William Grannetino served in the US navy during World War II. From the day he landed on Omaha Beach to the morning he sailed out of the Pacific theatre for the last time, he was surrounded by violence, trauma, death, and a comradery unparalleled in civilian life.
Through the pen of Grannetino’s son, readers are provided a glimpse of a sailor’s gut-wrenching realities of war as he relates details about little-known landings that happened ahead of the initial D-Day assault and unique facts somehow lost in history.
Compelling descriptions of street to street fighting in the city of Caen, the urgency of rushing military support to the Battle of the Bulge, and the terror of Kamikaze attacks in the Pacific, transport readers right to the battle zone.
From the jubilation over the end of hostilities to the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Tom Grannetino has captured his father’s stories and crafted an historical and deeply personal account of one man’s experiences in the Second World War….
About The Author:
Tom Grannetino credits his father, William, for his strong work ethic and technical abilities, which have brought him great success in the construction industry as a craftsman and construction superintendent.
He also spent years listening to his dad tell stories about his experiences in the US Navy during World War II. After hearing his father lament numerous times, “I should have written a book,” Tom decided to write the book himself for his children, grandchildren, and anyone else with an interest in military and US history.
Tom describes himself as a religious person who is committed to his church, where he occasionally fills in for his Pastor leading worship and delivering the sermon.
He and his wife, Kathleen, live in Palmerton, Pennsylvania, and have two daughters and five grandchildren, with whom Tom loves to share quality time with. Tom enjoys studying theology, traveling, hunting, fishing, and watching both golf and football.
“The Red Pearl is a delight. Meticulously researched, it transports the reader to the inns and backstreets of Boston in 1778. Lucy Finch’s personal tragedy spurs her on to take an active role in the revolutionary war, despite the immense danger it brings to herself, her family and friends. Ms. Helton’s characters are warm, living beings with gifts and flaws. Their relationships are altered — broken or strengthened — by the battles on distant fields and the evil of individuals closer to home.” – Carrie Bedford, Author of Nobilissima
There’s something peculiar about the small group of men who have begun to frequent The Red Pearl, the tavern that has hosted a variety of Boston’s men since before the Revolutionary War began. In a rebellious city that does not tolerate Loyalists, men could come here and speak freely without fear of the repercussions — and Jasper Finch, the tavern-keeper, has always been proud of that.
But now the war is in full force, and Lucy Finch — the tavern-keeper’s wife — is growing nervous about The Red Pearl’s most loyal customers. Their clandestine meetings and hushed whispers suggest dark secrets — secrets which may threaten the safety of Boston, and the future of the war itself.
Lucy struggles to stay loyal to her husband’s wishes while grappling with the surprising truths of America’s war for independence. When a terrible assault makes her ache for revenge, she must make a choice: Will she keep quiet about the explosive secrets she has learned, or will she expose them and risk her marriage and possibly her life?
Set in the wild and unpredictable world of the Revolutionary War, fans of historical fiction will fall in love with Lucy Finch, who faces impossible choices that may change the fate of a nation.
When I started to move, Jasper mumbled something. He wasn’t
much of an early riser, but the sun was splashing through the windows now and
we couldn’t let the guests wake before us. It had become my responsibility to
make sure of that. “Up,” I urged, nudging his shoulder. “Imagine if Robby gets
in the kitchen before we do.”
Now he blinked. Robby, our hired boy, was an honest worker,
but he was useless without direct and clear orders. If he tried fiddling with
the pots and pans without my direction, they’d all be broken before we even
made it downstairs. “Didn’t we just fall asleep?” he groaned.
“Oh, enough. You’re terrible in the morning.”
“Come back down,” he said, wrapping an arm around my waist
to pull me. “Lay next to me just a minute longer.”
I couldn’t have resisted, really, even if I wanted to. He
was too strong. I brushed a hand through his clipped black hair. There had been
days when I yearned for another kind of man, shaggy blonde hair and sharp blue
eyes, but although he crossed my mind every day, almost, he was now little more
than a ghost swirling in the morning fog. I was here with Jasper, who was dark
and quiet and excruciatingly clean-shaven. There was drink to brew and mouths
to feed here and I wasn’t a girl anymore.
