Caroline Leech Young Adult Author |
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Welcome to my first ever author newsletter, launched to mark my first anniversary as a published author. Each month, I'll include: - News about my books and events
- A slice of history – an interesting story or fact I discovered while researching
- A writing craft tip
- An excerpt from WAIT FOR ME, IN ANOTHER TIME, or my Work-in-Progress
- A GIVEAWAY of great new YA read
You are receiving this email because at some point you have subscribed to my mailing list, either online or at an event. I hope that you will enjoy keeping up with my news, but if you'd rather not, you can unsubscribe down below. |
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WAIT FOR ME Yesterday, January 31st 2018, was the first anniversary of the publication of my debut YA novel, WAIT FOR ME by Harper Collins. It has been a truly amazing year, with so much to look back on with pride and a smile. There have been a few challenges too, but my debut year is one that I'll never forget. One of the best things about my publication journey has undoubtedly been my involvement with so many other authors also debuting in Young Adult and Middle Grade fiction. We supported each other, cheered each other's successes and moaned along with each other's frustrations. Thank you to all the #2017Debuts for helping me get this far. | | |
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IN ANOTHER TIME My second book will be out this summer, also from Harper Teen. IN ANOTHER TIME is also set in World War Two in Scotland, but this time it's about Maisie, a teenager who runs off to join the Women's Timber Corps - the 'lumberjills'. Inspired by the memories of a number of real-life lumberjills, I've loved creating Maisie's world. Getting to know some of these these courageous and inspiring women, both from their written memories and in person, has been such an honor. Below is the jacket copy for the book, to give you more about Maisie's story, and I'll have details of how you can pre-order your copy in my next newsletter, and news on launch events and readings over the coming months. | | |
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WHEN THE WORLD IS AT WAR, CAN LOVE SURVIVE? It’s 1942, and Maisie McCall is in the Scottish Highlands doing her bit for the war effort as a Women’s Timber Corps lumberjill. Maisie relishes her newfound independence and her growing friendships—especially with the enigmatic John Lindsay. As Maisie and John work side-by-side felling trees, Maisie can’t help but feel like their friendship has the spark of something more to it. And yet every time she gets close to him, John pulls away. It’s not until Maisie rescues John from a terrible logging accident that he begins to open up to her about the truth of his past, and the pain he’s been hiding. Suddenly everything is more complicated than Maisie expected. And as she helps John untangle his shattered history, she must decide if she’s willing to risk her heart to help heal his. But in a world devastated by war, love might be the only thing left that can begin to heal what’s broken. |
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2017 EVENTS My publication year started with a fantastic launch party back in February, at Brazos Bookstore here in Houston TX. You can watch what went on in this wonderful video created by the very talented Savanah Lim. After a whirlwind mini-book tour around Texas in the spring, with fellow YA debut Jennifer Park, the summer took me and WAIT FOR ME back home to Scotland. In July, I returned Lorna and Paul to Craigielaw and to Aberlady, for an event with the Aberlady Historical and Conservation Society. Then in August, I fulfilled a huge #authorgoal when I took part in an event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, with Scottish author Theresa Breslin. As well as our public event in an old circus tent, we also did a fun interview with two young writers, which you can read here. Over the last few months, I've also had a great time talking to teenagers at schools in London and in Houston, about WAIT FOR ME and the historical facts behind the fiction. We've also done writing workshops about how to set clearly a time and place in our stories. More school visits are already on the calendar, so if you have a class you'd like me to visit - in person or on Skype - I'd love to hear from you via the contact form on my website. |
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POW FARMHANDS I first got the idea to write WAIT FOR ME, which starts as a German prisoner of war is dropped off at a farm to work, when a friend mentioned in passing that her father had grown up on a farm in South Wales which had a number of German prisoners working as farmhands. One prisoner had given her father a gift he'd hand-made in the camp. |
