Love and War: Meet Romance Author and Poet, Dawn Torrens

Dawn, it’s great to have you here! I love your romance novels. For people who haven’t had the chance to read them yet, could you tell us a bit about them?

I love romance combined with drama, so my books often contain heart-wrenching scenes. I like my books to evoke all kinds of emotions in people and for them to feel the pain, the love and all the emotions my characters are feeling. This is not easy to do and so I often find I have to get into character myself when writing certain scenes. Romance is a common theme throughout all of my books and combined with the drama my readers have come to know me well for I think it's a great combination.

IN PURSUIT OF PLATINUM The Shocking Secret of World War II by Vic Robbie

Today, I'll thrilled to welcome Vic Robbie who has kindly agreed to tell us all about his bestselling book, In Persuit of Platinum, and give us a sneak peak. Over to you Vic!

IT’S always one of the first questions you’re asked when you produce a new book: “How long did it take you to write?”

Sometimes in more flippant moments I’ve felt like saying ‘I knocked it out over the weekend.’ But I’ve never had the guts, fearing a putdown along the lines of ‘Oh, it read like that.’

How do you quantify the time spent writing? Is it from the moment you sit down to write, or from when the idea first comes into your head and you spend hours, days, weeks thinking about what you can do with it which is all part of the writing process.

If that’s the case, IN PURSUIT OF PLATINUM took me more than twenty years.

Corruption, collaboration and treachery. Meet John Hanley

Today it’s great to welcome author John Hanley, who has kindly agreed to talk to me about his wonderful debut book,  Against The Tide. First, what is your novel about?

It is set in 1939 and, on the surface, it's a coming of age adventure with lots of action but underneath there are more serious themes especially about the way Jews were treated not just by the fascist dictatorships but also by the apparently democratic nations including the UK. It also digs into the soil of corruption, collaboration and treachery.

Music, World War II and a Russian Billionaire: Meet Julie Thomas

After Robert Collins’ and Kevin Ashman’s excellent guest posts about how history has influenced their books, I am pleased to be continuing this topic with author Julie Thomas who is talking today about her wonderful book, The Secret Keeper, and the amazing World War II story behind it.

Julie Thomas

Hello to all of Katheryn's readers from far-flung New Zealand and thank you so much for sharing a few minutes with me.

I have three books uploaded to Amazon and Smashwords, one is a novel, one is a book of short stories and one is a book of my late father's letters home from WWII, he was a Spitfire pilot in the UK and the Middle East. Today I am talking to you about my novel, The Secret Keeper. It's had five five-star reviews on Amazon and one on Smashwords and is free! It's number one for free Jewish fiction on Amazon and I suspect I am the only Gentile on the list. I uploaded it in early September and so far have had around 8,000 downloads.