Today's #HistFicThursdays blog is a fantastic guest post from Apple Gidley , as part of her Coffee Pot Book Club tour! Read on to find out about her treasure hunt of research and how she used it to bring her new book, Annie's Day , to life. But first, let's meet the book... Blurb War took everything. Love never had a chance. Until now. As an Australian Army nurse, Annie endures the brutalities of World War II in Singapore and New Guinea. Later, seeking a change, she accepts a job with a British diplomatic family in Berlin, only to find herself caught up in the upheaval of the Blockade. Through it all, and despite the support of friends, the death of a man she barely knew leaves a wound that refuses to heal, threatening her to a life without love. Years later, Annie is still haunted by what she’d lost—and what might have been. Her days are quiet, but her memories are loud. When a dying man’s fear forces her to confront her own doubts, she forms an unexpected frie...
Today's #HistFicThursdays blog is a fantastic guest post from Apple Gidley, as part of her Coffee Pot Book Club tour! Read on to find out about her treasure hunt of research and how she used it to bring her new book, Annie's Day, to life.
But first, let's meet the book...
Blurb
War took everything. Love never had a chance. Until now.
As an Australian Army nurse, Annie endures the brutalities of World War II in Singapore and New Guinea. Later, seeking a change, she accepts a job with a British diplomatic family in Berlin, only to find herself caught up in the upheaval of the Blockade. Through it all, and despite the support of friends, the death of a man she barely knew leaves a wound that refuses to heal, threatening her to a life without love.
Years later, Annie is still haunted by what she’d lost—and what might have been. Her days are quiet, but her memories are loud. When a dying man’s fear forces her to confront her own doubts, she forms an unexpected friendship that rekindles something she thought she’d lost: hope.
Annie’s Day is a powerful story of love, war, and the quiet courage to start again—even when it seems far too late.
Annie's Day
is available via this Universal Link
On a Treasure Hunt
Annie’s Day follows an Australian army nurse through the horrors of the Second World War in the Asia-Pacific theatre. Annie’s war directly follows my mother’s army records from when she was in the Australian Army Nursing Service but, apart from using them as a blueprint, the book is fiction based around historical facts, and some real people. Research is key for both. If a novelist is attempting to put words in a real person’s mouth, the very least he or she can do is write the dialogue in a manner consistent to both the time, and person.
I enjoy book events, and am learning not to be surprised by questions but, not long ago, I confess to being utterly flummoxed. The man doing the asking was past his youth but not yet in his prime. He wore black steel-rimmed glasses that he battled to keep from sliding down his nose and, in an effort at gravitas, a Tweed jacket over jeans. If he’d been allowed to smoke a pipe in the hall, the image of an author-in-the-making would have been complete! “Don’t you find research a drag?” he asked.
Reining in my surprise, I replied, “No!”
Earlier this year, Finding Serenissima, my first contemporary novel was published. In my naiveté, I had assumed a novel-in-the-now would require less research. How wrong I was! Contemporary fiction takes just as much research as my more usual genre of historical fiction. While writing Finding Serenissima, set in Venice, I was as usual surrounded by maps, but added to the clutter on my desk were timetables for the vaporetto services that criss-cross the island city—and every other kind of timetable imaginable. A different kind of research, but research nonetheless and which, if you don’t get right, someone will gladly let you know. As I was delving into some of the more unusual places in Venice, I came across the Ponte delle Tette, translated as the Bridge of Tits, a small bridge over the Rio de San Canciano, which used to lead to the red light district. A brilliant titbit that added local flavour to the story!
So, no, I don’t find research a drag. It’s fun! The trick to research is not getting sidetracked by some fascinating snippet that really has no place in your story. When words are slow, I can waste an entire afternoon kidding myself I’m working when actually I’ve followed a thread that leads nowhere of any use.
More importantly, when writing historical fiction, I truly believe the author should get the facts right, and that means rigorous research. Readers are putting their trust in you, and it is up to the writer not to betray that trust. Fiction should not get in the way of facts, or if it has been massaged a little, give an explanation. In my novel, Have You Eaten Rice Today? about the 1950’s Malay Emergency, the communist printing press was found in the jungle in 1953, I moved it to 1952, with apologies to my father who found it!
In Annie’s Day a more sinister fact came to light, one which I thought long and hard about including. Much of what happened to the nurses evacuated from Singapore in February 1942 on the Vyner Brooke is well documented, thanks largely to the Australian nurse, Vivian Bullwinkel, who survived first the sinking of the ship, then the massacre on Radji Beach. Digging around for more information in order to flesh out the fate of a fictional character, I discovered that not only were the nurses murdered, they were raped and tortured before being lined up in the water then shot. Bullwinkel had been told by the Australian government not to include that information in her testimony to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (now known as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal).
The research for Annie’s Day took place before the ever-growing presence of AI, and having waded through pages of documents and letters, both online and in books, there was an element of ‘oh wow’ when I came across that particular piece of information, no matter how horrific. A tarnished gem, but a gem nonetheless.
On the flip side, something rather lovely can turn up. I learnt that the nurses started singing Waltzing Mathilda to distract the women and children in the holds, as the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service rained bombs on the Empire Star when they evacuated from Singapore in February 1942.
And following a nebulous path can toss up some fascinating facts. Annie and David have a day out on the river. Not having grown up in the UK, my English geography, and history, is a little iffy, so off I went on a treasure hunt. Maybe not new to you but certainly to me, was learning that Henley-on-Thames used to be a busy internal port, along which flat-bottom barges plied grain, timber, wool and malt to London, with the return trip carrying salt, silk and wine. That also made it into Annie’s Day.
So again I say, research is not a drag—it’s a delightful treasure hunt that, if you’re lucky, tosses a few priceless gems your way.
Now, let's meet the author:
Anglo-Australian, Apple Gidley's nomadic life has helped imbue her writing with rich, diverse cultures and experiences. Annie’s Day is her seventh book.
Gidley currently lives in Cambridgeshire, England with her husband, and rescue cat, Bella, aka assistant editor.
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