Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas from one happy dog!

First of all a big apology to my blog followers and friends for the dearth of posts this year. Since I finished writing Victory Girls, the last novel in my wartime Lavender Road series, and since our little dog Maisie died in September 2018, we have been mostly away, travelling the world!

We have had an amazing year of adventures, culminating in a road trip to the island of Kythira in Greece (where Marc and I met 19 years ago!) to bring back a very sad dog we had found there in the summer. She was chained up in the middle of nowhere, all on her own, very dirty and uncared-for, and seemed so pathetically pleased to see us that we felt we had to do something about her.

It’s a long story, and took a lot of organizing, but our lovely Greek friends on the island helped enormously by arranging for us to have her, keeping her in an outbuilding, and taking her to the vet for inoculations so she could have a passport ready for her trip back to the UK once the weather was cooler. They named her Hera, and we have decided to stick with that. So in September, as soon as we had got back from a 3000 mile trip round North west USA and Canada (wonderful!), Marc and I loaded the car with every piece of dog paraphernalia we could think of (Hera wasn’t house trained and we had no idea how she would cope with the journey) and set off to fetch her.

Hera as we first saw her in July

The trip lasted a month and turned out to be just over 5000 miles long. By now we had discovered that Hera had originally been owned by a bird hunter who had beaten her for being frightened of the guns. By the time we found her she had been on that chain for 10 years.

To our amazement, right from the start she loved the car, she behaved impeccably in the hotels we stayed in on the way home, and enjoyed the various walks we managed in a range of locations (mainly trying to avoid the attentions of local street dogs!) She is now settling well to life in Wales and we are delighted with her!

Wishing you all a very peaceful Christmas and a healthy and happy New Year!

Helen x

 

 

 

 

Happy Christmas

I would like to wish a VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS to all my friends, readers and blog followers.

2018 has been a good year for me on the writing front, with lots of acclaim for my wartime LAVENDER ROAD novels, and several of them hitting the best seller charts. All six books are now out as paperbacks, eBooks and audio books worldwide.

For those of you who have read the Lavender Road books there is still the option to have a go at SLICK DEALS, the adventure thriller I wrote a while back to amuse my husband, which is set in Monaco, France, London and lovely Pembrokeshire where we live. For the more romantic of you there is also THE ART OF LOVING, a light romance set in Germany, which launched my writing career so many years ago by getting me short-listed for the RNA new writer award!

Many of you will know that we spent 12 years or so caring for my mother who was suffering with Alzheimer’s, and then, as soon as she had died, for two elderly dogs. Sadly both of these have also now left us. Our house suddenly feels very empty so we have decided to do some of the travelling that we’ve been unable to do over recent years. To that end we are setting off in January for a two and a half month voyage to Australia, taking in the Azores, the Caribbean, Panama Canal, Mexico, Guatemala, French Polynesia (including the Marquesas Islands), Tonga and New Zealand on the way. I am afraid not very much writing is going to get done during that time, but I will be posting photos on my Twitter and Facebook pages and perhaps one of our adventures will give rise to a new novel in the future!

In the meantime I wish you all health and happiness for the New Year and I will be back in touch later on in 2019.

All best wishes, Helen

Twitter: https://twitter.com/helencareybooks

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/helencareybooks

       

Please click on the images above to be directed to your local Amazon store

 

 

 

Four questions

Tregwynt Mansion

Tomorrow I will be joining three other authors for a Writers’ Forum at Tregwynt Mansion in Pembrokeshire. As well as talking about our books, part of the format is that we each answer pre-set questions, so I thought it might be a good idea for me to answer mine here on my blog as a kind of practice for the actual event. Apologies to anyone coming to the event, but I promise there will be lots of other chit-chat too!

Question One: How long does it take you to write a book?

My contract with my publishers, Headline (Hachette), gave me a year to write each of my Lavender Road novels. That included research and editing. And I have to say it was a push. I probably take three months to research and to create my characters and to work out the plot. I am a very careful plotter because I hate editing. I don’t see the point of writing thousands of words only to cross them out later. So I make sure my story and my story structure works before I start. Not every detail of course, but I make sure I know where I am going, what the ending will be. Actual writing time is perhaps six months, working 10am – 7pm every day.  And then I step away for a couple of weeks before going through the manuscript once or twice more for adjustments and tweaks, and to make sure it works as a story.

