The Tiger Catcher
The End of Forever Saga Paullina Simons
From the international bestselling author of TULLY and THE BRONZE HORSEMAN comes an achingly beautiful new trilogy of love, lost and found
It is my pleasure to welcome Paullina Simons, author of Tiger Catcher to Celticlady's Reviews. Read about the book and read the Q&A!
Available Everywhere May 2019
“All the colors of your world are about to disappear…”
Young and handsome, Julian lives a charmed life in Los Angeles. His world is turned upside down by a love affair with Josephine, a mysterious young woman who takes him by storm. But she is not what she seems, carrying secrets that tear them apart—perhaps forever.
So begins Julian and Josephine’s extraordinary adventure of love, loss, and the mystical forces that bind people together across time and space. It is a journey that propels Julian toward either love fulfilled…or oblivion.
The Tiger Catcher takes readers from the dizzying heights of joy to the depths of despair and back again in an unforgettable new novel from a master storyteller.
The first novel in the END OF FOREVER saga.
A timeless love story…and the adventure of several lifetimes.
Paullina Simons was born in Leningrad, USSR. In the mid-seventies, her family immigrated to the United States. Growing up in Russia Paullina dreamed of becoming a writer. Her dream was put on hold as she learned English and overcame the shock of a new culture.
After graduating from university and after various jobs including working as a financial journalist and as a translator, Paullina wrote her first novel TULLY. Her book was published in twenty countries, translated into 18 languages and welcomed by readers all over the world.
She has since written Red Leaves, Eleven Hours, The Bronze Horseman, The Bridge to Holy Cross, (also known as Tatiana and Alexander.) The Summer Garden, The Girl in Times Square, Road to Paradise,A Song in the Daylight,Children of Liberty,Bellagrand,and Lone Star,. Many of Paullina’s novels have reached international bestseller lists in countries including Australia and New Zealand.
Apart from her novels, Paullina has also written a cookbook, Tatiana’s Table, which is a collection of recipes, short stories and recollections from her best selling trilogy of novels, The Bronze Horseman, The Bridge to Holy Cross, (also known as Tatiana and Alexander) and The Summer Garden.
She has also published two children’s books, from her Adventures with Poppet series. I Love My Baby Because and Poppet Gets Two Big Brothers.
In 2015, she published a memoir called Six Days in Leningrad, about her return to Russia with her father in 1998, the first—and only—time she has been back to her native country since leaving in 1973.
Her new novel The Tiger Catcher, the first book in the END OF FOREVER saga will be published in May 2019.
DOB & Place of Birth: 1963. Leningrad, U.S.S.R.
Place of Residence: USA
Education: Attended colleges in New York, Kansas and England. Graduated from Kansas University with a degree in political science
Previous Jobs: Financial Journalist, Producer for the Financial News Network
Career Aspirations: Always wanted to be a writer.
Marital Status: Married
Children: 4
Favorite Authors: John Steinbeck, E. M. Forster, Leo Tolstoy, P.J. O’Rourke, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton.
Novels: 12 novels, 3 new ones upcoming, 1 cookbook, 1 memoir, 2 children’s books and counting!
An interview with Paulline
How long on average does it take you to write a book?
It takes me around two years. Some a year, like Eleven Hours, and some five years, like the End of Forever books. Also, The Bronze Horseman books had me immersed in them for fifteen years, but I wrote other books during that period.
What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?
Being alone each and every day, day in and day out, month in and month out, year in and year out. There is no other way to write the books, but the pervasive solitude can wear on you, especially in the beginning of a story, when the characters are not as clear. No one’s having any fun there. Yet unless I’m alone in a room with the blank page staring back at me, I can never fill it up with life.
What are the ethics of writing about historical figures?
I wrote about Nathaniel Hawthorne’s daughter Rose in Children of Liberty and Bellagrand. She was an amazing woman. I guess the rules are: try to avoid hit pieces or hagiographies. But the ultimate rule is that if they are actual characters in your fiction, they have to be interesting, they should bring something to the table.
What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?
I do whatever is required to make the words on the page bring to life the story I’m telling. Whatever it takes to make it vivid, believable, true, real for my readers, I do.
I don’t spend that long researching before beginning a book. I made that mistake with The Bronze Horseman; I spent two years researching Russia, Hitler, Stalin, the WAR, and realized I knew nothing. Nothing real. Only headlines. So now I research just enough to start my story, and then look stuff up as I go. Oh, and I do like to see with my own eyes the place I’ll be writing about. But not always.
Have any favorite authors influenced your writing? Who were they?
Dickens for his great humor.
Hugo for his extraordinary capacity to write profoundly and poetically about the human condition.
Thomas Hardy for making prose sound like poetry.
Truman Capote for his obsessive attention to style.
Ira Levin for his sturdy, strong, clear, well-written storytelling.
Stephen King for the "I can't put it down" narratives.
Dostoyevsky for his tortured Russian soul that his books are stamped with.
Where and when do you write? Tell us about your favorite work place and time.
A. I have a small writing studio less than a mile from my home. I go to work in the morning after I drop off my daughter at school and then come home at dinnertime. That sounds much saner than it is because as I get deeper into a book, it gets harder and harder to turn it off. So I’ll often also work at home, in bed, on the train—almost anywhere.
Grand Prize Giveaway enter to win:
• A TIGER CATCHER tote
• A quartz crystal necklace
• A red beret
• A “From the Desk of Mr. Know-it-all” notepad
One lucky winner in the continental US will win this Grand Prize and a runner-up will receive a quartz crystal necklace. Simons will post on her website photos of the prizes and the entry form for the contest. Her website will also be the landing page for the blog tour where the final schedule will be listed to make it easier for all of the participants to link to each other.
