Island of Dreams

 

Island of Dreams

by Harry Duffin

 

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GENRE:    Historical family saga

 

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BLURB:

 

ISLAND OF DREAMS

In May 1939, when Professor Carl Mueller, his wife, Esther, and their three children flee Nazi Germany, and find refuge on the paradise island of Cuba, they are all full of hopes and dreams for a safe and happy future. But those dreams are shattered when Carl and Esther are confronted by a ghost from their past, and old betrayals return to haunt them.

The turbulent years of political corruption leading to Batista’s dictatorship, forces the older children to take very different paths to pursue their own dangerous dreams.
And - among the chaos and the conflict that finally leads to Castro’s revolution and victory in 1959, an unlikely love begins to grow - a love that threatens the whole family.
Having escaped a war-torn Europe, their Island of Dreams is to tear them apart forever.

 

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EXCERPT

 

The deck was already full of passengers, mostly standing in silence. Like Anna, taking their last look at the island. She found a space at the rail facing the shore, as the rising sun turned the grand buildings of the Presidential Plaza to gold.

     

The ship was divided between wailing and deep silence. Somewhere Anna could hear a rhythmic chant – 

 

‘We cannot sail. We must not die -’       

 

Anna choked back tears. How she longed to set foot on the island. To walk under the palms, to be lost in the bustle, the sounds, the music of these vibrant people. She stood silently, the tears hot on her cheeks.  She looked past the line of police boats to the shore and remembered her first sight of the island. It had looked so welcoming, so free. She could make out the line of tall palm trees beyond the harbour, their long fronds waving in the gentle breeze. She had never stood beneath a palm tree. Were there coconuts clustered at the top? She’d never know, now.

 

‘We cannot sail. We must not die -’   continued the chant.   

 

But they were to sail. Were they also to die?

 

The ship’s klaxon startled them all. A long, mournful moan. A deeper silence followed the deafening noise. Then the panic and the prayers rose again, louder, from deep inside the ship. Suddenly, the note of the engines changed, higher, louder, more insistent. Anna knew it couldn’t be long now. 

 

 

A Word With the Author

1.Did you always want to be an author?

 

At school we read Jane Austen and Dickens, which I liked, but it didn’t make me want to write. But when I was about sixteen, I started to read Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald.  I read all their books. Their writing, at the time, felt very modern. It doesn’t now because writing, particularly in novels, always moves on. But I wanted to write like them at that time.  Instead I started writing drama for television, and it took me till I was over sixty before I started writing a novel.

2.Tell us about the publication of your first book.

 

My first book was a filmscript called CHICAGO MAY. I took it to Hollywood for three months, but couldn’t get any agent to read it.  Several years later my wife, Chris, said it was too good a story to just lie in a drawer, so I got it out and rewrote it as a novel. I enjoyed writing it and the novel is much better than the original filmscript. It would make a very good film now if I can find the right agent to market it. 

3.Besides yourself, who is your favorite author in the genre you write in?

 

One of my favourite novels is Vanity Fair by Thackeray. I loved his character Becky Sharp, and based some of my character Chicago May on her. I also like Victoria Hislop. My new novel, ISLAND OF DREAMS, has many parallels with her historical novels.

4.What's the best part of being an author? The worst?

 

Creating a story and characters. They are your friends, companions. You spend more time with them than you do with your friends. If you write like I do, thoughts and ideas come out of the blue, then you have to weave them into the story. Or reject them if you feel they are not right. A lot of a writers prefer being with their characters than going to parties and having to make small-talk. 

5.What are you working on now?

 

I have just finished writing ISLAND OF DREAMS.  It is a long family saga about a family who escaped Nazi Germany in 1939 and began a new life in the paradise island of Cuba. It’s really about how the family fall apart among themselves, and about the political corruption on the island.  It has some violence, quite a lot of sex of various kinds, but basically it is a love story. 

 

When it is published later this year, I am starting to write the sequel to CHICAGO MAY. It is set in Los Angeles in the 1920’s, when the city was taken over by the movie industry. An exciting and wonderful time for some, and a disaster for others. 

 

 

 

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 

Harry is an award-winning UK screenwriter, who won the Writers’ Guild Award for Best TV serial, while writing for Granada Television’s ‘CORONATION STREET’. Before that, in 1985, he was on the first writing team for the BBC’s ‘EASTENDERS’.  

 

Before beginning his career writing drama for television, Harry spent a dozen years working in British theatre, as stage manager, writer, designer and director, working with actors such as Nigel Hawthorne, Anne Reid and Lesley Manville. 

After script-editing the BBC’s HOWARDS’WAY, he freelanced for series like DISTRICT NURSE, THE BILL, BOON, THE BRETTS, EMMERDALE. 

In 1994 he became Head of Development at the UK independent company, Cloud 9 Screen Entertainment. As the script executive he was responsible for seven major television series, included ‘SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON’ starring RICHARD ‘JOHN BOY’ THOMAS, and ‘TWIST IN THE TALE’, featuring WILLIAM SHATNER. He also wrote the film, RETURN TO TREASURE ISLAND.

In 1998 he was the co-creator of the UK Channel Five teen-cult drama series ‘THE TRIBE’, which ran for five series, numbering 260 episodes. ‘THE TRIBE’ has been sold world-wide, and all series is on YouTube.

His first novel, CHICAGO MAY, is the first book of a two-part series.  He has also written JAIL TALES, about his wife’s 20 year career in the prison service, and the novel BIRTH OF THE MALL RATS, the prequel to THE TRIBE.

He has just finished his third novel, ISLAND OF DREAMS, to be published on December 1st 2022.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4674467.Harry_Duffin

 www.harryduffin.co.uk

https://twitter.com/duffin26

The book will be free.

 

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION 

 

Harry Duffin will be awarding a $30 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway