Showing posts with label Liz Trenow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Liz Trenow. Show all posts
Hello Lovely,
I'm looking forward to sharing today's post with you as it's an extract from the new book by the talented Liz Trenow entitled; In Love and War. It sounds to be an absolutely touching book and I am sure you will enjoy. Due to be published on 25th January, you won't have very long to wait to fully immerse yourself in this touching story. I hope you enjoy the extract once we've taken a brief look at what it's all about.
In Love and War is written by Liz Trenow, and is due to be published on 25th January 2018 by Pan Macmillan. Available as both Kindle and Paperback and also Audiobook.
I'm looking forward to sharing today's post with you as it's an extract from the new book by the talented Liz Trenow entitled; In Love and War. It sounds to be an absolutely touching book and I am sure you will enjoy. Due to be published on 25th January, you won't have very long to wait to fully immerse yourself in this touching story. I hope you enjoy the extract once we've taken a brief look at what it's all about.
In Love and War is written by Liz Trenow, and is due to be published on 25th January 2018 by Pan Macmillan. Available as both Kindle and Paperback and also Audiobook.
Three women, once enemies. Their secrets will unite them.
The First World War is over. The war-torn area of Flanders near Ypres is no longer home to troops, but groups of tourists. Controversial battlefield tourism now brings hundreds of people to the area, all desperate to witness first-hand where their loved ones fell.
At the Hotel de la Paix in the small village of Hoppestadt, three women arrive, searching for traces of the men they have loved and lost.
Ruby is just twenty-one, a shy Englishwoman looking for the grave of her husband. Alice is only a little older but brimming with confidence; she has travelled all the way from America, convinced her brother is in fact still alive. Then there’s Martha, and her son Otto, who are not all they seem to be . . .
The three women in Liz Trenow’s In Love and War may have very different backgrounds, but they are united in their search for reconciliation: to resolve themselves to what the war took from them, but also to what life might still promise for the future . . .
Passchendaele.
The word sliced like a blade. Where Bertie had gone missing. Although she knew
that many thousands had never been identified, or even found, she’d heard that
comrades would sometimes just place a simple stake in the ground, marking it
with whatever came to hand. As the coach trundled onwards, closer and closer to
this place, she found herself clasping her fists so tightly that the nails left
marks in her palms.
‘Although
many men gave their lives in this battle,’ the major was explaining, ‘the
Germans pushed back and occupied the area until September 1918, when the
Belgian army recaptured the ridge in the final push during the last weeks of
the war.’
A
tangle of emotions jangled in her head: excitement, anticipation and, above
all, fear. Much as she knew that finding Bertie’s grave was important for
herself and his family, she could not imagine, now that it was a real
possibility, how she would cope with the reality, the finality of discovering
where he lay, in the ground beneath her feet.
They’d
seen plenty of roadside crosses and memorial stones on their way to Ypres, but
nothing prepared her for the sight of Tyne Cot. As she gazed out at the
thousands of wooden crosses stretched higgledy-piggledy across the field, way
into the distance almost as far as the eye could see, the breath seemed to stop
in her chest. Some were of smooth sanded timber, identified with expertly
carved inscriptions or stamped metal plates. With a sick, chill fascination she
also noticed that many were simply rough planks hastily hammered together with
lettering scratched or burned onto the wood, with garlands of dried flowers
tied to them, an identity tag, a belt buckle, an army cap.
The
major led them forwards along a pathway of packed mud into the graveyard. Every
now and again he would pause, straightening up a cross carefully and reverently,
pushing it more firmly into the ground.
‘I
know some of you may be looking for the graves of loved ones, and we have an
hour now in which you can do so. Please take care of your footing, never stray from the pathways, or touch
or take anything from the ground. There is still a danger of unexploded
ordnance, or something personal that could lead to an identification. Either way, you must not touch. Do I make
myself clear?’
Ruby
wandered from cross to cross in a kind of trance, barely aware of time passing,
reading the inscriptions and willing her eyes to see his name yet at the same
time terrified of doing so. There seemed to be no order: officers lay next to
infantrymen, regiments were all mixed together, there were French names,
Belgian names, English names. All the differences imposed in life had been
erased by death.
Smith, Merton, Bygrave, Freeman, Augustin, Travere, Marchant, Tailler, Brown, Peeters, Dubois, Janssens, Walter, Fellowes, Villeneuve. Perhaps some of these men had known Bertie,
stood by his side in the trenches, shared their rations, spoke of their longing
for home, for their sweethearts, wives, children? As she stumbled along the
rows, gripped by a fierce determination to find her beloved, her eyes began to
play tricks. Any name beginning with a B seemed to halt the blood in her veins.
When she found a cross with the name Barton inscribed upon it, her knees
threatened to buckle beneath her. But it was Michael Peter. Not Bertie.
If
she looked long enough and hard enough she would find him, stand at his grave,
tell him she loved him, ask for his forgiveness, and be able to live the rest
of her life in peace. She could almost sense the relief of it already. And yet,
the further she walked, the more that certainty began to waver. Many crosses
bore only the simple inscription R.I.P,
Known Unto God or, saddest of all, no mark whatsoever. So many thousands of
individual, personal tragedies, so many of them anonymous; a visual
representation of mass slaughter.
Keep breathing, just put one foot in front
of another, she told herself. Hollander, Frost, Blundell, Taylor, Kelly, Schofield, Allen, Carter, Meredith, Brown, Pullen, Masters, Wade, Francis, McCauley, Titmuss, Archer . . . the parade of the lost
went on and on.
And
then, the worst shock of all, gripping at her heart like a vice: dozens of
crosses with German names. Müller, Schulz, Schmidt, Schneider, Fischer, Weber, Becker, Wagner, Hoffmann, Koch, Bauer, Klein, Wolf, Schröder, Neumann, Braun, Zimmermann, Krüger, Hartmann, lying cheek by jowl with their enemies.
Had
one of Bertie’s bullets killed the man now lying by his side? Had the shell
they fired, shouting ‘For King and Country’, or hailing the Kaiser, blown to
pieces the men now their neighbours in death? So many husbands, brothers and
sons, all now gone. What an absurdity, such a terrible waste. And all for what?
What further evidence could ever be needed of the futility of war? Far from
making sense of it all, she was becoming more bewildered by the hour.
To Pre-Order/Purchase Your copy, follow the link below
Title | The Silk Weaver
Author | Liz Trenow
Publisher | Pan Macmillan
Purchase | Amazon
Book Summary
A novel of illicit romance set
against the world of the silk trade in London
Anna Butterfield moves from her Suffolk country home to her uncle's
house in London, to be introduced to society. A chance encounter with a local
silk weaver, French immigrant Henri, throws her from her privileged upbringing
to the darker, dangerous world of London's silk trade. Henri is working on his
'master piece' to make his name as a master silk weaver; Anna, meanwhile, is
struggling against the constraints of her family and longing to become an
artist. Henri realizes that Anna's designs could lift his work above the
ordinary, and give them both an opportunity for freedom…
This is a charming story of illicit romance, set against the world of
the burgeoning silk trade in eighteenth-century Spitalfields - a time of
religious persecution, mass migration, racial tension and wage riots, and very
different ideas of what was considered 'proper' for women.
Today I am very happy to be handing my blog over to Liz Trenow for a short Q&A. I am sure you will find her answers fascinating, and even more so be urged to purchase a copy of the book for yourself and devour every page. Enjoy!
1. Please tell me a little about yourself, Liz
I worked as a journalist with regional and national newspapers and on BBC radio and television news, before turning my hand to fiction rather late in life!
I was born and brought up in Sudbury, Suffolk next to the mill which is the oldest silk weaving company in Britain and one of just three still operating today. I still live in East Anglia with my artist husband, we have two grown up daughters and, just this year, a granddaughter!
My first three books have also been published in a number of other countries and in translation: The Last Telegram, The Forgotten Seamstress (a New York Times bestseller) and The Poppy Factory.
2. Where did you get the inspiration for the characters in your novel?
My heroine, Anna, is inspired by the eminent silk designer, Anna Maria Garthwaite, who lived and worked in a house just a few doors away from where my family’s silk weaving business started in the 1700s. I was intrigued to think that they must have known and worked with her.
Anna Maria was one of the most celebrated textile designers of the eighteenth century, her silks were worn by royalty and nearly a thousand of her designs are in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Yet no-one knows how she learned her craft or how an unmarried middle-aged woman managed to develop such a successful business in a male dominated industry. It is this mystery that sparked the idea for the novel.