“Jasper,” I said. I hadn’t been planning to mention this,
but he was the one who pulled me back down to bed. “Are you planning to let
those Tory meetings go on long?”
“What d’you mean?” he mumbled, his eyes barely open. “If they pay for it, they can have their meetings. And you shouldn’t call them that.”
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Chloe Helton is the author of four historical fiction novels,
including And the Stars Wept and the Wattpad favorite A Thousand Eyes. Her
readers have journeyed with her from the shores of Elizabethan England to the
stormy battlefields of the Civil War in search of the often-hidden stories of
women who made history.
By way of introduction to Emma Lombard, here’s her bio.
I am an Australian author living in sunny Brisbane. I was born in the UK and I called Zimbabwe and South Africa home for a few years before moving to Australia in 2000.
Before I started writing historical fiction, I was and still am a master goat wrangler—in other words: a mother to four teenage sons!
In my past life, I was a freelance editor in the corporate world and lent my editing prowess to various industries including aviation, aquatic ecology, education and the world of academia. But now, I am a full-time writer.
I am an active member of Twitter’s #WritingCommunity where I love welcoming new writers to social media and helping them find their voices. It is what inspired my blog series Twitter Tips for Newbies.
Now that you’ve been introduced to Emma, let’s get to know her a little better.
Hello, Emma, welcome to Angel Kiss Publications. Thank you for agreeing to do this interview.
Thank you for having me.
What inspired you to be a writer?
I produced my first hand-drawn book at age nine. I completed my first full manuscript at age fourteen.
Little did I realise how lucky I was at the time that through a friend, my raw manuscript was placed directly in front of an editor at a major publishing house (oh, what I wouldn’t give for that opportunity now!)
Having learned more about the publishing process, I now understand what a privilege it was for me to get that personalised rejection letter full of encouragement and advice—but at the time, it hurt so much!
Then life got in the way for a while and it wasn’t until later that I had the time and willpower to sit down and write seriously again.
Is writing your full-time profession?
In 2018, I bit the bullet and gave up being a freelance editor in the corporate world to write full time.
I began treating my writing career seriously, investing time and resources into it as you would any new business.
I’ve been writing my current historical fiction series since 2016. I wanted to get a few manuscripts under my belt, not only for the experience but also to have enough material available should publication of my first book go well.
I love reading a book series, so it felt natural to write a story with series potential.
How many books have you written?
I have a four-book series under my belt. The first book, Discerning Grace, is fully polished and edited, and is currently in the querying trenches looking for an agent.
I’m busy revising and re-writing my second book. The other two are completed manuscripts that have been beta read several times but still need some polishing.
Which genre do you write?
Historical fiction. Not only did my story find its origins from a true story back in the 1800s, but I prefer having a wealth of source documents to research in order to build the world in which my story takes place.
I take my hat off to science fiction and fantasy writers who create whole worlds from their imaginations!
What do you find most challenging writing for this genre?
Interestingly enough, there were several scenes I wrote based on factual events or characters that today’s modern audience (aka my beta readers and my editor) found implausible.
So, I had to find that sweet spot between toning down some of the more colourful events and keeping the plot going while still maintaining the historical flavour.
I also unearthed how much of an influence popular culture has on historical events that have been inaccurately portrayed over the years either through fictionalisation or screen adaptation.
As a historical writer, you want to ensure you get all the facts straight but sometimes there comes a point in your story where creative license kicks in and certain events have to go a certain way to keep your readers engaged and entertained.
Some historical authors stick strictly to the facts, and kudos to them because this requires an extraordinary amount of research! But I have enjoyed bending the rules a little here and there to keep my story flowing.
Here’s an incredible blog post by historical editor, Andrew Noakes, who gathered the Top Tips on Writing Historical Fiction From 64 Successful Historical Novelists.
What are you working on now?
I have just signed up for a historical fiction writer’s group in which we will share, collaborate with and critique each other’s manuscripts. I honed my first book to be ready for querying by extensively using beta readers, professional manuscript assessors and an editor.
For my second book, I am trying a different approach by also using critique partners. Of course, I’ll still use my loyal beta readers who are all so wonderfully passionate about my story and my characters.
And my book shall not see the light of day until my editor has thoroughly picked it apart and helped me sew it back together again.