Question Two: How did you get published?

I was working as a management consultant, running courses in various British Universities. I was driving down the motorway one Friday after a particularly gruelling week and I said to myself ‘I’m sure there was something else I wanted to do with my life.’ I remembered that I had always had an ambition to be a novelist. Even as a child I had written pony stories, but somehow real life had got in the way. So I began writing – mostly rubbishy stuff , it takes time to learn how to create a page-turning novel – and after a while I was shortlisted for a new writers’ award. That led to my getting an agent. When we first met I had talked to her about an idea I had for a novel starting at the end of the Second World War, so when an editor at a big London publishers asked her if she knew anyone who might be interested on writing a series set in world war two she immediately thought of me. As it happened I knew very little about the war, but I was so excited about the idea of writing a series I did a massive amount of research in about five minutes and created a story outline which seemed to do the trick. The publisher commissioned me to write three books, and so the Lavender Road series was born.

Question Three: How important is the cover?

I think it is really important. And it is an issue which I am finding particularly interesting just at the moment. Book publishers are really into branding. And they love to jump on a lucrative bandwagon. It is much safer for them to add a book into an existing brand than to take the risk of starting a new brand, or genre as they would probably call it.

UK edition

My UK publishers have taken the decision to put my books into the wartime romantic saga genre even though my books aren’t really like many of the other books in that genre. So, to fit the genre, they have produced covers with pretty young women’s faces on the front and a wartime scene in the background. Romantic sagas form a huge market in the UK, especially in supermarkets, and my publishers feel this is the best way of achieving the highest number of sales.

US edition

In the US we have taken a different approach. My American covers, with their wartime poster style, are designed to be perhaps more middle of the road, more historical fiction than romantic saga, and to appeal to a wider range of reader, including men.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating of course. There is also a big difference between the paperback market and the eBook market. Time will tell how the books all do longer term. But as it stands today, four of my novels are in the top 100 historical fiction chart on Amazon US. So the American covers are doing something right!

Question Four: Which books have inspired you? Who are your Favourite authors?

I am an eclectic reader. Over the last couple of months I have read The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, The Leopard, the Italian classic, by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, a Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child, a couple of spy thrillers, a Mary Stewart novel, and Eligible, the Pride and Prejudice pastiche, by Curtis Sittenfeld. I love beautiful or clever language, and compelling characters, but the books that most inspire me are books I can’t put down. My interest in story structure draws me to writers who can keep me hooked from beginning to end. I also love it when readers contact me complaining that my books have kept them awake all night.

 

The Writers Forum will take place in Tregwynt Mansion, nr Fishguard, Pembrokeshire at 7.30 on Thursday 26 July.

Helen Carey’s latest novel is Victory Girls, the 6th novel in the Lavender Road series. It is out now out worldwide as a Kindle eBook. The paperback will follow in October.

USA Edition

UK edition

Mrs Carter’s wartime pies

As it is National Pie Week, I thought it would be fun to offer you some Second World War pie recipes.

These are all the kind of pies that Mrs Carter, one my Lavender Road series characters who runs the local café, would have created. (See especially LONDON CALLING for the cooking competition in which she gains notoriety by inadvertently setting Wandsworth Town Hall on fire!)

On the whole wartime recipes are healthy as they contain little fat and sugar. Of course they also contain very little meat due to the rigours of wartime rationing, but wartime cooks worked wonders in compensating for shortages. So feel free to improvise with the recipes below. Mrs Carter found that a handful of stinging nettles, dandelions added a certain amount of excitement to her cooking.

‘With so little in the shops,’ she said, ‘I started looking around for other nourishing things I could use. And when I discovered that my tortoise was partial to dandelions, daisies and stinging nettles, I thought, well, if they are good enough for Monty, they are probably good enough for me. So I tried them last week and I’m still here to tell the tale.’

Distracted by the audience’s chuckle of amusement, Mrs Carter unthinkingly delved into a bag to draw out the edible weeds she had mentioned. But she had forgotten about the stinging nettles. As soon as her fingers closed on the vicious leaves, it felt as though her entire hand had caught fire. With a shriek of shock and pain, she jerked her arm out of the bag and rushed over to the sink, scattering stinging nettles, dandelions and daisy leaves in her wake.

