Buy link for Casablanca: Appointment at Dawn: Amazon
EXCERPT:
“I’m Heinz. What do
you want?”
“Oh. It’s you.”
“Yeah?”
“From the restaurant
on New Year’s Eve.”
Kurt was silent for a
moment, then it came back to him. “I remember. Sarah, right? You’re the girl
who refused to dance with me.”
A red flush crawled
from her throat onto the apples of her cheeks. “Yes. I’m sorry if I was rude.”
“I’ve been cut dead
before. I got over it.”
The girl’s eyes
glittered. “I’m sure you did. Are you going to keep me standing here on the
doorstep for everyone to see?”
“Why? I’m not
expecting company. Would it be a problem?”
“It certainly might if
the people who tore my apartment apart followed me here.”
Kurt looked into her
eyes with complete attention for the first time since opening the door.
Whatever had happened to this girl, she looked terrified and angry. Not a
particularly good combination for the covert activities he and Phelps were up
to.
Kurt made a quick
decision. He stepped back and pulled the door wide while raising his voice.
“You better come
inside and tell me why you think what happened to your apartment has anything
to do with me.”
When they stepped into
the living area, Phelps had disappeared. Kurt gestured toward the sofa and the
girl sat down.
Propping himself on
the sofa’s arm, he looked down into her frightened eyes.
“Now tell me how I can
help you, Miss, uh…” “Barrett, Sarah. US Army. RN.”
“Well, Nurse Barrett,
what can I do for you?”
The girl stuck her
hand in her coat pocket and whipped out a scrap of paper that she waved in his
face.
“By telling me what’s
on this paper and why it’s so important that somebody took a knife to my
furniture.”
Author Interview:
10 favorite places to
visit
Only
ten? Shoot, this is easy as I love to travel! In the UK: London, Yorkshire
Dales, York, the English Lake District, Cotswolds, Scotland (all parts) In
Europe proper: Germany: Telgte, Rotenburg; Austria: Strasburg; Czech Republic:
Prague; Norway: Oslo, Geiranger So many
places, so little time!
What is your favorite time period?
I
love the late 19th through mid-20th centuries, but if the historical
story is interesting, I will like it regardless of period.
What is your writing process? For instance do
you do an outline first? Do you do the chapters first?
I
am a plotter with pantser tendencies. Before I begin writing a novel, I generally
have the main character arc(s), story arc, ending, and some major scenes set.
The remaining details and inclusions simply reveal themselves as I write. I
begin at chapter one and go through to the end. This is not to say that nothing
previously written ever gets changed. If I get a great idea while writing a
later chapter that affects earlier action, I go back and make the appropriate
changes. This is why I love Scrivener. The chapters and their summaries are all
right at hand; therefore, changes are easily made.
Do the characters all come to you at the same
time or do some of them come to you as you write?
The
main characters are in place before I start. Secondary characters often reveal
themselves during the writing process.
Pick a favorite event in time that you would
like to visit.
Example:
Salem Witch Trials, Civil War, The shooting of Abraham Lincoln ect…..
Tell
us why you would like to visit this event. Would you like to visit just to see
and know what really happened or would you like to visit as a participate in
the event?
I would love to have been a fly on the wall during that
First Allied Conference in Casablanca in 1943. This is where Roosevelt convinced
the other Allies that there could only be unconditional surrender by the Axis
powers. I would love to hear the discussion about how Roosevelt envisioned what
would happen if the Allies were to accept any other type of surrender. Even in
1943, there were highly placed German officials and generals who wanted to sue
for peace terms. Scary thought that without the policy of unconditional
surrender, Hitler might have been allowed to return to a regular life after
serving a little POW time. YIKES!
I also would like to have been a fly on the wall when it was
discovered that a German translator had made a critical mistake with an
intercepted Allied communication. The communication talked about the
conference’s location, but the translator got it mixed up. He decided
Casablanca, Spanish for white house, was the White House in Washington, D.C. Can’t
you just see the temper tantrums that must have ensued after the mistake was
discovered? I wonder if the translator survived.
Taking historical events, like I did in Casablanca:
Appointment at Dawn, and playing “what if” with the facts is what makes writing
historical fiction so much fun!
