Julia Kelly's Blog, page 5
September 22, 2020
The Whispers of War is out now in paperback!
The Whispers of War is now out in paperback at all fine retailers.
AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOKSHOP APPLE BOOKS | KOBO | GOOGLE PLAYIn August of 1939, as Britain watches the headlines in fear of another devastating war with Germany, three childhood friends must choose between friendship or country. Erstwhile socialite Nora is determined to find her place in the Home Office’s Air Raid Precautions Department, matchmaker Hazel tries to mask two closely guarded secrets with irrepressible optimism, and German expat Marie worries that she and her family might face imprisonment in an internment camp if war is declared. When Germany invades Poland and tensions on the home front rise, Marie is labeled an enemy alien, and the three friends find themselves fighting together to keep her free at any cost.
ADD THE WHISPERS OF WAR ON GOODREADS
September 21, 2020
Join me for The Whispers of War's paperback launch party!
Join me for a launch party to celebrate the paperback release of The Whispers of War! Tomorrow (September 22) at noon ET, I’ll be holding a live Q&A session about my inspiration and research for the book, and also giving away signed copies to lucky readers. The party will be hosted through my Ask an Author Facebook group, and you can RSVP to watch live or click the Watch button after noon to see the replay!
Click here to sign up and make sure you don’t miss the fun!
September 7, 2020
Read an exclusive excerpt of The Whispers of War!
The Whispers of War is coming to paperback in North America on September 22nd. To celebrate, I’m sharing with you an exclusive excerpt of the book—the moment that Britain enters WWII and three best friends, Marie, Hazel, and Nora realize just how dangerous life in London has become for Marie, a German expat, and her family.
She cleared her throat. “May I put the radio on?”
“Where is Henrik?” asked his father, folding the edge of his paper down to peer over the top of his spectacles.
Tante Matilda’s lips thinned again, so Marie knew her aunt had also heard her cousin fumble with the lock and stumble into the flat around two that morning.
Onkel Albrecht sighed. “I’ll wake our son. I cannot imagine anyone sleeping through this morning.”
Marie turned the dial of the large radio inside the polished walnut cabinet that stood in the corner of the room.
“Not too loud,” said her aunt immediately, as though that would somehow make the next few minutes better.
Dutifully, Marie turned the volume dial down just as the doorbell rang. She jumped, but Tante Matilda put her hand up. “Calm, calm, mein Liebchen. I will answer it.”
Marie sank down into a seat, her hands folded in her lap to keep them from trembling as the last prayers of the church service being broadcast finished. Just two minutes until the deadline.
The drawing room door swung open and a rumpled Henrik shuffled in. “You look terrible,” said Marie automatically.
He scowled at her. “Where’s Mutter?”
“She just went to answer the door,” said Marie, peering closer at him. “You almost slept through a war.”
“I wasn’t sleeping, I was just resting my eyes,” said Henrik, dramatically dropping onto the end of the sofa not occupied by his mother’s abandoned knitting.
“Marie,” called Tante Matilda, “your friends are here.”
Nora and Hazel burst into the room, their hats still perched on their heads although they’d shed their coats between the front door and the sitting room. Her aunt followed them, a pleasant smile fixed on her face.
Marie shot up out of her chair and hugged them each. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Miss Walcott, Mrs. Carey, it is always a pleasure to see you,” said Onkel Albrecht, switching to English out of courtesy to their guests.
“And you, Mr. Müller. I hope you don’t think us rude to come crashing in like this,” said Nora.
“Not at all,” said Onkel Albrecht. “We’re grateful you took care of Marie on Friday.”
“Nathaniel is with his mother this weekend, so I rang Nora up and told her that if there was one place we should be this morning, it’s with you,” said Hazel. “Luckily she was already halfway out the door to a cab, ready to come collect me and loop back around to Bloomsbury. I hope you don’t mind.”
“What happened on Friday?” asked Henrik.
“Nothing,” said Marie.
Her cousin narrowed his eyes, but Marie ignored him, not wanting to revisit the humiliation. It had not been the first time she’d felt anger directed at her because of her nationality. It was simply the first time her friends had seen it.
“Are you sure that—”
But Tante Matilda was cut off by Prime Minister Chamberlain’s voice crackling over the radio.
“‘I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room of 10 Downing Street. This morning the British ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note, stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us.’”
Marie’s gaze swept around the room. Tante Matilda and Onkel Albrecht gripped each other’s hands, eyes fixed on the radio as though praying Chamberlain would take it all back. Nora wore a grim look of resignation, and Hazel—Hazel was actually tearing up. Only Henrik seemed to be unaffected by the prime minister’s words that held all their lives in the balance. He sat with a leg hitched up over the arm of the sofa, rumpled and unimpressed as a nineteenth-century fop.