My first recipe is Mrs Carter’s Meat and Veg Pie (a meatier version of the famous Woolton Pie – introduced by the so-named Minister of Food to encourage nutritional thrift in the kitchen.)

All the following recipes serve 4.

 

Mrs Carter’s Meat and Veg Pie

• 1 tin of spam or other tinned meat, or small chunks of fresh meat if available
• 1lb potatoes
• 1lb parsnips
• 1lb carrots
• 1lb cauliflower
• 6 radishes
• A sprinkle of chopped spring onions (if available)
• Dandelions/ stinging nettles/ or other edible weeds
• 2 teaspoons of Marmite/Bovril
• One tablespoon of porridge oats
• Salt and pepper
• Parsley (fresh or dried)

For the pastry: (Or if you want to cheat – use Jus-roll)

• 6oz wholemeal flour
• 6oz cooked mashed potato
• 3oz fat (Margarine or lard)
• 2 tsp of baking powder
• salt and pepper

Method:

• Chop the vegetables into small chunks.
• Fry briefly with the meat.
• Then place in saucepan with two cups of water and bring to boil.
• Add the Marmite and oats, season and cook until tender.
• Place mixture in ovenproof dish and sprinkle with parsley

For the pastry:

• Mix the flour with salt and baking powder and rub in the fat.
• Mix in the mashed potato to form a dough. Knead to combine, add some water if necessary.
• Roll out on floured board (or, in Mrs Carter’s case, an old roof tile) to form a covering and lay over filling. Brush with milk (if available)
• Place in oven at 190C for 40 mins until topping is nice and brown.

 

Mrs Carter’s Cottage pie

• 1 lb minced beef (or any minced meat or poultry you can get your hands on)
• 3 large potatoes
• 2 oz cheese (if available)
• herbs (rosemary/sage/thyme)
• 3 cups rich beef stock/Bovril/marmite/Bisto
• Finely chopped carrots and onion (if available)
• Edible garden weeds (chopped finely)
• Small amount of butter/marg
• salt and pepper
• Generous splash of Worcestershire sauce

Method:

• Fry the mince to brown
• Add the carrot and onion
• Add salt and pepper and herbs
• Add the stock, bring to boil, then simmer for 15 minutes until sauce is nice and thick then place in deep ovenproof dish
• Meanwhile cook potatoes in salted hot water until tender.
• Drain and mash with butter or margarine, add plenty of salt and pepper and a dash of milk to soften
• Spread mashed potato over meat filling
• Sprinkle with 2 oz of grated cheese
• Place in oven for 30 minutes at 190C

 

Mrs Carter’s Tomato and potato loaf

• 1 lb cooked new potatoes
• 12 oz tomatoes
• Tablespoon flour
• Half a pint milk (or reconstituted milk powder)
• Knob of butter/marg
• 4 oz grated cheese (more if available)

Method:

• Make cheese sauce: Melt butter in small pan, add flour and stir until smooth. Cook briefly until bubbling then take off heat, and slowly add milk and cheese stirring all the time until smooth then add dried herbs.
• Cut potatoes into quarter inch slices
• Cut the tomatoes into slices
• Grease a deep ovenproof dish
• Build pie with layers of potatoes, cheese sauce, tomatoes, in that order, finishing with top layer of potato
• Top with grated cheese
• Bake at 170C for 45 minutes until brown

 

Mrs Carter’s Leek and Lentil Pie

• 2 cups dried lentils
• 4 cups stock/ Marmite/Bovril
• 6 chopped leeks
• Garden herbs/edible weeds
• Mashed potato
• Corn-flour or flour
• Extra salt/pepper/dried herbs
• Slice of  butter/margarine

Method:

• Rinse the lentils then place with leaks into a pan. Cover with the stock, put on lid and cook on a slow heat until tender and most of the liquid is absorbed.
• Melt margarine and add corn flour to make thickener then stir into to the lentil mix.
• Put into a greased ovenproof dish then cover with mashed potato.
• Bake at 190C for 40 mins until nicely brown

 

And now for desert:

Mrs Carter’s Almond fruit flan

As there was a general lack of fresh fruit on the shelves, carrot was often used as a substitute.