The boy she falls in love with, Henri, is a Huguenot (Protestant) whose family fled persecution in France by the Catholic king. Many Huguenots made perilous journeys in small boats across the Channel to reach safety in England. I became fascinated by the parallels with what is happening to refugees today and wanted to highlight them in this novel.
3. The Silk Weaver is set in in 1760s Spitalfields - are there any remaining features from that time left in the area?
It’s a wonderful area, still full of history. Many of the houses are just as they would have been back then and although the market building was demolished and replaced with a modern structure a few years ago, the wonderful Christ Church still stands proud over the landscape. The French Church Henri went to is still there, too. Since then, it has been a synagogue and then a mosque, reflecting the different waves of immigrants the area has been home to.
4. How did you go about researching the novel?
I did masses of research, especially as before this I knew very little about the 18th century, and I loved every moment of it.
I spent nearly a year visiting museums, art galleries, libraries and Georgian houses, as well as reading very widely. Of course I also spent a lot of time in Spitalfields itself, at Christ Church (where my ancestors were baptised, married and buried) and other venues and museums in the area. It was also a great excuse to visit Georgian towns like Bath again, to get my head into the era.
For a whole year I read nothing but books about 18th century London and novels either written in, or set in, the period!
5. If you could be one fictional character who would you choose?
Superwoman / man!
I’d love to be able to fly, save people, sort out the world’s problems, and come back to my job as a journalist after lunch.
Liz Trenow is the author of three previous historical novels: The Last Telegram, The Forgotten Seamstress and The Poppy Factory. Liz's family have been silk weavers for nearly three hundred years, and she grew up in the house next to the mill in Suffolk, England, which still operates today, weaving for top-end fashion houses and royal commissions. This unique history inspired her first two novels, and this, her fourth novel.
Liz is a former journalist who spent fifteen years on regional and national newspapers, and on BBC radio and television news, before turning her hand to fiction. She lives in East Anglia, UK, with her artist husband, and they have two grown-up daughter.
Today I'm posting something a little different, and something that is quite close to my heart. Today is the 11th day of the 11th month - Remembrance Day. I was moved to tears today in the supermarket as we fell silent for 2 minutes to remember all those war veterans who gave their lives in World War 1, and World War 2, and still to this day give their lives for us.
2 minutes hardly seems valid as a time to give for the pain, suffering, bravery and heroism that we are so lucky to have had within the servicemen and women over the last 100 years. Wearing a poppy seems a small act in comparison to what was faced and yet we do anything we can to say Thank You. A poppy is not just about remembering the fallen, or those who survived, but it's a symbol of hope... the hope of a safer, warless world where peace really does get given a chance.
I wanted to share with you something I wrote as part of a university assignment I had for my creative writing module. It's a piece of life writing, and it's based upon my Grandfather; Jerzy. I can't really explain it enough to do it justice, but I ask that you take a few minutes to read the closest thing I have to a memoir from my Grandpops, from the perspective of a Polish soldier in World War 2, who came to England and having served with the Polish Army, then made the choice to resign with the British Army and fight for England. My Grandpops will ALWAYS be my hero, but I also can't apologise enough for what he had to face, along with so many other soldiers. Here it is;
2 minutes hardly seems valid as a time to give for the pain, suffering, bravery and heroism that we are so lucky to have had within the servicemen and women over the last 100 years. Wearing a poppy seems a small act in comparison to what was faced and yet we do anything we can to say Thank You. A poppy is not just about remembering the fallen, or those who survived, but it's a symbol of hope... the hope of a safer, warless world where peace really does get given a chance.
I wanted to share with you something I wrote as part of a university assignment I had for my creative writing module. It's a piece of life writing, and it's based upon my Grandfather; Jerzy. I can't really explain it enough to do it justice, but I ask that you take a few minutes to read the closest thing I have to a memoir from my Grandpops, from the perspective of a Polish soldier in World War 2, who came to England and having served with the Polish Army, then made the choice to resign with the British Army and fight for England. My Grandpops will ALWAYS be my hero, but I also can't apologise enough for what he had to face, along with so many other soldiers. Here it is;
A PLACE TO CALL HOME
War touches people in different
ways. It leaves a scar upon us all. Some of us are grateful for the outcome,
for our loved ones who return home safe. Some become withdrawn from life, from
their family, even from themselves. The ugly scars that are left behind are not
always physical. Some of these scars are mentally damaging, so damaging that it
can leave you with a yearning for normality; a yearning to rewind time and
protect those who we truly care about.
