Tag: historical fiction

Q&A: The Circumstantial Enemy by John R. Bell

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When an author contacts you about reviewing their book, it’s disappointing to have to decline the opportunity because of your already huge review pile.  Such is the case when John R. Bell contacted me about his historical fiction novel, The Circumstantial Enemy.    However, just because my review pile is approaching mountainous proportions doesn’t mean I should hide interesting sounding books from followers of my blog.

I’m pleased to say, John agreed to answer some questions about The Circumstantial Enemy, the inspiration for the book and his own very personal writing journey.   If it sparks your interest, you can find the relevant purchase links below.

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The Circumstantial EnemyAbout the Book

When Croatia becomes a Nazi puppet state in 1941, carefree young pilot Tony Babic finds himself forcibly aligned with Hitler’s Luftwaffe. Unbeknownst to Tony, his sweetheart Katarina and best friend Goran have taken the side of the opposing communist partisans. The threesome are soon to discover that love and friendship will not circumvent this war’s ideals.

Downed by the Allies in the Adriatic Sea, Tony survives a harrowing convalescence in deplorable Italian hospitals and North African detention stockades. His next destination is Camp Graham in Illinois, one of four hundred prisoner of war camps on American soil. But with the demise of the Third Reich, repatriation presents a new challenge. What kind of life awaits Tony under communist rule? Will he be persecuted as an enemy of the state for taking the side of Hitler? And then there is Katarina; in letters she confesses her love, but not her deceit… Does her heart still belong to him?

Format: eBook (326 pp.)                   Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 12th October 2017          Genre: Historical Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Circumstantial Enemy on Goodreads

Interview: John R. Bell, author of The Circumstantial Enemy  

Without giving too much away, can you tell me a bit about The Circumstantial Enemy?

The book is a historical fiction thriller set in Croatia, Russia, and America between 1941 and 1953. It chronicles the trials and capers of a young pilot who is forcibly aligned with Hitler’s Luftwaffe. Unbeknownst to him, his sweetheart and best friend have taken the side of the opposing communist partisans. The threesome soon discover that love and friendship cannot circumvent the ideals of this war. I’d summarize the novel as an energetic journey to freedom through minefields of hatred, betrayal, lust, and revenge. A story about the strength of the human spirit, and the power of friendship, love, and forgiveness.

What is the relevance of the book’s title?

The title represents the protagonist’s predicament. By being in the wrong place at the wrong time, he is caught on the wrong side of the war, becoming the enemy of several in his struggle to survive. There is also a twist to the title; The Circumstantial Enemy happens to be written by a circumstantial author.  I characterize myself that way because I’d never felt a burning desire to write a book.

What changed your mind?

One potent statement from my daughter. Seventeen years ago she said, “If you don’t write it, Grandad’s story will be lost forever.” I’ll never forget the yearning in her eyes. Though in good health, Grandad was 80 years old at the time and he wasn’t about to be the first human being to live forever.   The family had heard his tales over and over again – trials and tribulations of a young WWII Croatian pilot.  I also had to admit that preserving Grandad’s captivating story for his descendants was incredibly compelling. So began my journey as an author.

How did you go about your research for the book?

Thrilled by the opportunity, Grandad agreed to a host of interviews. I was no longer a passive listener. Rather, I treated our exchange as might a journalist – probing for details and questioning events that seemed overstated. The most interesting revelation was his frankness. He soon forgot the recorder was on, revealing more than ever before – some of it both shocking and disturbing. Between the sessions, I checked his facts to ensure the timelines were correct and life in POW camps on US soil were as he described. Simultaneously, I was reading relevant non-fiction books to better understand time, place, and prisoner predicament.

I understand you initially chronicled your Grandad’s story in the form of a biography.  What made you decide to transform it into a work of fiction?

When I began writing, I found myself thinking as might a novelist – the notion that fiction hinges on the characters and what they want. Grandad’s motivation was freedom from repression. A year later, I had completed his biography. With enough copies printed for the family and a few generations to come, I thought I was done as an author. Not so. I’d been infected by that burning desire to write.  I went on to compose business-related blogs about leadership, strategy, and branding. Three years and a hundred blogs later, I thought back to Grandad’s story. There was so much to it. So much that had never been told before. I wondered if I could dramatize that fascinating journey to freedom and redemption into a thrilling novel.

What was the biggest challenge you encountered when writing The Circumstantial Enemy?

A couple of thousand words of fiction later, I realized my naivety; I was in over my head, but that didn’t snuff my inspiration. I didn’t write another word for a year – reading every self-help book I could get my hands on regarding the writing of fiction.  Following the conventional process of research, writing, editing, rewriting (ad nauseam), and seeking an agent and/or publisher, The Circumstantial Enemy was released eight years later.

What are you working on next?

I’m already working on the plot for a prequel and a sequel.

