What is
the strangest talent you have?
I don’t know
that it’s a talent, more of a gift perhaps, but I have the strange capacity to
see flash visions. I sometimes wonder if it isn’t my very vivid imagination
working overtime, but I’m not entirely convinced either way. I remember
donkey’s years ago predicting that there was a car crash shortly ahead because
I suddenly envisaged it in my head. Sure enough, we came round a bend and there
it was.
In a happier
vein, when I saw flash visions of a Victorian workman, a young woman and a sea
captain at Morwellham Quay in Devon, I thought they were costumed staff at this
living history museum – but they disappeared into thin air. The experience,
though, inspired my first historical novel, Morwellham’s Child, that
was published by Pan Books and began my writing career.
Another time
on our first ever visit to Churchill’s home of Chartwell in Kent, at a time
when I wasn’t actually looking for inspiration, the great man himself spoke to
me in a vision in the library. I was a young maid and he was thanking me for
bringing him some refreshment.When I told my husband, he jokingly said I should
write a book about it – entirely the wrong thing to say to an author who bases
her books on real life historical situations. But it got me thinking, and I
eventually wrote a mini-series, Nobody’s Girl and A
Place to Call Home, inspired by that visit and a tragic event in the
Churchill’s private lives that I discovered later in the day.
What is
the best Halloween costume you’ve ever worn?
In my youth,
I was a ballet student and once had the good fortune to dance the role of The
Wicked Witch of the West in a ballet production of The Wizard of Oz. I remember
the music and the opening steps of my solo as if it were yesterday, leaping
across the stage with black cloak swirling about me. I still have that cloak
and have worn it a couple of times to Halloween parties. It is no coincidence
that in my latest release with Aria Fiction, The Street of Broken Dreams,
the sorely tried dancer heroine also performs on this very same stage, losing
herself in her art being the only way she can block out the dreadful trauma
that has destroyed her life.
Are the
titles of your books important?
Absolutely.
A title needs to convey the very essence of the book but intrigue the reader at
the same time. Publishers often change titles, or ask you to come up with some
other ideas and work on it together. Mostly, my titles have been my own
suggestions. Out of my fourteen published novels, I’ve only had to settle for
two titles that I wasn’t too keen on, and one gloriously lyrical title of mine
was never used, but maybe it will in the future. The Street of Broken Dreams
was one of three working titles I’d had for my new book, and Aria loved it!
If you’re
struggling with a scene or difficult character, what methods help you through
it?
I allow
myself plenty of thinking time while I’m doing the ironing or out on a walk,
for example. Or in the shower, so I sometimes use up all the hot water because
I’ve been lost in my own little world, and emerge looking like a wrinkled
prune. But once I sit down with my writing pad – being old school, I still
write my first draft in longhand – I find all that mental preparation comes
into its own. I work my way slowly through a difficult episode, visualising
what it would look like if it was a television drama and describing what I see.
A critic once said I had a beautifully cinematic technique, so I guess that’s
what was meant. In The Street of Broken Dreams there’s a chapter when the three
main younger characters travel up to central London on VE Day. Getting all the
historical detail correct was tough going, and making things relevant to their
personal situations, but I plodded slowly through and the result was everything
I could have hoped for.
Do you
prefer dogs, cats or none of the above?
Cats always
trigger an asthma attack, so I’ve never had the chance to experience having a
feline friend. I’m usually OK with dogs, though, and I love them. I had dogs in
my youth, but I’ve never had one in my married life. I’m a firm believer that a
dog isn’t just for Christmas. I know that to look after a dog properly takes a
huge amount of time and effort, and I’ve never felt I could make that commitment.
My life has always been too full of other things. Instead, I’ve given some of
my characters dogs, but always in a relevant context. To name but a few, I’ve
had a sheepdog called Bramble, its descendant called Trojan, and Cherrybrook
Rose had what we’d now call a golden labrador – oh, and a horse called
Gospel, a real character in himself. The heroine of Nobody’s Girl is a
farmer’s daughter, and owns a beloved young collie called Mercury. Sad to say
he becomes the victim of a vicious personal vendetta against her, one of many
themes in the novel. But it also links into the love story element, so there’s
a good side to it, too. But you’ll have to read the book to find out what.
Who’s
your favourite author and why?