“‘I have to tell you now,’” the prime minister’s broadcast continued, “‘that no such undertaking has been received and that, consequently, this country is at war with Germany.’ ”
A presenter came on then, but slowly Onkel Albrecht rose to switch off the radio, his hand hesitating over the dial before turning back around to face his wife.
“Mein Liebchen,” he started as tears began to roll down her face.
“You said it would not happen again,” Marie’s aunt said in German. “You said that if we moved here we would have a new life and no more war.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to say,” Onkel Albrecht murmured.
“Twenty-six years, Albrecht!” Tante Matilda’s voice rose. “Twenty-six! Now you know what’s going to happen to us. We’re enemies. They’ll send us away to those horrid camps they put people in like during the last war.”
Marie’s gaze cut over to her friends, both of whom stared dutifully at their hands, knowing they were witnessing a fight between husband and wife even if they couldn’t understand the language. She knew she should herd them off to her room or out of the house entirely, but she was rooted to the spot.
What will happen to me? Will I be allowed to stay? I don’t even know if I would recognize the house in Leopoldstrasse after all these years. What are we going to do?
Her breath came short and fast, and she pressed a hand to her chest over her frantically beating heart. This was Britain, a people of manners and honors and codes, yet the scars of the last war were deep. Everyone had sent their sons and brothers, husbands and cousins to fight, and so few of them returned. Marie saw the reminders every day. Veterans begging on the streets, some missing limbs or wearing half masks to hide the scars on their faces. The men who dropped their regiment casually into conversation to show they’d done their part for king and country. The furrowed brows as people calculated her age and realized that while she couldn’t possibly have been born before the last war, they still didn’t trust her.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” her uncle muttered again.
Henrik slammed his first down on the rolled arm of the sofa with a thud. “Who cares if Hitler runs the entire German army over Poland’s borders?”
“Henrik,” his father said sharply.
“I’m going to my club,” Henrik spat in German.
“To do what?” Marie asked.
“What do you think?”
Her aunt and uncle fighting. Henrik determined to get blotto. It was though the declaration of war had ripped open a seam, and her family was coming undone.
The unmistakable, high-pitched wail of an air raid siren cut across London.
“Oh god,” Hazel murmured, wide-eyed.
“Is it real?” Tante Matilda asked through her tears. But it was very real. They were at war.
Preorder your copy of The Whispers of War today!
AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOKSHOP APPLE BOOKS | KOBO | GOOGLE PLAYSeptember 4, 2020
August 3, 2020
Digital Appearance: My Writer Origin Story and an Ask an Author Q&A
This month, I headed over to Facebook to do a live Q&A with my readers and talk about books! I told my writer "origin story" and shared some of my favorite historical fiction books. I also answered reader Q&A questions and gave away books to a couple lucky viewers.
I conduct these live events on Facebook so if you want to be able to get in on giveaways and be able to ask questions in real time, follow me on Facebook and sign up for my newsletter.
Matchmaking During the War
I get a lot of questions about how I come up with my book ideas. Often the answer isn’t one lightning bolt of inspiration. Instead, it’s usually a bunch of small things rattling around in my brain that slowly come together to form an idea.
When I wrote The Whispers of War, I knew that I wanted each of the three women at the heart of the book to have a job. (Nearly every heroine I’ve written has a job and her own income, right back to my historical romances.) Marie became a departmental secretary at a university and Nora worked in the Home Office, but Hazel...Hazel was special.
The idea of making Hazel a matchmaker came from the book Marriages Are Made in Bond Street: True Stories from a 1940s Marriage Bureau by Penrose Halson (also published as The Marriage Bureau). The author describes Heather Jenner and Mary Oliver, the two owners of the Marriage Bureau, who worked hard to match their clients with eligible singles out of their offices on Bond Street. Their service was discreet as people entrusted them with the intimate details of their love lives, family backgrounds, and more. They used a card system—this will be familiar to anyone who has read The Whispers of War as Hazel uses a similar system to note down her clients’ vital statistics—and they relied heavily on interviews and intuition when matching couples.
You might think that the Marriage Bureau would have closed up shop during the war because demand would have dried up, but it was quite the opposite.
“There are so many young men wanting to marry before they go to the Front, or at any rate to have someone waiting for them when they return and to write to while they are away,” said Heather Jenner.
