romantic in me, for it is so full of emotion – but not only romantic sentiment; there is also pain and fear and betrayal and frustration and fury and the agony of separation.

In my latest novel, Legacy, I had cause to revisit Romeo and Juliet and consider the emotional landscape created by the discovery that the two would-be lovers are from feuding families.

Ruy’s family heritage can be traced back to the de Fallas, a prominent family in Andalucía. His grandfather, Salvador de Rueda, was once engaged to be married to a woman from another of the elite families in the region, Isabel Herrera; but he broke off his engagement to marry instead Alexandra de Falla (Ruy’s grandmother). Alexandra, meanwhile, had captured the interest of Isabel’s brother, Felipe, who was determined to marry her – but she only had eyes for Salvador.

The result: both Felipe and Isabel Herrera felt scorned and humiliated. As Isabel puts it in Legacy: ‘It was truly scandalous and, I can tell you, for months our family was the subject of humiliating stories in aristocratic Spanish circles.’

Fast-forward a generation, and history repeats itself when Felipe’s daughter Adalia and son Lorenzo do their best to thwart the blossoming relationship between Salvador and Alexandra’s daughter, Luz, and Andrés. Adalia wants Andrés for herself, Lorenzo wants Luz, neither gets what they want and both are left furious, which fuels the Herrerra–de Falla feud.

Enter Luna Ward, the heroine of Legacy, which is set in the modern era and follows the third generation of Andalucían families. Luz and Andrés’s son Ruy is drawn at once to Luna when she comes to work at his clinic. But then he discovers that while she seems American – she has been brought up in the States by her American father – she has Andalucían heritage. Herrera heritage, to be precise: Luna is Adalia’s daughter. Here is Ruy’s initial reaction:

Was he ‘fortune’s fool’? Fate had brought them together and now it was throwing more obstacles in their path. Playing the Montague to her Capulet was not how he had envisaged their love affair unravelling…

Just like Romeo, Ruy is shocked to learn that of all the women he could have met, Luna is from the Herrera family. Lorenzo Herrera has been deliberately causing trouble for Ruy and his family, being loudly critical of the Institute that Ruy runs. Luna, then, is a woman to avoid.

And yet, just like Romeo, Ruy knows at once that he cannot avoid Luna:

He wanted Luna more than any woman he had ever known, and he’d be damned if he lost her now. How ironic that the discovery she was a Herrera, rather than discourage his feelings for her, instead served to clarify them entirely.

And what of Luna? How is it for her to be ‘Juliet’ in this situation? Extremely difficult, is the answer. For her own reasons (which don’t relate to a feud she has no knowledge of because she barely knew her mother), Luna is far more guarded and wary than Juliet. She would make an excellent study for Friar Lawrence, who advises Romeo: ‘Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall.’ And when she does learn of her family’s past – the manipulation and jealousy and cruelty – she is dismayed to think that she may be defined by the actions and attitudes of her ancestors.

Ultimately, as it is for Romeo and Juliet, so shall it be for Ruy and Luna: they must choose whether the legacy of their families will shape their own futures. Can Ruy and Luna break free from decades of distrust and bad blood, and if so, can they choose for themselves an ending that is altogether happier than in Shakespeare’s ‘tale of woe’?