Although December is mainly going to be about Christmas on the blog, it's my pleasure to welcome author Tessa Harris to talk about her latest book The Light We Left Behind which is published today.
I wrote my first story on a piece of wallpaper when I was just four years old and, after reading History at Oxford, I became a journalist and editor. All the while, however, I wanted to write novels, which I did in my spare time. Finally, after penning five novels and receiving dozens of rejections over the course of thirty years, my debut, The Anatomist’s Apprentice, was published in 2012. It won the Romantic Times Best First Mystery 2012 award. Now I have eleven historical novels - set between the late 18th century and World War 2 - to my name.
If you had to give an elevator pitch for your latest book, The Light We Left Behind, what would it be?
It’s a love story between a young psychologist, Maddie, and a German Jewish émigré, Max, who work in Trent Park, a luxury POW camp for German generals there their every word is secretly taped. The problem is when the walls have ears, who can you trust? There’s a traitor in the mansion and both Maddie and Max risk everything to flush them out.
Having signed the official secrets act, she soon finds captured Nazi generals are being detained at the house. Bugged with listening devices in every room, it’s up to Maddie to gain the Nazis’ trust and coax them into giving up information.
When Max Weitzler, a Jewish refugee, also arrives at Trent Park with the same mission, Maddie finds herself trapped in a dangerous game of chess.
The two met in Germany before the war, and Maddie’s heart was his from the moment they locked eyes. The hope that Max had escaped the Nazi threat was her guiding light in the darkness of war.
But Maddie has finally gained the trust of the Nazi officers at the house, and her love for Max must remain a secret.
As Hitler’s bombs destroy more and more English towns, it is up to Maddie to make one of the captured officers talk – at any cost.
But when there’s a shocking death at the mansion, Maddie realises that not everyone at Trent Park is on the same side.
When the walls have ears, who can you trust?
How did you first hear about what went on at Trent Park during World War 2 and what inspired you to write this book based on the real-life events that happened there?
I was a reporter on a north London newspaper which covered the area and there were rumours there’d been Germans housed at the stately home during World War Two, but nothing more. Then, in 2016, I heard on the radio that Trent Park was being sold to a developer and there was a campaign to keep some rooms as a museum, as a tribute to the ‘secret listeners’ who worked there. It was like a mini Bletchley Park, where a huge amount of intelligence was gathered that was so important to the Allies.
All my books are based on fact – I suppose that’s the journalist in me coming out – and so I decided to dig deeper and stumbled on a gold mine.
How much research did you have to do before you started writing to ensure that your facts were correct, or do you research as you go along?
I do an enormous amount of research before I write, as well as coming across areas that need research as I go. But it’s so important not to allow facts to smother a story. The plot and characters need to breathe. I always say that writing historical fiction is like painting by numbers and it’s the author’s job to fill in all the colour and the details that history hasn’t always recorded. Having said that, I was acutely aware that this is possibly the first novel to be set in Trent Park and so my facts had to be correct as far as possible. (Some documents relating to Trent Park are still classified, and what we have to date only came to light in the late Nineties when a German academic found forgotten transcripts of the recordings of the German generals in the National Archives!) I am also hugely indebted to Trent Park’s official historian, Dr Alex Henry, for checking the facts for me.
What comes first for you – characters or plot?
I usually picture a setting first – a time, a place - then characters and plot emerge, very often at the same time, from somewhere deep in my mind.
And finally, your hopes for 2022.
Personally, I’m hoping to finish my third WW2 novel, set in Hamburg and Paris. Covid-19 permitting, I plan to go on a research trip to Paris in the spring. As for my hopes the world – that’s another book (or ten)!
And I couldn't let Tessa escape from the blog without a little bit of festive fun.
What three books would you love Santa to have in his sack for you?
At this year’s Cheltenham Literary Festival, I saw Sylvia Whitman speak about her famous bookshop Paris bookshop, Shakespeare and Company. I’d love a copy of the eponymous book with the subtitled A History of the Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, by Krista Halverson. It’s full of fabulous anecdotes, as well as evocative photographs of bygone Paris, and the shop features heavily in my work-in-progress. As novels, a hardback of All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr or anything by Sarah Waters, preferably signed!
Quickfire Questions
Roses or Quality Street? Quality Street.
Mince pies/Christmas cake or Yule log? Love them all, but if I had to choose – Christmas cake.
Turkey or ham? Turkey.
Brussel sprouts or parsnips? Don’t make me choose.
Gravy or cranberry sauce? That’s an impossible choice!
Fake or real Christmas tree? Always real, straight from the nursery.
White of coloured lights? White, since the children are grown.
Giving or receiving presents? Give, give, give!
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