The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
How did you find the research for A Letter from Pearl Harbor in comparison to your other novels: The Berlin Zookeeper or The Secret Diary? Following on from that, do you have a set research and writing approach to a novel in general? Perhaps the big feature of my...
December 1941: the tropical warmth of the Honolulu sun beats down on Virginia or ‘Ginny’ Martin. A young, courageous and determined flying instructor posted in Hawaii from her hometown of Tennessee. Ginny is enjoying sipping on Mai Tai’s with her brother Jack and her...
In Arctic Star, Palmer has crafted an excellent and moving tale of three young men’s perilous journey during World War II. In 1939, the Royal Navy was the most powerful in the world with bases dotted all around the globe. It is sometimes easy to focus on the war...
Shirley Dickson, your story has its main protagonist, Lily Armstrong, join the Lumberjills, what were they? Lumberjills (known as the forgotten army) were women who ‘did their bit’ during WW2 by recruiting to The Women’s Timber Corps and working in Forestry. With men...
Shirley Dickson’s latest novel, The Orphan’s Secret, is a beautifully crafted tale about an orphaned baby and a heart-breaking lie. Set in 1940s England, with the war raging on, Lily Armstrong has married John Radley and must quickly say goodbye as he leaves to fight...
There are many published books about Winston Churchill, but this is not yet another one. It is a quite remarkable analysis of, and insight into, Churchill’s personality traits and experiences, as a young soldier and journalist during the late 19th and early 20th...
I’m not sure who it was that first used this particular formula for good historical fiction – and especially espionage fiction. The idea is that you choose a peculiarly mysterious or ambiguous moment in recent history and then you weave your plot around it. William...
Most of us have probably never heard of Operation Foursquare, a top secret operation into Czechoslovakia at the end of the Second World War. On the night of 4th May 1945, an RAF plane takes off from Dijon in France, with four Czech soldiers on board, who have been...
Starting to write a new novel is both an overwhelming and, contrarily, exciting experience for me as I never know which path the book will take me. In my latest novel, The Orphan’s Secret, Lily Armstrong, enlists in the Women’s Timber Corps – something of which I had...
Anthony Tucker-Jones, it seems early on in his life Churchill had big ideas. His paper on invading Russia impressed his school master at Harrow. Did he always have grand strategic plans? To start with no, he struggled to apply himself and was unhappy at Harrow. It was...