 

John R BellAbout the Author

John Richard Bell was born in Chigwell, UK and now resides in Vancouver, Canada. Before becoming an author of business books and historical fiction, he was the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and a global strategy consultant. A prolific blogger, John’s musings on strategy, leadership and branding have appeared in various journals such as Fortune, Forbes and ceoafterlife.com

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Fred’s Funeral by Sandy Day

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When an author contacts you about reviewing their book and the description sounds enticing it’s frustrating to know that it’s going to be several months before you’ll be able to get around to reading and reviewing their book.  Such is the case when Sandy Day contacted me about her book, Fred’s Funeral.    However, although it’s going to be a while until I get to read it, that doesn’t mean I should hide it away from followers of my blog who may not have such a large review pile as I do…

You can find an extract from the book below.  Also, click here to read an interview with Sandy in which she talks about the inspiration for Fred’s Funeral and her approach to writing.

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Fred's FuneralAbout the Book

Fred’s Funeral is a short novel set in 1986. Fred Sadler, a WWI veteran, has just died of old age and his dismayed ghost now discovers that the arrangement of his funeral has fallen to his prudish sister-in-law, Viola. As Viola dominates the remembrance of Fred, he agonizes over his inability to set the record straight. Was Fred Sadler really suffering from shell shock? Why was he locked up most of his life in the Whitby Hospital for the Insane? Could his family not have done more for him? Fred’s memories of his life as a child, his family’s hotel, the War, and the mental hospital, clash with Viola’s version of events as Fred’s family gathers one rainy October night to pay their respects. Readers of literary historical fiction will enjoy Fred’s Funeral.

Format: eBook, paperback (129 pp.)       Publisher:
Published: 28th November 2017              Genre: Literary Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com  ǀ Kobo ǀ iBook
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Fred’s Funeral on Goodreads

 

Extract from Fred’s Funeral by Sandy Day

1928, Ontario.

At his father’s repeated insistence, Fred finds work away from Lakeview House with a highway construction crew. It’s hot. Hotter than Arabia and dustier than a coal shed. He’d much rather be puzzling over a 36-degree gradient with a slide rule and graph paper, but jobs like that are for men with experience, and that, he has to admit he is a little short on. He detests physical labour – it gives his brain too much time to think. And it baffles him that the men around him don’t seem to mind the tedious digging and heaving and plodding in the heat he finds so torturous. They just toil away, humming, and talking, smoking their cigarettes.

Fred’s mind whirs like a radiometer as he works. He recalls the ass he made of himself when he last saw his cousins Pauline and Gertrude. He can never seem to catch Pauline alone. He is tongue-tied around her, and irritated by that nosy old Gertrude, whom he suspects laughs and makes fun of him behind his back. What is the point of it anyway? Pauline is his cousin for Chrissake. Why can’t he just leave her alone? Find another girl he likes?

And he replays the argument he had with Thomas on the weekend about the Chinese family their father hired to work in the hotel laundry. That one old Chinese lady scolded him for parking on the lawn where he always parks the car! And he told her to go fuck herself. Oh, that had been a mistake. Why did Thomas never lose his temper? Why was it always Fred getting into trouble?

His mind frets over the money he owes his father and how it keeps racking up and he never seems able to pay it back. He kicks himself for spending all his pay from the service – it had seemed like such a large sum at the time – he didn’t realize how quickly he’d fritter it away.

There must be something wrong with his nerves. This can’t be normal. He’s afraid he’s done permanent damage and reminds himself again to go pick up a bottle of vitamins at the drug store. That must be why his hands are so tremulous. He wonders if anyone notices. It can’t be something he’s doing to himself, can it? He needs an outlet for his pent up energy, but he could scarcely talk to a woman, which brings him back to Pauline, and the whole circus starts up again.

By the time the foreman blows the whistle, Fred has sweated off more pounds, which is no good whatever because his stomach is in such a knot these days he barely eats anymore. His belt is well past the last notch and hangs down the leg of his work pants. He should just cut it off. But what if he gains the weight back? He doesn’t want to go ruining a perfectly good belt.

Fred’s back is to him so he doesn’t know how or why the damn fool plunges his hand into a pail of boiling tar but Fred hears the man howl and the whole world goes black. The rat-a-tat-tat of guns shatters the air and missiles whistle past Fred’s head. He ducks and instinctively curls into a ball, pulling for his tin hat. The foreman shakes Fred by the shoulder. “Sadler! Sadler! What the hell’s the matter with you?” A sergeant is shouting. Fred can still hear the poor sod wailing. Slowly, and with growing mortification, Fred realizes the bawling is coming from his own throat and that he’s crouching on a dry dusty roadbed somewhere in Southern Ontario.

Fred’s pants are wet. He’s pissed himself.

He watches helplessly as the tar-scalded man is whisked away to the hospital. “You better go home, Sadler.” The foreman shakes his head.

Fred’s parents will be angry. He’s gone and messed up another perfectly good job, disgraced himself. What is wrong with his damn head?

Sandy DayAbout the Author

Sandy Day is the author of the soon to be released, Chatterbox, Poems. She graduated from Glendon College, York University, with a degree in English Literature sometime in the last century. Sandy spends her summers in Jackson’s Point, Ontario on the shore of Lake Simcoe. She winters nearby in Sutton by the Black River. Sandy is a trained facilitator for the Toronto Writers Collective’s creative writing workshops. She is a developmental editor and book coach.

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