Author of The World War Two Series

I've written a novel for each of the seven years of World War Two, plus a sort of intro in 1938. To me, it’s an inexhaustible subject for many reasons, some of which are the moral issues it confronts, its parallels to today’s wars, and the ever-present possibility of dictator-driven genocide. The novels are not connected; their commonality being ordinary people whose lives and destinies are distorted by war. Each takes place in a fictional town, itself a character, and each has an underlying theme: one art, one sport, one music, one food, one science. (The theme of the last, is, appropriately, writing itself.) They’re fast-paced, evocative and historically grounded in the very real events that characterized each year of the global conflict.

The World War One series has just begun, with Charentin, 1918 and Denderbeck, 1915 already published. As with the World War Two series, the novels are independent and unconnected. They feature not famous figures from the period, but 'ordinary' people caught up in the conflict and showing their own brand of heroism.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Behind the Book: Tullykillane, 1941

Once I realized the unique position Ireland was in during WWII, I knew I had to set a story there.  This is the relatively new country of Eire I'm talking about, Southern Ireland.  Northern Ireland, ruled from London, was still part of Great Britain and so at war with Germany.  But Éamon de Valera, Eire's president, made sure his recently-independent country had no allegiances to either side, even to the point of imprisoning both German and British pilots who crash landed on their soil.

What would happen, I wondered, if an American, whose country had yet to enter the war, was shipwrecked there? How would he be treated?  And if all the rest of his shipmates were lost to a U-boat's torpedo, how would he feel?

Well, in my story, Sean Russell of Boston is left alone, half-dead, on the shores of Tullykillane in the Republic of Ireland.  What he finds is a divided country at war with itself, but he also finds love.
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