• 1 lb small carrots finely grated
• A few drops almond essence
• 5 tablespoons of jam or marmalade (or stewed fruit if available)
• 4 tablespoons water
• 8oz short crust pastry/oatmeal pastry/ (made as in recipes above, or cheat with Jus-roll)

Method:

• Roll out pastry
• Grease a flan dish or pie dish and line with pastry
• Bake empty at 180C for 20 minutes until golden brown
• Meanwhile put grated carrots, jam, water and almond essence into a saucepan
• Bring to a boil and simmer gently stirring all the time for around 20 minutes until nice and thick
• Pour into the cooked flan case and return to oven for 5 minutes
• Serve with custard (if available)

I very much hope you will try some of these recipes out, although I’m not sure if I would use them to impress any gourmet dinner party guests! Nevertheless they all make a tasty mid week supper, so do let me know how you get on! And while you are cooking, spare a thought for those wartime cooks like Mrs Carter who had to spend six or more years in very primitive kitchens, in the most adverse circumstances, rustling up tasty meals with the most meagre of ingredients.

 

Helen Carey’s next novel, VICTORY GIRLS, will be published on the 18th of April.

 

 

 

Listening v. reading

Some of you will already know that my Lavender Road novels are now available as audio books too. In the USA you can find them on Audible, and from Ulverscroft. In the UK you can get them from ISIS Soundings, and from public libraries in both countries.

Having my books produced in audio form is an interesting experience. I haven’t listened to  them all the way through yet, but I have heard enough to know that actress Annie Aldington has done a great job reading them. I am very fussy about audio book readers, sometimes a narrator’s voice will get on my nerves right from the start. Other times I can listen to a boring book just because the reader has such a lovely voice. Hugh Quarshie is one of those, I could listen to his voice all day (and all night)! I think Annie brings a nice combination of warmth and humour to her reading, with a little bit of South London thrown in for good measure.

Listening to a book being read is a completely different experience from reading it yourself. In some ways it is more passive, but in others it requires more concentration because it’s not so easy to flick back to check a detail or to catch up after a break. There is also the issue of where you are when you are listening. It’s much easier to keep track of the story when you are spending the afternoon lazing on the sofa than when you are clinging to a strap in a crowded underground train, driving, or snatching a few moments on your phone between meetings, or indeed if the reader is not speaking in a familiar accent!

It would be fascinating to know if people remember the content of audio books more or less clearly than if they read them themselves. I know, for example, that people find it much harder to remember the names of books they’ve read on Kindle. But that is perhaps more to do with the fact that we don’t see the cover and title every time we pick up and start reading as we do with a physical book.

I didn’t write the Lavender Road books with audio in mind. I had no idea when I began that these wartime stories would become so popular world wide. But I’m hoping that the fact that I spent a lot of time working on my plots, making sure that my characters were suitably memorable and (hopefully!) engaging, and the historical detail as interesting as possible will keep my new listeners as involved as my readers seem to have been.

What has already happened is that having been clamouring for audio versions for the last year or so, now people are beginning to ask if there’s any chance of a TV version! Well, not so far, but it would be nice, wouldn’t it? I just need someone to tip off a suitable producer!!

US editions of the Helen’s audio books:

        

UK editions of Helen’s audio books:

     

Helen’s next lavender Road novel, VICTORY GIRLS, will be published on 18 April 2018.

Christmas Update

Hello and Happy Christmas to all my lovely readers and fans,

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL

As we are nearly at the end of the year I wanted to bring you up to date with all the latest news and developments about my books.

In the USA, all my current novels, including THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET (Lavender Road book 5), are already available as eBooks, and LAVENDER ROAD itself, and (very shortly) SOME SUNNY DAY, have now also been published as paperbacks. So do seek them out if you are looking for gifts for friends! The other books will follow these two into paperback over the next few months.

All five Lavender Road novels are also now available in the USA as audio books read by the wonderful British actress Annie Aldington, and are available from bookshops, libraries and on Audible.com.

In the UK, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET has just been released as a paperback, like the others, published by Headline Books.

All five books are also available as CD audio recordings in the UK from libraries or for sale from ISIS Soundings, but unfortunately not yet on Audible.co.uk.

