BOOK TOUR: Q&A with author Leah Fleming

I am very pleased to be taking part in the tour for Leah Fleming's latest book, The Postcard, I reviewed the book earlier this week here. I was able to ask Leah some questions about the inspiration for the book and also what she has been reading herself:

1. How did you research the Gaiety Girls?
I researched the story of the Gaiety Girls first through their postcard images online and then some biographies especially one of a famous beauty: Lily Elsie: a working class girl, child  artiste who was spotted by George Edwardes , the impresario for her looks and talent on stage. She married a wealthy heir as did many of the IT girls of that era. She was the inspiration for Phoebe Faye.

2. What was your inspiration for this book?
The inspiration  for this book was the idea that one lost postcard could change lives down the generations. Also I was inspired by those brave women SOE agents who put for Callie.

3. Where did the idea for the animal sanctuary come from?
There's an northern animal sanctuary not far from me called : Only Foals and Horses. The Brookes Donkey sanctuary has always touched me. Now  animals provide therapy for both man and beast. Cruelty to any dumb animal makes me physically sick but they only got going in the UK circa 1960s. That is why there was one around to help Callie.


4. Could you describe your typical writing day?
My typical writing weekday begins with the usual chores around a house followed by sitting down to write 3 pages in my Journal of whatever comes into my head.  This sort of meditation releases the " must dos" of the day and any frustrations fears or ideas that pop up. I then go to my "plotting shed" in the garden with just a pen and paper and write for 2 hours. I may do researches in the afternoon, read, shop, play out with friends or grandchildren after that. I try to turn up at the blank page most days when I have a deadline.

5. Could you recommend any books that you have enjoyed recently?
I've just finished Milly Johnson's:  The Tea shop round the Corner It is  a warm, compassionate funny and moving read.
I love well researched historicals. I can recommend Catherin Czercawska's The Physic Garden . For any body who loves their garden and history you just have to read The Morville Hours. by Katherine Swift.


Many thanks to Leah Fleming for answering my questions and to Diana at Ruth Killick Publicity for organising this post. Please take a look at the blog tour poster at the top of my page to see where the tour stops next.

BOOK REVIEW: The Postcard by Leah Fleming

1930's London
Caroline has lead a privileged life, supported by her Aunt Phoebe. But when her impulsive elopement to Cairo quickly turns sour, she finds herself alone with a newborn son. Then war breaks out and Caroline feels compelled to play her part. Leaving her son, Desmond with Phoebe, she begins a dangerous existence on the front lines. Will they be reunited?
2002, Australia
On his death bed, Melissa Boyd's father confesses a devastating family secret. Armed with only a few tattered keepsakes, including an old postcard addressed to someone called Desmond, Melissa embarks on a journey that will take her across oceans and into the past...

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Pages: 405

Leah Fleming weaves a marvellous story in her latest book, The Postcard. The book revolves around secrets and their varying consequences. Caroline's Aunt Phoebe kept a huge secret from her until she was forced to tell her the truth. The secret destroyed their relationship and affected how Caroline went forward in life and the decisions she made. In the present day Melissa discovers that her father had a secret too, she is going to have to delve in to the past in order to discover how she is connected to the Desmond addressed on the postcard left by her father. If she is connected to him then why has her father waited so long to tell her?
The Postcard has a brilliant pace and as a reader you are taken from Scotland to London, Egypt and Australia. The depiction of the Second World War is fascinating and highlights the lengths that women went to in order to help the war effort. Some left behind children, never to see them again, all in the name of duty.
I highly recommend this book, Leah Fleming's writing style is rich and enticing and the book is brimming with secrets and mysteries.

I am taking part in the blog tour for this book, please take a look at the poster at the top of my blog for more information and come back on Thursday where I have questions and answers with the very talented Leah Fleming. 

Guest Blog Post: Leah Fleming, author of The Girl Under the Olive Tree

Dot Scribbles is hosting author Leah Fleming today, she is the author of The Girl Under the Olive Tree, it’s a gripping story of love, friendship and betrayal set in wartime Crete – based upon the true story of Johanna Stavridi, a British debutante-turned Red Cross Nurse who remained at her post after the fall of Crete in 1941.  It’s also an evocation of the spirit of the Cretan resistance, embodied in the lives of Patrick Leigh Fermor, John Pendlebury, and thousands of Cretans.  And like all Leah’s stories there are fantastic strong women characters, family secrets, and a page-turner of a story.