My favourite
author has to be Audrey Howard. She wrote twenty or so brilliant historical
novels, and I read every one. They are currently stored in my attic as one day,
I want to re-read them. Immersing myself in her books and analysing why they
were so good is what allowed me to hone my own craft. She was born in 1929 and
sadly there have been no new titles from her for some years. Nowadays, I read
books by a variety of authors including some excellent new writers from my own
publisher, Aria Fiction. But I would say that I currently enjoy Lesley Pearse
most of all, and that’s probably because she’s the author I feel my own writing
resembles most, compelling, hard-hitting stories, whether historical or
contemporary.
Do you
have a pet peeve?
The digital
age! I know it’s opened up a whole new world of communication which is good in
so many ways, but it has its disadvantages. As a writer of historicals,
research used to mean a trip to the Records Office, poring over original
documents, census reports, maps, old newspapers, or tracking down an expert in
the particular field to be investigated. It was so much fun, and the joy of
discovery was both rewarding and inspirational. Nowadays, it’s all done from a
computer but for me, there’s nothing like personal experience. And being a bit
long in the tooth, I have plenty of that!
Do you
remember your dreams when you wake up in the morning?
Most
definitely! I’m a very vivid dreamer, and I dream in colour. Sometimes my
dreams can be a strange concoction that doesn’t make much sense. One of my
favourite recurrent dreams is flying like Peter Pan at about twenty feet above
the ground over the beautiful scenery of somewhere that strongly resembles my
beloved Dartmoor where my first ten novels are set. The music playing in my
head is always The Flight of the Valkyries. My other favourite is being back
dancing on stage, except that I’m a hundred times more talented than I ever
was, far more like my heroine in The Street of Broken Dreams. So I
suppose that in some ways, though her, I’m living my youthful dream to become a
professional dancer that was never fulfilled. But I really don’t mind, because
I fulfilled my other childhood dream instead – the one to become a writer!
THE STREET
OF BROKEN DREAMS
By
TANIA CROSSE
Published in e-book and paperback by
Aria Fiction, an imprint of Head of Zeus
Available to download from Amazon
Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books and GooglePlay
Paperbacks available exclusively from
Amazon
Fragile, broken, dead inside. She
only lives when she dances...
In the summer of 1945, the nation
rejoices as the Second World War comes to an end, but Banbury Street matriarch,
Eva Parker, foresees trouble lying ahead.
Whilst her daughter, Mildred, awaits
the return of her fiancé from overseas duty, doubts begin to seep into her mind
about how little she knows of the man she has promised to marry.
Meanwhile, new neighbour, dancer
Cissie Cresswell, hides a terrible secret. The end of the conflict will bring
her no release from the brutal night that destroyed her life. Can she ever find
her way back?
Under Eva’s stalwart care, can the
two young women unite to face the doubt and uncertainty of the future?
Tania says of this novel: Dance has
been a lifelong passion of mine, so it was inevitable that one day I would
write a novel in which the heroine is a dancer. And being another story set in
the street where I lived as a child, I feel a greater connection to this book
than anything I have written before.
THE STREET OF BROKEN DREAMS
Amazon: https://amzn.to/
iBooks: https://apple.co/
Google Play: http://bit.ly/2QHCq9H
Kobo: http://bit.ly/2HaxIBD
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Tania Crosse was born in London and lived in Banbury Street,
Battersea, the setting of her two latest novels, ‘The Candle Factory Girl’ and
‘The Street of Broken Dreams’. But when she was five, the family moved to
Surrey where her love of the countryside took root. She later graduated with a
degree in French Literature but did not have time to indulge her lifetime
passion for writing stories until her own family had grown up.
Side by side with her meticulous historical research and love of
Dartmoor, she began penning her novels set in that area from Victorian times to
the 1950s, all based closely on local history. In 2014, she completed her
Devonshire series with her tenth published novel, Teardrops in the Moon, before taking her writing career in a new
direction with four sagas set in London and the south east. Tania is
particularly excited about her latest story as the heroine is a dancer, and
dance, in particular ballet, has been one of her life-time passions. Like her
heroine, she once danced solo on stage at Wimbledon Theatre so knows first-hand
what a thrill that would have been.
Tania and her husband have lived in a tiny village on the Hampshire/Berkshire
border since 1976. They have three grown-up children and two grandchildren. Tania
was shortlisted for the area Sue Ryder Women of Achievement Award 2009 and her
brother is famous thriller writer, Terence Strong.
Website: www.tania-crosse.co.uk
Facebook: Tania Crosse Author
Twitter: https://twitter.com/
No comments
Post a Comment