Everyone has their own story about war and its eternal effects. A war of love that can be likened to Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’, or a raging war that brings disease to the body and mind, or a war to survive each hour of life when born into a third world country.
This is the story of a man who was thrust into a war that was not his to own, but that became a part of him, a part that he had no desire for as it replaced his family. This is the story of my Polish Grandfather and his war to simply find a place to call home once more.
Everyone has their own story about war and its eternal effects. A war of love that can be likened to Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’, or a raging war that brings disease to the body and mind, or a war to survive each hour of life when born into a third world country.
This is the story of a man who was thrust into a war that was not his to own, but that became a part of him, a part that he had no desire for as it replaced his family. This is the story of my Polish Grandfather and his war to simply find a place to call home once more.
My Grandfather was called Jerzy
which when translated into English is George. He lived with his parents and
siblings in Warsaw, Poland on a farm, before the war. They owned the large
piece of land with a few shire horses that he and his brothers used to help
their father plough the fields. He was only young when the Second World War
broke out. One can only imagine the fear that filled his young soul. To be
under 18 years old and know that life would allow such evil to rage within it
must have been terrifying. I’m unsure of the precise moment in which my
Grandfather knew what ‘war’ meant, perhaps it was later on in the timeline of
World War Two as we know if it today.
He lived in a very close and religious family. He adored his youngest sister and instinctively would protect her should danger ever arise. Perhaps the true war that raged through him became guilt, through hopelessness as he remained powerless in this raging war that was sweeping through his life like an uncontrollable tornado. This was guilt that festered within him as he was forced into admission that he no longer could protect her or his family anymore, not in the physical sense.
I assume life before the war was pleasant for my Grandfather if its effects are anything to go by. There always seemed a deep feeling of emptiness within him, a pining for something he knew he could never have. The longing filled his once, pure heart with anger, fear, despair and treacherous sadness.
He lived in a very close and religious family. He adored his youngest sister and instinctively would protect her should danger ever arise. Perhaps the true war that raged through him became guilt, through hopelessness as he remained powerless in this raging war that was sweeping through his life like an uncontrollable tornado. This was guilt that festered within him as he was forced into admission that he no longer could protect her or his family anymore, not in the physical sense.
I assume life before the war was pleasant for my Grandfather if its effects are anything to go by. There always seemed a deep feeling of emptiness within him, a pining for something he knew he could never have. The longing filled his once, pure heart with anger, fear, despair and treacherous sadness.
The day the Germans invaded his
family home and ripped them from its heart, is a day he never forgot. He dulled
the images when he was asked about what happened all those years ago in Poland,
instead insisting “it’s all a blur now”. But those watered eyes told a
different version, these eyes said that in an instant he was there again, in
Poland, in Auschwitz reliving it all again.
The closest I came to understanding what happened to my Grandfather was watching a film based on Auschwitz. The film alone, knowing that it was only portraying a tiny particle of what my Grandfather and his family experienced, left a scar upon my heart, soul and mind. A scar that I will never heal from, even though I am simply his Granddaughter that was born in the eighties. The contrast between his young life and mine leaves me with unquestionable gratitude. Gratitude for having such a brave Grandfather, although he’d never agree to be called ‘brace’ or a ‘hero’ – yet he is and always will be to me. I have gratitude to have had such a loving and safe environment to grow up in. Something he and his beloved youngest sister had stolen from them.
The closest I came to understanding what happened to my Grandfather was watching a film based on Auschwitz. The film alone, knowing that it was only portraying a tiny particle of what my Grandfather and his family experienced, left a scar upon my heart, soul and mind. A scar that I will never heal from, even though I am simply his Granddaughter that was born in the eighties. The contrast between his young life and mine leaves me with unquestionable gratitude. Gratitude for having such a brave Grandfather, although he’d never agree to be called ‘brace’ or a ‘hero’ – yet he is and always will be to me. I have gratitude to have had such a loving and safe environment to grow up in. Something he and his beloved youngest sister had stolen from them.