Leah’s writing has been praised by Rachel Hore and Kate Atkinson and she won the Premio Roma prize for Foreign Fiction in 2012.

Leah has written a really interesting post about heroes, who has inspired her and the type of fictional heroes she likes to write about: 

MY KIND OF HERO…

I thought you’d  like to know my kind of hero. Every author needs them. especially ones like me who set their stories around World Wars so I make no apologies for the fact that the ones in The Girl Under The Olive Tree, both men and women are inspired from real life soldiers and nurses whose exploits would seem fanciful in books today.

 Take one of my all time favourites: Paddy Leigh Fermor who died only recently was handsome, suave, self educated,  a ladies’ man and how…but whose superb prose captured my writing heart many years ago with the wonderful account of his walk to Constantinople from the Hook of Holland in the 1930s as a young student. ;Time of Gifts, Between and Woods and Water and the final volume coming soon.

 His exploits on Crete as a Special Operations Officer are legend. His group galvanized the Cretan resistance, kidnapping General Kreipe in in 1944 ( fictionalized in the film: Ill Met By Moonlight.) This was a man who sat under the stars quoting Ovid to his hostage, a dare-devil who disguised himself as a Cretan shepherd and roamed the streets of Chania, writing slogans on walls even with a price on his head, He lived a full and varied life, a great raconteur,  beloved of correspondent to the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire.(Yours In Tearing Haste) He worshipped women but I suspect was a devil to live with. Do they make them like him anymore?

  There’s also the legendary New Zealand Officer, Jock Lewes, whose secret service exploits in the Egyptian desert commanded such respect. Letters to his fiancée, Mirren Barford  published by her family as : Joy Street are some of the most understated yet romantic love letters I have ever read. He too didn’t survive the war.

 No wonder the lost hero is a theme to which I return time and time again in my novels. I’m sure we must have similar men in this generation, volunteers willing to give their lives to the cause, to sacrifice their own well being and happiness for the greater good. My heroes, Bruce Jardine and Rainer Brecht although enemies would be  educated in the Classics, speak many languages,  natural leaders of men, often driven, sensual beings, who could express their feelings in prose and verse, dare devils in courage, taking risks, playing hard, loving both life and danger.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man, they say. Yes, my heroes were of their time, old school, reticent, chauvinistic perhaps but I find them fascinating if not a little daunting, the yard stick to which all my fictional heroes must be measured against. To be a hero in a Leah Fleming novel, no wimps need apply.

Leah

The Girl Under the Olive Tree is available now from Simon & Schuster, Leah is is currently on a blog tour so check out the rest of her itinerary! 

Leah Fleming
The Girl Under the Olive Tree Blog Tour schedule

9-16 August 2013

Check out Leah’s blog summer tour – and hear about her new book, The Girl Under the Olive Tree, a gripping tale of love, friendship and betrayal in wartime Crete… 

Visit these wonderful book blogs for interviews, guest posts and surprises galore!

9 August  Dot Scribbles

http://dot-scribbles.blogspot.co.uk/

10 August I hearts books 

http://iheartsbooks.wordpress.com/

11 August Mamajhearts 

http://www.mamajhearts.co.uk/

12 August Reading In the Sunshine 

http://readinginthesunshine.wordpress.com/

13 August Fabulous Book Fiend

http://fabulousbookfiend.blogspot.co.uk/

14 August Tales From the Reading Room

http://litlove.wordpress.com/

15 August  dizzycslittlebookblog – back by special demand!

http://dizzycslittlebookblog.blogspot.co.uk

16 August Laura’s book reviews

http://lauralovelockbookreviews.wordpress.com/

Lap of honour

20 September Jera’s Jamboree

http://jerasjamboree.com/

find more about Leah at www.leahfleming.co.uk  @Leahlefleming @simonschusterpr