Other UK news is that earlier in the year LONDON CALLING, the fourth in the series, was shortlisted for the RoNA Award, Best Historical Novel.

But the BIG NEWS is that coming on the 19th April next year (2018) in the UK and the USA will be the sixth book in the Lavender Road series, VICTORY GIRLS.

VICTORY GIRLS will sadly be the final novel in the Lavender Road series. It will bring the story up to the end of the war. It was a poignant moment for me when I typed the last few words. But I worked out that readers who have read all six books will, by the end of VICTORY GIRLS, have read over a million words about the characters of Lavender Road, and I felt that was enough!

The VICTORY GIRLS covers for each region have just been revealed. Pre-ordering is already available in the UK and will be available in the USA in the New Year.

USA Edition

UK Edition

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know many of you are eager to get your hands on VICTORY GIRLS and I’m sorry it is such a long wait but I hope you will feel that the wait has been worth it!

In the meantime, if you haven’t read them already, there are two other Helen Carey novels available, SLICK DEALS, a pacy, fun, contemporary thriller, and THE ART OF LOVING, a light, sexy romance set in Germany.

Wishing you a VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS and a NEW YEAR filled with lovely things,

 

Helen Carey

Is history repeating itself?

When I finished writing and editing VICTORY GIRLS, the last of my wartime Lavender Road novels, I realised I could finally emerge from the 1940s. Writing the last three books of the series to my publishers’ tight, one-book-a-year schedule has kept me incredibly busy, and somewhat preoccupied, and it has been quite a delight to be able to re-engage with the real world!
But it is a world worryingly different to the one that I (figuratively) left four years ago. Over the summer we have had about 50 visitors to stay (that’s what happens when I stop writing books!) and I think almost every one of them has in one way or another commented on the general world-wide increase in intolerance, nationalism and xenophobia.
These words ring extra loud alarm bells for me because they are exactly the sentiments that were so prevalent in parts of Europe prior to the Second World War. I can hardly believe that, having spent so long researching the mood in Europe and the UK during the late 30s and early 40s, I now find the world moving, apparently blindly, in an unnervingly similar direction.
I am clearly not the only person concerned. Lots of readers have written to me, both from the UK and the USA, making the same point. Quite a few have remarked that watching the late night news was causing them anxiety and disrupting their sleep. Others have kindly said that my books have brought them hope that, even in very dark times, good sense and humanity can prevail.
Let’s hope that is the case! It is certainly important to remember that there are lots of good things about the world, so many lovely places, amazing wildlife, wonderful architecture, music, photography, art, theatre, films, fabulous books (never forget those!) and millions of good, kind, generous-spirited people. And although we do need to keep a wary and watchful eye out for extremist attitudes, it is not all doom and gloom. Sometimes, for our own peace of mind, we need to focus on that too.
So now, having probably depressed you at the beginning of this blog post, I am going to try and redress the balance by leaving you with some uplifting images from my wonderful post-writing summer!

Maisie admiring the view in the Brecon Beacons

The moated entrance to Lower Brockhampton

An Exmoor pony foal in Devon

A day’s picking from our veg patch

A puffin on Skomer Island

Our shadows on a walk in the Black Mountains

Magnificent Mount Snowdon

A Blue Morpho at the National Botanic Garden of Wales

View from Carningli (Mount of Angels) behind out house.

 

The wonderful Roger Federer!

 

Helen Carey’s latest novel THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET is now out in Hardback and eBook format in the UK and USA. The paperback withh be published in November 2017.

VICTORY GIRLS will be published in April 2018.

DUNKIRK

Today, as I know that many of my blog followers are interested in the events of World War Two, I am writing about Dunkirk, and to bring you news about a fabulous offer:

The DUNKIRK WEEK WWII EPIC BOOK SALE which starts today, 21 July, for one week only (21 – 27 July).

To celebrate the opening of Christopher Nolan’s movie Dunkirk this Friday, more than 50 authors of the Facebook Second World War Club have joined together to offer you their WWII novel at a reduced price, most at 99¢/99p.

The novels range from military war tales, home front drama and sagas, harrowing accounts of the Holocaust, gripping spy thrillers, moving wartime romances, and much, much more.

UK Edition

It is a great opportunity to stock up your Kindle with a fantastic range of wartime novels, and if you don’t already have my novel LAVENDER ROAD, this is your chance to pick it up at the bargain price of 99p (UK edition), 99¢ (USA edition)! So do share the news with your friends, the offer closes 27 July.

USA Edition

For me, Dunkirk a particularly fascinating wartime event. Instead of remembering the poor military planning, horrific defeat and catastrophic losses of both men and equipment as British and French troops rapidly became encircled by advancing Nazi battalions on mainland Europe, the word ‘Dunkirk’ (in British minds at least) generally conjures up the dramatic rescue of the survivors by a fleet of naval and small private vessels, and has entered the collective consciousness as an amazing example of British resilience, courage and resolve.

It was indeed an extraordinary and magnificent effort. On the first day of the evacuation, only 7,669 men were evacuated, but by the end of the week, a total of 338,226 soldiers had been rescued by a hastily assembled fleet of over 800 boats.

The drama of the Dunkirk rescue, and the heroic involvement of so many civilians who risked their lives to pilot their tiny craft over the English Channel has inevitably made it the subject of numerous films and books.

It gave me, in LAVENDER ROAD, the opportunity to have one of my minor male characters to show unexpected grit and resolve, not to mention courage. When the novel opens Alan Nelson had been turned down by the military for a trivial medical reason. As a result he had lost his confidence and the respect of his wife, and had become a figure of fun for one or two local boys who felt he should be doing something for the war effort, instead of tinkering about on little canal boat he kept on the river in London.

But when the call for boats comes, Alan Nelson rises to the occasion.

Here is the scene from LAVENDER ROAD when his wife, Pam, first finds out what he has done.

For the hundredth time, Pam glanced irritably at the clock.

Where on earth was Alan? She needed his help in dealing with Sheila over the road. The news from Dunkirk was appalling. German planes were machine-gunning the exposed men on the beaches. German artillery was pounding the small town and the adjacent sand dunes where the shattered forces waited for their chance of rescue. Mercifully the brave rearguard of the Allied troops was still valiantly holding off the German tanks. But that small fragment of good news didn’t help Sheila Whitehead. Sheila was convinced her Jo was trapped on a Dunkirk beach, dying or about to die. She wouldn’t or couldn’t stop crying. She wouldn’t or couldn’t listen to reason.

In desperation Pam had called the doctor. But when he had eventually come, he had been typically unhelpful, saying carelessly that everyone was living through difficult times. There was nothing he could do.

If only Alan had been there. Doctors always took more notice of men. And, give him his due, Alan had a good way with people like that. Quiet but firm.

Pam checked the clock again. Where was blasted Alan? She had promised to go over to Sheila’s again in a few minutes and she didn’t think she could face it alone.

When she heard the knock on the door she dimly assumed it must be Sheila and was astonished to find young Mick Carter standing awkwardly on the step.

He looked odd. Flushed and unusually scruffy even for him. He was breathing hard.

Pam wondered for a second if he was ill but then she realized he had been running.

‘What?’ she asked harshly as the hairs on her arm began to prickle. ‘What is it? What do you want?’

‘I-it’s your husband, Mrs Nelson,’ he stammered out. ‘It’s Mr Nelson.’

Pam’s mouth dried as she stared into the dirty, freckled face of Alan’s former tormentor. ‘What about him? What’s happened to him? What have you done to him?’

‘I haven’t done nothing,’ Mick said, momentarily aggrieved. ‘He’s done it. He’s gone, and he wouldn’t take me with him.’

Pam swallowed and tried to breathe normally. ‘What do you mean he’s gone? Gone where?’

Mick shuffled his feet. ‘Gone to France.’

‘To France?’ Pam repeated blankly. ‘To France?’

Mick nodded. ‘On his boat. To rescue them soldiers what are trapped. He heard it on the radio they needed help getting them off, smaller boats and that.’

For a second Pam stared at him in disbelief. She couldn’t take it in. Alan. Alan gone to France. To Dunkirk. In his little boat. The Merry Robin. He had never taken it further than Henley before. And that was years ago. One summer holiday for a week. Soon after they were married. It had been a kind of honeymoon. They’d made love every night in that little cabin.