However, the women did temporarily relocate from their Bond Street building to a big, drafty mansion in the countryside to flee the prospect of bombing, only to be chased back because of chilly, uncomfortable conditions.
When I read Marriage Are Made in Bond Street a couple years before writing The Whispers of War, I fell in love with the idea of two women continuing to try to give people their happily ever after, even during the war. However, that wasn’t the only inspiration I drew on. There was a brief story about a mysterious government official who came into the matchmaking office to warn the owners against German spies trying to infiltrate British society by using their services. From that little anecdote, a huge plot point of The Whispers of War was born.
I’d you like to learn a bit more about the Marriage Bureau and matchmaking during the war, you can watch this newsreel from 1939 to see the owners in action.
June 29, 2020
Cover Reveal: Get Lost in The Last Garden in England
Welcome to a garden lost to time, overgrown with brambles and hidden away behind a locked gate for which there is no key. This garden holds secrets—the kind that can rewrite the histories of the women who have walked through it.
Welcome to The Last Garden in England…
I am thrilled to announce that my next book will be The Last Garden in England, a sweeping, poignant historical novel that crosses three time periods to bring you the story of five women tied together by a garden they love as they learn about love, friendship, grief, and acceptance.
The Last Garden in England is a poignant and heartwrenching tale of five women in three eras, whose lives are tied together by one very special place.
Present Day: Emma Lovett, who has dedicated her life to breathing new life into long-neglected gardens, has just been given the opportunity of a lifetime: to restore the gardens of the famed Highbury House, designed in 1907 by her hero Venetia Smith. But as Emma dives deeper into the garden’s past, she begins to uncover secrets that have long been hidden from history.
1907: A talented artist with a growing reputation for her ambitious work, Venetia Smith has carved out a niche for herself as a garden designer to well-to-do industrialists, solicitors, and bankers looking to show off their wealth with sumptuous country houses. She is determined to make Highbury House a triumph, but the gardens there—and the people she meets—will change her life forever.
1944: When land girl Beth Pedley arrives at a farm on the outskirts of the village of Highbury, all she wants is to find a place she can call home, while cook Stella Adderton could not be more desperate to leave Highbury House pursue her own dreams. Diana Symonds, a widow and the mistress of the grand house, is desperately trying to cling to her pre-war life now that Highbury House has been requisitioned to become a convalescent hospital for wounded soldiers. But when war threatens the gardens at Highbury House, these three women are drawn together by a secret that will last decades.
The Last Garden in England explores the unexpected connections that can cross time and the special places that can bind us together in unbreakable bonds.
The Last Garden in England will be out January 2021 at all fine retailers.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Apple Books | Bookshop | Google Play
To hear all the latest news about my books and to receive special behind-the-scenes looks before anyone else, sign up for my newsletter: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/i4g2n8
June 27, 2020
Ask an Author Q&A and a Closer Look at The Last Garden in England
I loved talking to readers about the reading and writing process and—most importantly—sharing the cover of my 2021 release, The Last Garden in England! If you missed the live event, you can now watch the full video/.
If you missed the If you’d like to learn more about The Last Garden in England, you can register your interest, get preorder details, and find out exclusive behind-the-scenes content here: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/b9d9q4
June 17, 2020
The Whispers of War Is Getting a New Look!
I'm very excited to share with you the brand-new cover for the upcoming North American paperback edition of The Whispers of War!
The paperback featuring this version of the cover hits US shelves this fall. As much as I loved the hardcover look, I adore the fact that The Whispers of War will share some cover DNA with The Light Over London. (I think they look fantastic together!)
If you’d like to preorder your copy of this brand-new cover, you can at all fine retailers ahead of its September release.
Amazon | Apple Books | Kobo | B&N | Google Play | Bookshop
I'd love to hear what you think of the new look! Just leave a comment on this post to let me know.
Also, newsletter subscribers got news of this brand-new cover a month ago. If you want to be the first to know about my books and to receive special behind-the-scenes looks before anyone else, sign up for my newsletter: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/i4g2n8
June 11, 2020
Virtual Reader Event: Book Club Favorites with Kristin Harmel
I’ve been incredibly lucky this spring to have not one but two digital events with the incredibly talented historical fiction author Kristin Harmel! Simon & Schuster invited us on to their Book Club Favorites group for a Facebook live where we talked about Kristin’s next book, The Book of Lost Names, as well as my recent release The Whispers of War. We also chatted about research and why WWII is having a moment in fiction, and we took plenty of live questions from readers!
You can watch the entire video below. I do live digital reader events like this from time to time, so if you want to keep up to date on when the next one is be sure to sign up for my newsletter: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/i4g2n8
