I’m very excited to say that all the Clara Vine novels are being re-released and that a NEW title in the series, The Judgement of Stars, joins the line-up today. The sixth Clara Vine story is set in Berlin, Hamburg and Vienna in 1942. It opens as Clara is starring in a Nazi version of the epic disaster movie, The Sinking of the Titanic. She receives a covert approach to track down a missing British agent – a man who just happens to have been a former lover. Along the way we meet the extraordinary actress, Hedy Lamarr, plus a range of characters in the astrology-obsessed Third Reich. The entire series is now on Amazon US and UK and will be available in both hardback and Kindle versions. It’s been a wait, so I’m very happy that Clara fans will get to hear the next stage of her story.

I’m happy to say that Appointment in Paris, the second in the Fox and Fry series, is published in September from Quercus Books. It’s set in 1940’s London, as the Chamberlain government falls, and Paris on the eve of the Nazi invasion. Harry Fox and Stella Fry must investigate a murder at one of Britain’s most secret establishments and navigate romantic entanglements along the way. I’ve so enjoyed returning to the world of Harry and Stella after their first meeting in Midnight in Vienna. Hope you do too!

I’m a huge fan of Philip K Dick, the visionary writer whose work influenced Blade Runner, and whose Man In The High Castle was adapted for Amazon Prime. His interest in the nature of reality, the dangers of authoritarianism, and the threats to human identity produced some stunning, prescient fiction which has had a lasting influence on our culture. So I’m honoured and delighted that Widowland has been nominated for the award given in his name!

It was fabulous to sign this stack of Queen High at Goldsboro Books this week. They produce a beautiful edition with a special sprayed edge. How cool is that! Though my C.J.Carey signature still comes less easily than my own name, I’m certainly getting the hang of it. According to Harry, the bookseller in Goldsboro’s treasure trove shop in Cecil Court, some authors are on a par with doctors for the legibility of their signatures…

I’m thrilled that Widowland has been published this week by Sourcebooks, and isn’t the jacket just gorgeous? Already we’ve had some great reviews and comments, and I’m looking forward to visiting several cities at the end of October to meet readers in person. (Dates to follow.) To be honest, I can hardly remember what it’s like to interact with real, live readers! Meanwhile, for book clubs and readers’ groups, click below for some question and answers that expand on the novel’s themes….

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2022/1-july/audio-video/podcast/book-club-podcast-c-j-carey-on-widowland?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1656596282

It seems like forever, but at last my first pseudonymous novel, Widowland, is out in the world! In the time between completing it and publication, a pandemic has swept the world, and astonishingly (depressingly), some of the dystopian ideas that feature in my alternative Britain actually came to pass. The closing of borders, the ending of foreign holidays and the general atmosphere of fear and vigilance could all be seen to some degree in the UK of 2020/21. I decided to write this novel under a pen name because the alternative history genre is quite different from straight period fiction. In the Clara Vine series I am always careful to observe historical events and dates as accurately as possible, but in Widowland I took liberties to see how history might have turned out. For the pen name I chose my mother’s maiden name and my own initials reversed and I’m quite enjoying my alternative persona. I’ll keep writing the Clara Vine series under my own name, but I’ll be writing more thrillers under the name C.J.Carey too. I wonder which you’ll prefer?

There’s nothing that cheers up a dreary November morning more than thinking that in January I’ll be going to NYC to launch this. Even if it’s cold and snowy, it’s going to be fun!

I’m delighted to post the cover of my new novel, out in January 2020 from Ballantine Books. For readers of the Clara Vine series, it will be different, because it’s a standalone, but somewhat familiar too. It’s a split time narrative set between the present day, and tumultuous years between 1936 and 1945. It was conceived at a time of political turbulence, with Brexit in the UK and the election of a controversial president in the US, when, for first time in decades, political choices divided families and set friends against neighbours. That idea of ideological rifts bitter enough to separate families ignited my story of two sisters, Irene and Cordelia Capel, who follow very different paths in the run up to WWII. Irene marries a rich German and lives in Berlin, Cordelia becomes a journalist in Paris. Both of them face great moral choices, which are not easy or obvious, and the reverberations of those choices stretch into the present day. Love, espionage and war. And a typewriter!

http://links.penguinrandomhouse.com/type/affiliate/isbn/9781524796594/siteID/8001/retailerid/7/trackingcode/randohouseinc29378-20

I’m a huge quiz fan, so I’m much looking forward to taking part in the Oxford Literary Festival’s book quiz. It’s good humoured, rather than cut throat, and tickets are still available…https://oxfordliteraryfestival.org/literature-events/2019/april-3/festival-literary-quiz

And on the last weekend in June I’ll be at the Felixstowe Festival, talking about Clara Vine and the Nazi wives, as well as my new novel, The Words I Never Wrote. It would be lovely to see you there!

Jane Thynne – Clara Vine: Life of women in the Third Reich