Even as she quickly blocked that thought from her mind, it occurred to her that Mick Carter, of all people, was an unlikely recipient of Alan’s plans. ‘How do you know this?’ she snapped at him.

Mick shuffled his feet. ‘I was on the boat,’ he admitted.

Pam stared. ‘On Alan’s boat?’ She felt her mind spin. Trying to breathe slowly, she steadied herself on the door frame. ‘What were you doing on Alan’s boat?’

‘Mam threw me out the other night and I hadn’t got anywhere else to go. It was cold.’ He bit his lip. ‘I had to sleep somewhere, didn’t I?’ He shrugged bravely even as his chin wobbled. ‘Anyway I was still there this afternoon when Mr Nelson turned up.’

Pam was just trying to absorb the fact that Mick had been sleeping on Alan’s boat when to her utter astonishment, the boy burst into tears.

‘He wouldn’t take me,’ he sobbed. ‘I wanted to go, Mrs Nelson. I could of helped. But he said I was too young.’ He sniffed violently as the tears dripped unhindered off his nose and plopped on to the path. ‘He said there would be much more useful things I could do for the war than getting myself killed crossing the Channel. But I don’t know what they are, Mrs Nelson, them useful things. Nobody wants me to do anything.’

Pam was hardly listening. ‘Alan said that?’ she said tremulously, as tears threatened her own eyes.

Mick nodded and scrubbed at his eyes. ‘And now the boat’s gone, I’ve nowhere to go. I don’t know what to do, Mrs Nelson. I can’t go home because my mam won’t have me.’

Pam found she was shaking all over. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said. ‘You’d better come in. I think we both need a cup of tea.’

Those of you who have read LAVENDER ROAD will know whether Alan comes back safely or not. For those of you who haven’t, I won’t spoil the story!

There will be plenty of other stories in the film, and of course in the other fabulous books in the special DUNKIRK offer. So don’t miss the opportunity to treat yourself to a few Kindle bargains.

HAPPY READING!

All best wishes, Helen

 

The special 99¢ one week only US Amazon.com kindle version of LAVENDER ROAD can be found here.

For UK, Europe and Commonwealth the 99p (or equivalent) deal can be found here.

And click here to see all the other books in the DUNKIRK EPIC BOOK SALE, 21 – 27 July …

As part of the DUNKIRK Promo there are also some great giveaway prizes, including the Grand Prize of a paperback copy of Joshua Levine’s Dunkirk: The History Behind the Motion Picture. No purchases are necessary to enter the draw.
We’re also bringing you:

1. A two-part blog series about Dunkirk. You can read these excellent blog posts by two of our authors, Suzy Henderson (The Beauty Shop) and Jeremy Strozer (Threads of War), here: https://lowfellwritersplace.blogspot.co.uk/

2. Readings by The Book Speaks podcast of excerpts from All My Love, Detrick by Roberta Kagan plus another novel, both of which are part of the Dunkirk Week Book Sale: https://thebookspeakspodcast.wordpress.com/

3. Our authors’ pick of the Top 40 WWII Movies: http://alexakang.com/40-recommended-wwii-films-english/

 

OTHER NEWS:

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET, Helen’s latest novel in the LAVENDER ROAD series is now out in hardback and eBook versions (US edition / UK edition). The paperback edition will be published in October.

USA edition

UK edition

VICTORY GIRLS

Today is an exciting day for me because my publishers are announcing the title of my next novel.

It will be called VICTORY GIRLS.

VICTORY GIRLS will be the final book in my Second World War Lavender Road series.

The series started with the outbreak of war on the 3rd of September 1939 and, six books and a million words later, I have brought it to what I hope is a suitably celebratory close, at the end of VICTORY GIRLS, on VE Day, the 8th of May 1945.

I won’t give away the VICTORY GIRLS’ storyline here, but, suffice it to say, like its predecessors, it contains a good wartime ration of excitement, history, love and adventure, all combined with a light sprinkling of humour!

VICTORY GIRLS will be published in April next year (2018), and it is heartening (to me at least!) that interest in the Second World War seems to be stronger than ever.

You only need to look at current blockbuster film releases to see that. The recent film ALLIED with Brad Pitt had a massive budget (even though sadly it didn’t receive quite the success and publicity it deserved due to his marital breakup). And now we have two more huge films to look forward to, CHURCHILL and DUNKIRK.

