About the Book
Four decades after World War II, 1986 is a year of terrorist hijackings, of personal computers and CD players, of AIDS and Miami Vice. It also is a year in which a beloved doctor falls to his death, a Pan Am pilot is shot while trying to foil the takeover of Pan Am flight 73, and when four bitter French widows use their medicines as bets to play poker in their retirement home while a lonely nun observes her vows of silence in an Irish convent. And it is the year when a cache of faded letters is discovered in a cellar, causing Frank Hastings to realize that he is not who he believed he is, and to go in search of his mother.
Jack Woodville London Guest Post
“There was a minor commotion in the street and she realized that she had no choice but to follow
him outside. It was a relief, she felt, although she knew it was only a postponement. Miss Herald had gone to Faversham to tell Eldred Potts that she would no longer walk out with him, as it then was called.”
I set out to create a world for a woman named ‘Miss Herald.’ Who is she? She lived somewhere close to Faversham, which is an ancient village in England, ten miles or so from Canterbury and on the Roman road where the pilgrims of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales spent their last night before arriving in Canterbury proper. And, since she didn’t live in Faversham, where did she live? We soon learn that she lives in Canterbury where she attends the local ‘new’ university and studies archeology. We also learn that Faversham is the site of a mostly-demolished ruin where in the 1100’s an English queen and king were patrons of the church and were buried; Miss Herald has undergraduate fantasies of fame from discovering their remains or unearthing some other hidden relic of the past.
So, what was she doing in Faversham when the book begins? Rather than an archeological dig at the monastery, she was there to tell her boyfriend that she was through with him. I tried to infuse a bit of ‘bygonese’ into the paragraph by using the term ‘walk out’ as both a British term for dating and as a term that is now out of fashion.
Their names are clues. A ‘Herald’ is someone who brings news or is the sign that something is about to happen. I added another clue to the fact something was about to happen by saying her following Potts into the street because of a minor commotion was a ‘postponement.’ Potts is a reference to what most archeological digs yield, shards of pottery.
What is it that she heralds? Her presence heralds that buried bombs can explode to injure people long after they’ve been forgotten. That is one of the major themes of the novel. And, before long, Potts is no longer with us, the victim of a cow that stepped on a buried bomb from World War II and landed on him. And, on a more intimate scale, she is not invited to Potts’ funeral; the locals said that his unfortunate demise was what might be expected as Potts “should not have been trying to court Miss Herald in the first place, but should have stayed with ‘his own kind.’”
Miss Herald is indeed different, and things are about to happen.
About the Author
Jack Woodville London is a former US Army captain, a respected trial-attorney, a noted World War II historian, and an internationally-acclaimed author. A graduate of West Texas A&M and the University of Texas Law School, Jack’s foundation in writing began when he was elected managing editor of the University of Texas International Law Journal in 1970.
Since then he has authored an extensive array of technical legal articles and has been a featured speaker on the law of evidence, complex aviation accidents, and similar topics, both in the United States and abroad. In 2003, Jack put aside legal topics to enroll in the prestigious writing school of St. Céré, France, where he graduated in a group of other esteemed writers.
Jack has spent much of his life exploring a deep interest in history, particularly the Second World War and its effects on the home front especially small towns. His twin loves of writing and history ultimately united to produce French Letters, a series of novels that are praised in the United States, Canada, and Europe for their meticulous historical research and ability to capture the languages, attitudes, and moral cultures of their settings.
Jack's first book, Virginia's War, has been a finalist for three awards; Novels with a Romantic Element by Uncommon Historical Fiction, Best Historical Novel of the Year by the Military Writers Society of America, and the Williams Foundation Award as Best Novel of the South.
The second novel in the trilogy, Engaged in War, received an Honorable Mention at the 2011 London Book Festival, and earned London the Military Writers Society of America’s 2011-2012 Author of the Year.
Jack lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, Alice, where he is hard at work on his latest novel, Children of a Good War.
Since then he has authored an extensive array of technical legal articles and has been a featured speaker on the law of evidence, complex aviation accidents, and similar topics, both in the United States and abroad. In 2003, Jack put aside legal topics to enroll in the prestigious writing school of St. Céré, France, where he graduated in a group of other esteemed writers.
Jack has spent much of his life exploring a deep interest in history, particularly the Second World War and its effects on the home front especially small towns. His twin loves of writing and history ultimately united to produce French Letters, a series of novels that are praised in the United States, Canada, and Europe for their meticulous historical research and ability to capture the languages, attitudes, and moral cultures of their settings.
Jack's first book, Virginia's War, has been a finalist for three awards; Novels with a Romantic Element by Uncommon Historical Fiction, Best Historical Novel of the Year by the Military Writers Society of America, and the Williams Foundation Award as Best Novel of the South.
The second novel in the trilogy, Engaged in War, received an Honorable Mention at the 2011 London Book Festival, and earned London the Military Writers Society of America’s 2011-2012 Author of the Year.
Jack lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, Alice, where he is hard at work on his latest novel, Children of a Good War.
Website: https://jwlbooks.com/
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