I’m delighted to be hosting today’s stop on the blog tour for Jane MacKenzie’s wonderful historical novel, Tapestry of War. Described as a perfect read for fans of Victoria Hislop and Santa Montefiore – and don’t those two authors know how to bring the past thrillingly to life? – Tapestry of War is inspired by the author’s own family history. During World War 2, Jane’s father-in-law disguised himself to rescue Allied servicemen in the Greek islands, and met his future wife in Alexandria.
I have a fascinating guest post from Jane in which she shares her thoughts on writing a book set in a place you’re familiar with, as indeed she is with the Scottish Highlands.
The tour schedule at the bottom of this post shows the other great book bloggers taking part in the tour where you will find reviews, interviews and book extracts.
About the Book
Amidst the horrors of the Second World War, love and friendship bring two strangers together across conflict-ravaged continents.
In Alexandria, Fran finds her life turned upside down as Rommel’s forces advance on the idyllic shores of Egypt. In place of the luxury and stability that she is used to, she finds herself having to deal with loss, heartache and political uncertainty.
Meanwhile, on the Firth of Clyde, Catriona works day in, day out nursing injured servicemen. As the war rages on, the two women’s lives become entwined – bringing love and friendship to both.
Format: ebook, Paperback (320 pp.) Publisher: Allison and Busby
Published: 19th April 2018 Genre: Historical Fiction
Purchase Links*
Publisher ǀ Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com ǀ Hive.co.uk (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme
Find Tapestry of War on Goodreads
Guest Post: ‘Setting Books Somewhere You’re Familiar With’ by Jane MacKenzie, author of Tapestry of War
It can be funny writing about a place you know from the outside in, that you feel and understand intuitively. It is in a way a gift, since you don’t have to fret over research and getting your facts right. But it brings its own difficulties too.
Tapestry of War is set in Egypt and in Scotland, and of course Scotland is my home. I live in the Highlands, and the whole way of life I describe in the book is one I am immersed in, bathed in, raised my children in. But then, when you come to write that down, you realise you have to take yourself out of it a little in order to find the words, and to describe what is so familiar.
It helps that it is so beautiful, and that we live so close to the forces of nature. You only have to stop and remember a wild night in December, the bitter winds of January, or a long, incredibly peaceful evening in summer. And once you have really embedded yourself in that act of remembrance then you can conjure up the little details, the birds that you see, the smells, how the hills look, the changing colours of the sea, and the description of them flows.
It helped that I was setting the book in the 1940s, during World War Two, because I’m a spectator of that era. But even then, the true Highland culture and social values haven’t changed that much. There are still women just like Aunt Sheila keeping their families together, baking, mending, visiting their neighbours, running village events. It’s a traditional place, is rural Scotland. In my own village of Plockton it can take half an hour to walk to our little shop, because you have to stop and talk to so many people on the way, check on someone who has been unwell, drop some soup into an elderly relative. I really wanted to evoke that, and I hope I’ve succeeded in passing on some of my love for my home country.
In writing about Egypt it was very different. I know Egypt, and have visited Alexandria, but it has changed so definitively since the war years that I relied much more on historical accounts, old pictures, some wonderful memoirs from the time. I do know what the elderly men look like as they sit over their little burners making tea in the streets, and I know how the heat smells, and how the sun rises over Alexandria harbour. But I can be freer in my descriptions of Egypt. I can imagine it and make it my own with much greater abandon.
Isn’t it strange that your own home, the place you live and breathe, should often be harder to write about? It is lovely, though, when your own people read your work and say ‘Yes, that’s it, you’ve captured it. That’s who we are.’ © Jane MacKenzie
About the Author
Jane MacKenzie has spent much of her adult life travelling the world, teaching English and French everywhere from the Gambia to Papua New Guinea to Bahrain, and recently working for two years at CERN in Geneva. She now splits her time between her self-built house in Collioure, France, and the Highlands of Scotland, where she has made her family home. She is the author of the best-selling Daughters of Catalonia.
Connect with Jane
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What Cathy Read Next... 
Lovely post! 😊
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Thank you 😀
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