The Germans claimed the farm, the
land, the home as theirs and carted my Grandfather, his parents, and his
siblings off to the Auschwitz camp. A place that is filled to this day with the
energy of the chilling torment and torture, massacre and murder, that occurred
there. Auschwitz is claimed to be where many souls were destroyed and had their
dignity of death taken from them. Dignity was something my Grandfather claimed
those German soldiers never had and never would. The anger inexplicably clear
in his tone. The camp became the place my Grandfather witnessed the most
horrific acts against man. It was here that he watched helplessly as his
parents were led to the gas chambers to be put to a death that claimed not just
their lives but their innocence and a part of my Grandfather also. This only
occurred after they were chained like dangerous wild dogs to a rotating wheel
and tortured into continuous movement without ever taking a rest. The walking,
as if not torture enough was worsened by the fact that their circular pathway
was laid down hot coals. They were walking bare feet on such immense heat,
burning away their skin, down to raw muscle and bone that exuded a stench of
burnt skin. Walking to their exhaustion was not enough for these torturers. It
was then that they were led to the gas chambers when they no longer offered any
sort of entertainment like unwanted toys threw out. The lasting torment upon my
Grandfather did not end there. He never spoke of what he was made to do there
in terms of labour. One can only imagine that he felt it insignificant in
comparison to the punishment his parents and youngest sister took.
He once told me that I got my good
looks from him, perhaps an attempt to look on the bright side, and that I
looked very much like his sister, as if she had never left him never ageing. A
comfort to him or a torment that he felt inside? I’m not sure. But the love for
me that I felt from him was a comfort to me. Sometimes I’d feel deep guilt for
my genetic make-up that moulded my physical appearance. Guilt for bringing back
bad memories – yet – not once until now have I entertained the idea that my
physical appearance offered comfort as he reminisced about the pleasant
memories of childhood. The childhood before war scarred him.
His sister was victim to a death, a
murder that not only claimed her life but yet more of my Grandfather’s heart
and soul. Her torture and punishment was justified in the soldiers view because
she refused to be affectionate with them. Her dignity and pride, her self worth
that she had control over, was something she could be proud of. Still to this
day I am immensely proud of her self pride, honoured to call her family. My
grandfather was forced to watch as the moment his beloved sister would cease to
see him again. To be so young and to have witnessed his parents being put to
death only then to be forced to watch as his sisters beautiful hazel eyes were
gauged out with fiery hot red pokers, is more than enough to cause in the very
least a troubled mind. That moment, those collective moments were to forever
haunt him as the years rolled by painfully.
When exactly he made ‘The Great
Escape’ from Auschwitz is out of my range of knowledge. Understandably he never
had enthusiasm for talking about his past. We have a saying that ‘to talk about
something has the power to make it real’. I can presume compassionately that my
Grandfather had no desire to make it any more real than it already was.
Jerzy made his way to England,
finding solace in a community Polish Club. Why he chose England to escape to I
don’t know. When he arrived the war was still ongoing, he signed up to the
British Army and served a soldier. I’m not sure of ‘if’ or ‘where’ he served in
action. Conversations about war, his war in general were almost non-existent.
Memories and horrors that was perhaps better left in the past, if only the
reality could.
Eventually after the war was over, my Grandfather silently vowed to himself that he would live his life for his family. He would never let anything harm his family, protecting them the best way that he could, with the knowledge and understanding he had, and to the best of his ability. We may not have agreed with the way he did things, the way he bottled up his emotions, only allowing his anger to express at moments that perhaps, from a female perspective required compassion rather than anger, but we understood. We understand, especially as how he had his family and home ripped from him, leading him to England.
Eventually after the war was over, my Grandfather silently vowed to himself that he would live his life for his family. He would never let anything harm his family, protecting them the best way that he could, with the knowledge and understanding he had, and to the best of his ability. We may not have agreed with the way he did things, the way he bottled up his emotions, only allowing his anger to express at moments that perhaps, from a female perspective required compassion rather than anger, but we understood. We understand, especially as how he had his family and home ripped from him, leading him to England.
This is where he came to meet my
Grandmother, fall in love with her, marry her and have six children who would
give him six grandchildren, me being the youngest, just like his sister was in
his generation. This was his attempt to not forget his past, he never was able
to do that, the anger was too strong for that. But it was the place he
attempted to build a new life, a new place to call home.
***
Author Liz Trenow has written a book with Avon Publishing called The Poppy Factory.
For every copy sold, AVON publishing are making a donation towards the poppy appeal that helps war veterans.
For more information about the poppy factory organisation, you can visit www.PoppyFactory.org
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