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I had had no idea that Germans were allowed out from captivity to work - I had grown up reading daring stories of Allied POWs escaping from German prison camps like Colditz - so I immediately ran to research the subject. The first prisoners taken captive in 1939 were generally from the Kriegsmarine (Navy) or Luftwaffe (Air Force), and they were held in two prison camps in England. However, as the war continued, and particularly after the Allied invasion of Normandy on D-Day in June 1944, the number of camps increased to around 600, scattered across the United Kingdom (with more in the USA and Canada). By the end of the war, almost 170,000 prisoners were working in agriculture. The men were paid a wage, and were for the most part treated well, often eating better rations than the civilians with which they worked because of the rules governing the treatment of prisoners of war in the Geneva Convention. Within camps such as Gosford in WAIT FOR ME, there were entertainment facilities such as a cinema and theatre, a football pitch and gymnasium. There are many stories of prisoners making gifts such as wooden jewelry boxes, kitchenware and jewelry for the British people they worked alongside, and toys for local children at Christmastime. After the war, the repatriation of prisoners began in 1946, though that process took several years. Many petitioned to stay in the UK permanently, partly because the homes they had left behind were now under Russian control in the east (and would soon become communist East Germany), but also because they had made friends with local people or had fallen in love with local girls. In my Author's Notes at the end of WAIT FOR ME, I quote from an email I received from the daughter of one such German who had been housed at Gosford Camp. He had met and married a local girl, they'd raised a family, and now, in his 90s, he is still living only a few miles from Aberlady and Gosford. SEE FOR YOURSELF - To watch original newsreel footage of German prisoners of war, from the extensive British Pathé website, please either click on the photograph at the top of this section, or here. The commentary is certainly of its time, and should perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt, but it does show prisoners working in the fields and in workshops. |
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SETTING Whether you are writing fantasy or historical fiction, you must make sure from the very first page that your reader knows where, and when, they are. If you allow the reader reach by page four before they discover that the protagonist is not a modern-day city, but on an immigrant ship from Ireland in the 1830s, a spaceship in the 2120s, or a timeless fantasy desert, they will be yanked out of the story with a "What???". Worse, they might not be willing to let themselves get sucked back into it, just in case the author misleads them again. Of course, you can state right up at the top of Chapter One that the setting is Good Ship Bountiful - Caribbean Sea - July 1830 or whatever, but that's a sledghammer. |
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You also need to use more subtle signals, or 'flags', to keep reminding them of the time and place too. Flags might be references to things - to clothes (long skirts andpetticoats, or teflon bodysuits), or gadgets (phasers or teleporters, or quill and ink), food, weather, landscapes, plants, transportation and architecture. Or it could be more subtle nods to social hierarchies or practices, nicknames for family members or words in a local dialect. Whatever flags you use in your writing, you have only a short time at the beginning to set the time and place firm in a reader's mind. But it's also worth remembering to keep those flags going through the story, as a way of quietly reassuring the reader that they are safe within the time and the place they believe themselves to be. Of course, the choice of that time and that place is entirely up to you, the writer. |
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FROM ONE OF MY BOOKS . . . |
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GIVEAWAY Here's your next great YA read! |
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The first book I read written by a fellow 2017 YA Debut was the fabulous fantasy story, FROSTBLOOD, by Elly Blake. Elly and I are both represented by the same literary agency, and when I went to visit my agent in New York the spring of 2016, I spotted a FROSTBLOOD advance copy sitting on her desk. After much pleading, she allowed me to borrow it, and I settled down with it for my flight back to Houston. I had finished the whole book by bedtime that night. Full of excitement and emotion, fiery and feisty Ruby and chillingly gorgeous Arcus, FROSTBLOOD thrilled me all the way. Elly recently followed it up with the fabulous FIREBLOOD. The final book in the trilogy, NIGHTBLOOD will be published this summer. |
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One lucky newsletter subscriber, chosen using a randomizing numbering system, will win a SIGNED COPY of FIREBLOOD, as well as cool bookswag from Elly Blake and from me. The winner will be notified by email, and his/her name announced in the next newsletter. |
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Thanks to Instagram bookstagrammer Kara at PagesPupsandPetals for the above gorgeous arrangement of WAIT FOR ME with her Great Uncle John's wartime ID. |
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