Where do you find inspiration for your characters?
My inspiration came from my grandmother who told me a juicy bit of family gossip!
This is what her letter said, ‘Your GGG grandmother was only 16 when she ran away from home to marry a sea captain… her family cut her off and she sailed the seas with him…’
As my grandmother put it, they were ‘… obviously a very enlightened couple, and she a very, very liberated woman.’ I knew right away I wanted to write that story—though mine is purely fictionalized.
What has been your most rewarding experience since publishing your work?
Although I haven’t published my books yet, I have had the happy accident of publishing a blog series that took off—much to my utter surprise and delight!
During my authoring journey, I researched the importance of having an author platform and one of the key elements of this is social media.
I had successfully dodged the social media bullet until that point, having not much interest in it for personal use. When I then dived into the deep end and re-launched my dormant Twitter account, I was hopelessly lost and overwhelmed.
However, I persevered, researched and experimented, and slowly I got the hang of it. I started a blog series called Twitter Tips for Newbies, mainly to document my bumbling journey into social media as a newbie, but it has gained a life of its own.
Clearly, it resonates with many other new-to-social-media users out there!
What advice would you give to authors just starting out?
There is SO much conflicting advice out there, even from publishing gurus, book marketers, editors, literary agents and published authors!
I scoured hundreds of social media accounts and blogs to find a handful of these professionals whose advice I liked, and whose advice fitted in with my long-term plan, and whose voice I enjoyed reading and learning from.
You don’t have to go on this adventure alone but pick who you want on your team and then filter out the rest of the noise to focus on achieving your writing and/or publishing goals.
Here are a few of my preferred go-to professionals (all of whom I follow on social media too):
Publishing guru: Jane Friedman
Book marketer: Shalya Raquel
Writing coaches: Angela Ackerman and Meg La Torre
Editors: Andrew Noakes and Maria Tureaud
Literary agents: Janet Reid (aka The Query Shark) and Eric Smith
Published authors: Delilah S. Dawson and Diana Gabaldon
Is there anything else you’d like your readers to know about you?
To combat my chronic fear of heights, I climbed the Eiffel Tower TWICE! Gulp! Not sure that it cured me altogether, but it has helped lessen some of the terror!
What message are you sharing in your books?
The themes in my first novel, Discerning Grace, include:
an independent woman
the importance of love over money
appearances can be deceiving
love can conquer all
triumph over adversity
What are your favorite books?
The books I first fell in love with as a teenager were Wilbur Smith’s historical-adventure-family-sagas, particularly the Courtney series!
The first book that ever made me cry was The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay.
My current passion is the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. I’m definitely Team Jamie!
If you could create an author’s group with writers from any time period, who would you invite?
All three of the authors mentioned above!
Who has influenced your writing the most?
I have drawn on Wilbur Smith’s galloping historical adventures that don’t shy away from sweeping the globe and diving into other cultures.
Diana Gabaldon’s epic historical tomes are a brilliant source for learning how to use all your senses as a writer to build the old world, and for painting deep and meaningful relationships between characters, despite their human flaws.
When you’re not writing, where can we find you?
In the car, ferrying teenage boys to and from work.
A movie producer wants to turn your book into a movie and you get to make a cameo. What would you do in the movie?
Ooo, isn’t this every writer’s dream!
Due to the nature of my story aboard a 19th century Royal Naval tall ship, there aren’t that many female characters, though I could play no role on the ship since I get hideously sea sick!
I would have to stick with a role that is safe on land, perhaps one of the guests at the debutante ball in my opening scene—flouncy gown and all!
An elf named 12-25 approaches you. He’s sneezing, wheezing, coughing and there’s a strange tattoo of a snoring dog on his cheek. What do you do?
I’d send a letter to Santa at the North Pole informing him that one of his elves has gone rogue, and that he should send Mrs Claus with the med kit!
Alas, they are not out yet but in the meantime, folks are welcome to pop over to my website to meet some of my characters or subscribe to ‘By the Book’ Newsletter for some light authorly chats and to keep up-to-date with my book release news.
Thank you, Emma, for spending time with us and sharing your story as well as all the informative author links.
We look forward to seeing your books on store shelves one day. We wish you and Twitter Tips For Newbies continued success and lots of luck!
