by Paula Wynne
Before she can help her child, she must find out what led to her memory loss. But that unravels a trail of lies, deception and a shocking betrayal.
She quickly finds that the danger has followed her home. But as doubt falls on each of her family, she realises …
If you can’t trust your family, who can you trust?
Win a copy https://paulawynne.com/freebies/win-cold-feet
Acknowledgements
Firstly, I want to thank my readers who trusted me enough to buy this book. Thank you for your faith in me.
I really appreciate Giles Andreae giving me permission to use his fantastic ‘Zen Dog’ phrase written under the name of Edward Monkton. It’s such an inspiring and uplifting phrase and so suited to the storyline of the book, I was really keen to use it. Zen Dog was published in 2012 but despite my character seeing the phrase in 1985 – when it wasn’t even thought of then – I still felt it was important enough to the story to use so I asked Giles if I could include him in the story as a character which you’ll have seen in the scene when Bomber questions Matt about the meaning of the Zen Dog verse. Thankfully, Giles was kind enough to agree so I give a huge thanks to him. If you’d like to see other phrases and cards by Edward Monkton, visit: http://www.edwardmonkton.com
I give my thanks to Timothy P Murphy, Director, DC User Program who helped me to understand and explain the electromagnetic wave activity in the Faraday cage.
I am thankful to Erika Armstrong for advising on the correct formality for Matt’s first flight. Erika is an international airline and corporate pilot who, after being locked in the cockpit with men for several thousand hours, has a few funny stories to tell. You can find her at www.achickinthecockpit.com
Another helpful pilot - Tereza Murphy achieved her Private Pilot's License in the 1990's and was very pleased to help me with Flying Without Wings. I thank Tereza for her attention to detail.
A special thank you to my editor, David Imrie, who helped to improve the flow of the story, deepen the characters and added to the conflict. David’s input is invaluable!
A huge thanks to three special people: Sara Garland, Richard Butler and Jane Geiger. They are my Beta Readers who read this story when it was raw and unedited. They have given me their valuable feedback and comments for which I cannot thank them enough. Two more equally special readers with eagle eyes are Wayne Burnop and Angela Norton.
And always, I give warm hugs to my supportive husband, Ken Sheridan and to our three sons, Ryan, Niall and Kent.
Author’s Notes
Writing a historical novel set in the second world war has been terrifying. I had to stick to historical facts and at the same time conjure up a fictional story in an era where there was terrible shame and deep hurts that will never be forgiven or forgotten. I hope Johan and Matt’s story brings hope as the past is remembered with inspiring stories of love healing the wounds.
Officially there wasn’t a gas chamber at Terezín, but in my research I found out that there was one planned and the guards were indeed forcing the prisoners to build a new chamber because Hitler had given an order for all the prisoners to be killed before the Russians arrived.
This was much earlier than May, in the few days before Terezín was liberated. To keep the story tense, I added these details, but to ensure the first chapters were compact, the Wolf mentions this in a conversation that Johan overhears. Historically, he would have said that months before.
Being locked in a boot really happened to an old neighbour of mine a long time ago. Vandals had broken into his home and locked him in his car boot while they vandalised his home in a quiet seaside resort in South Africa. They stole lots of valuables. Late that night, a persistent thumping sound got me out of bed and eventually we followed it to the neighbour’s home. When we managed to get him out of the locked car, he was almost at death’s door but thankfully, we saved him. When I needed to have Luke close by but still locked away so Matt could have his story play out, I remembered this and used a similar scenario.
I had found somewhere in my research that Falcon’s kind of deformity had occurred, but my expert Timothy suggested that it could be a legend from the Nazi era. I decided to go with the idea that the Nazis had indeed created an electromagnetic device that could keep their treasure safe and another device that could seriously maim anyone trying to steal their treasure. All sorts of stories exist about what the Nazis did and didn’t do. I have kept to the real history as much as possible with small variables here and there.
I couldn’t find the exact physical tests needed for acceptance into the RAF in 1985 so things like running several miles and a bleep test is their latest physical requirements.
Part of this story came into my head more than 15 years ago. I was the post mistress of Chapel Row Store in Bucklebury in Berkshire where I typed furiously when there were no customers wanting to post their parcels. I wrote it as a short story and short film script. I tried to get it funded as you can see here - https://paulawynne.com/tags/dare-to-fly but then eventually I left it gathering dust inside my computer shelves. Over the past year I decided to go back and rewrite it as a full story and after lots of research it became a full novel. I hope you enjoy the story!
About The Author
Moving to Spain allowed Paula to fulfil her lifelong dream to write novels. During the hunt for their new home in rural Andalucía, Paula and her husband found a beautiful home with stunning views down the Valle del Guadalhorce to Malaga and Marbella.
Apart from a whitewashed village in the far distance, the valley is lush with green wheat fields and rolling hills, shadowed by layer after layer of mountains.
Paula’s first sight of the Guadalhorce Valley took her breath away and gave birth to the fictional location of The Grotto's Secret, which won The People’s Book Prize 2017.
Paula and her husband Ken starred in the BBC show Escape to the Continent, which showed their quest to live in Spain.
When Paula is not writing, she will be pottering in her garden, walking her Springer Spaniel along the country tracks around her home or exploring caves and ruins in Andalucía.
Paula runs BookLuver.com and features a lucky draw every month for her readers to win new novels and books. You can join in the book-luving fun at http://bookluver.com/subscribe