It’s coming up to Anzac Day (25th April), and to honour it, I am offering a Goodreads Giveaway!
For your chance to win 1 of 100 Amazon Kindle copies of Guardian Angel my recently released World War II Historical Fiction drama romance, simply make your free entry here.
Entries are open from April 13 – April 25, 2018 (US Westcoast time). All you need is a Goodreads account and a US Amazon Kindle Account.
Good luck! Enter now!
Old Postcard – WWI Era
Another year has just sped by, with its fair share of joy, sadness and inspiration, leaving me little time to catch my breath. It hardly seems possible that, a whole twelve months later, I am wondering exactly the same thing about the year that has just gone. Where? And how quickly!
One hundred years ago, my grandfather was preparing to face the worst year of his life on the Western Front, not believing that he would survive; little knowing that it was to end in an Allied victory.
Now, a century later, with my father approaching his 90th birthday, the world has developed amazingly. Although, some would say, not for the better.
Looking, with misgiving, at the attitudes of our leaders; tensions simmering in odd little corners of the globe, with threats and posturing uncannily similar to those of pre-WWI, I realize there is one constant in our ever-changing world – human nature.
The old adage: The more things change, the more they stay the same, is just as apt now as it ever was.
I might have said that my New Year’s resolution was to have no resolutions, but I do have two. One is to publish Book IV, Guardian Angel, which will complete my Master of Illusion series. And the second is to finish the two novels I have been working on all year. The first will be accomplished very soon. For the second, I am taking inspiration as it comes. (Refer to adage, as above.)
Today, as we stand on the brink of the unknown; a bright, untrammeled new year waiting to be ushered in; I take this opportunity to wish all my readers a safe, happy, exciting and inspirational 2018.
Granville-Paris Express Incident in 1895
Trainwreck
How often do we hear railway metaphors and similes used to describe dramatic events in our lives? We say that someone has made a trainwreck of their life; that our plans have been derailed; when we speak of life-changing circumstances. Even in a small way, we might describe a feeling of tiredness as having run out of steam or puff, another allusion to the trains of a bygone era.
The railways have made a great impact on life and language since their eager acceptance by the British public in the 1820s and 1830s. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, train travel represented possibly the fastest and most economical way to cover long distances; and the most endurable if you were not rich enough to command the comforts of life.
Speaking of such things, I found the above amazing image on Wikipedia while researching the Paris railway stations for my Master of Illusion series.
On 22nd October, 1895 (when Madame Dupont was also having a little holiday away from her diary) the Granville-Paris Express overran its buffer stop at the Gare Montparnasse; crossed the concourse before crashing through the wall and came to rest in spectacular fashion, nose first, in the street below.
Incredibly, only one person was killed: not by the train directly, but by falling masonry. And here we see the irony of fate: The poor woman was minding her husband’s stall while he was away running an errand. Definitely, the wrong place at the wrong time!
And what of the stall holder himself? Did he congratulate himself on having had an amazing escape? Or did he wish that it had been him? Or miss her so much that he felt he should have died with her? We will never know.
More recently, the Gare Montparnasse is famous as the venue for the surrender of Colonel Dietrich von Choltitz to General Jacques-Phillipe Leclerc and Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy on 25th August 1944.
Colonel von Choltitz, the German commander of Paris during World War II, was hailed as the saviour of Paris by its grateful populace for his refusal to obey Hitler’s insane orders to destroy the city.
General Leclerc was the commander of the French 2nd Armoured Division formed in London in late 1943. The Division landed in Normandy attached to General George S. Patton’s 3rd U.S. Army and fought alongside the FFI in the Battle for Paris (19th – 24th August 1944).
Colonel Rol-Tanguy, known by his nom de guerre of Colonel Rol during WWII, was the leader of the Paris division of the FFI. A real hero of the French Résistance, he fought on grimly from the underground through all the years of the war.
Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
I’m honoured and thrilled to share the news that my latest novel, Angel of Song, was just announced as Bronze Medalist in the Modern Historical Literature Fiction category of the 2016 Global Ebook Awards!
This is the second Global Ebook Award for the Master of Illusion series in the Historical Fiction category.
Thanks to the wonderful team at Dan Poynter’s Global Ebook Awards for their support of self-published authors across the globe and, of course, for awarding my work once again.
Check out this shiny medal! I feel like an Olympian!
Angel of Song by Anne Rouen, winner of the Bronze Medal in the 2016 Global Ebook Awards for Modern Historical Literature Fiction
Winner of the Silver Medal in the 2014 Global Ebook Awards
I guess it is the dream of every author to have the magical words ‘award-winning’ after their name; and I am so thankful to Dan Poynter and his wonderful team of judges for making this dream come true for me with my debut novel Master of Illusion – Book One.
There are so many to thank for believing in my work and encouraging and supporting me in the sometimes lonely and daunting business of self-publishing: my family, friends and all my lovely fans: I cannot thank you enough.