Dunkirk featured in the first book of my series, LAVENDER ROAD itself, when one of the characters, at huge personal risk, takes his small river boat over the English Channel to help rescue the encircled British troops from the French coast.

Winston Churchill, always present in the background of the Lavender Road books, makes his first actual appearance in LONDON CALLING, as he lies ill with pneumonia in Tunisia at the end of 1943. He also figures in the upcoming VICTORY GIRLS, both at the Rhine Crossings, and in the VE celebrations.

Having covered almost the entire war in my six novels, I can imagine how Churchill (and everyone else) felt when peace in Europe was finally declared. In an odd way I feel as though I have vicariously lived through it all too! Not just Dunkirk, the Blitz, and subsequent relentless bombing of London, but also the trauma of evacuation, the fear for friends and loved ones, SOE operations in France, the sinking of the French fleet in Toulon harbour, torpedo attacks in the Mediterranean, the Sicily landings, POW camps, D Day, V1 and V2 rocket attacks, not to mention the day to day privations of rationing, shortages, love and loss, and the constant presence of danger.

But of course it wasn’t all doom and gloom. The aspect of my research that I found most amazing was the extraordinary courage, resilience, acceptance of adversity and gritty humour that people showed, people of all nationalities, and from all walks of life. And that’s what I have tried to show throughout the series, that when the chips are down people do what they have to do to survive, to cope, and to to overcome. I think we must all hope that some of the same attitudes of strength, tolerance and resilience will prevail today in our current troubled times.

 

 

Helen’s most recent novel, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET, (Lavender Road Book 5) is now out in Hardback (UK) and eBook (UK AND USA). It will be published as a paperback on 19th October 2017.

Serendipity

One of the wonderful things about writing novels is that serendipity often lends a helping hand.

When I was starting to write my first book, LAVENDER ROAD, my car had broken down and I bumped into a wonderful local lady, Laura Boorman, at a bus stop on Clapham Common. Inevitably the bus was late, and we fell into conversation. It turned out Laura had lived in London right through the war years. She was a mine of information, and many of her memories crop up in the Lavender Road books.

A couple of days later the garage owner introduced me to an actor who in turn put me in touch with the lovely Mary Moreland who had been a celebrated concert artiste in the 30’s and 40’s. Much of Jen Carter’s turbulent career in SOME SUNNY DAY and the other books is based on Mary’s experiences.

Just as I was beginning to think about the SOE angle for ON A WING AND A PRAYER I was invited to an uncle’s birthday party at the Special Forces Club in Knightsbridge. There, I not only discovered the tragic staircase of pictures of agents killed during the war, which was a salutary reminder of the incredible dangers those men and women put themselves in for the sake of their country, but I also found information about certain young female agents and was therefore able to base Helen de Burrell’s adventures much more on reality than invention.

While I was researching the early development of penicillin for LONDON CALLING, I discovered by chance that an old family friend, Antony Jefferson, had been a medical student at the time (1942) and actually visited the laboratory in Oxford where Professor Florey and his small team were attempting to create a therapeutic drug. Things were so short in those days that they had to resort to using bedpans to grow the cultures in as they simply couldn’t find any other suitable receptacles. Antony had also survived a torpedo attach in mid Atlantic. Some of my readers will recall Jen and Molly’s dramatic escape from their sinking troopship in the Mediterranean, all based on Antony’s experiences!

I had already begun writing my most recent Lavender Road book, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET, and was trying to find useful details about the women’s services during the war years, when I asked Eirian Short (a famous local embroiderer) for some advice on a tapestry I had recently inherited, only to discover that Eirian had joined the ATS in 1942 and remembered every detail! Although I should add that Eirian’s military service history was exemplary, and my character Louise Rutherford’s various high jinks are entirely her own!

Now, as I draw to the end of writing Book 6 (as yet unnamed) I’m glad to report that the same kind of thing has happened again. I won’t tell you exactly what because I don’t want to give the story away yet, but suffice it to say that serendipity has once again played a part, and for that I am profoundly grateful!

 

 

Helen Carey’s latest novel, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET, was published by Headline on 6 April 2017 and is now available at your local Amazon store.