All your wonderful reviews and ratings moved me to tears and sent shivers up my spine; and I vow to do my best to ensure that future works do not fall below standard.
The word ‘standard’ brings to mind another of my precepts: It does not matter whether the publishing is ‘self’ or conventional: it must be correctly and professionally edited and formatted. And here I must thank my fabulous, long-suffering editor for her meticulous attention to detail, tireless hard work and consummate professionalism. We set out on a remarkable adventure that was new to both of us and we leapt off a cliff into the unknown to land on a silver cloud. Thank you, beyond words, for helping me to turn my dream into reality.
So many people have aided me in my transformation from closet writer to award-winning author that I cannot name you all: fellow authors; the wonderful people at the ASA; my townspeople who stop me in the street to tell me how proud of me they are; the ACC and my solicitor friend who checked the copyright; and many more:
Including my dear, late friend, Beth, with whom I discussed my ideas for the book, almost on a daily basis. Sadly, I finished it too late for her to read it; my friend, Diane, who encouraged me to get my manuscripts off the wardrobe floor and do something about them; and my sister who is a slow but beautifully honest first reader. (I promise you: I am white-knuckled until she pronounces her verdict!)
If I haven’t named you: you know who you are; and I thank you from the depths of my being.
When I found a lump in my breast in December 2006, I had no idea that my subsequent, incredible journey would lead me to a silver medal in the Global eBook Awards for Historical Fiction Literature – Modern.
How thankful I am that Positives rule!
“Irène read and wrote constantly. Every day, after breakfast, she would go out, sometimes walking for ten kilometres before finding a spot she liked. Then she would start work.” preface, Suite Française. Image: ‘Forest and Light’ by dan, courtesy freedigitalphotos.net
At the moment, I am researching WWII in France for Bk IV of my Master of Illusion series. Normally, I use non-fiction, personal or first hand experience and video/television documentary for this. Once I am able to feel myself in the era, smell the earth, the trees, the flowers, then I can go on with my story.
In my search, have come across the most remarkable book, Suite Française, by Irène Némirovsky, a beautiful, intelligent writer who, in real life, just happened to move in the same privileged circles as my characters.
It is a work of fiction, yet I would rather call it creative non-fiction, because here is a record of what it is like to live in occupied France during WWII, a precious record from a consummate writer who was subjected to the worst horror that anyone can experience: the loss of human dignity and ultimately, her life.
Her talented pen evokes all the reader’s senses. She has you smelling the woods, wincing as a cat’s claws enter the heart of a tiny bird, cowering at the sound of an air raid, then becoming fatalistic, defiantly exposing yourself to the bombs: ‘Here I am – just get it over with.’
She describes, in vivid detail, a kaleidoscope of emotions and character traits, ranging from hatred to love, treachery to honour, modesty to arrogance, sometimes all in the one person!
Interestingly, she saw the occupying German soldiers mainly as wholesome young farm boys doing their duty, just wanting to go home; by and large with an integrity exceeding that of the French, whose characters she depicted as anything from the vilest, self-interested collaborator to the most insanely noble and courageous patriot. All the small day to day struggles, defeats and triumphs that make up the full picture.
And all of this from only 2 parts of a 5 part novel, comprising only the first draft. To find a first draft so compelling, so depictive, with such clever and poetic turn of phrase, is amazing in itself. What would it have been like had she been given time to finish and polish it?
I took a long time to read this novel, suspended by tears often. To read her precious words, knowing the tragedy behind them, was an emotionally draining experience. But I regard it as a labour of love, because I have to know what my characters faced when, in the midst of carrying out their daily lives, they were plunged into the worst darkness the world has ever known.
Irène Némirovsky was a great writer and best-selling author. She was also of Jewish descent, in a time when the most shameful and horrific treatment of Jews was already a fact; and her notes show that she had a premonition that she did not have long to live.
Sadly, she never got to write the last three movements of this wartime symphony and the world lost a consummate author. In July 1942 she was taken to Auschwitz and died in dreadful conditions at Bikenau.
Her husband, with the kind of love that defies all boundaries, not knowing she was already dead, lobbied the Vichy government to free her and let him take her place. Callously, they sent him to Auschwitz and straight to the gas chamber. To add to its depravity, the Vichy government then spent time trying to hunt down their small daughters to send with them.
Having been acquainted with the bravery of Marshal Pétain during the carnage that was WWI, it twists a particular knife in my heart that he presided over a craven government that would stoop to such brutal depths of inhumanity as to persecute and murder innocent civilians and their children.
I will always cry for you, Irène Némirovsky. But I salute you, too: a shining spirit holding up the truth. I feel so honoured that your hand reached out through time to show me what my characters have to face as they enter the 1940s.
Your words, so beautifully crafted, your courage, your love and the love of your husband, Michel Epstein, will live forever.
Suite Française, a remarkable, heart-rending snapshot in time. Unforgettable.