Julia Sleeps brings readers closer to their family history

Earlier this year, I received a message from a reader of Julia Sleeps which moved me deeply.

Johnny, who is the father of my main character Evie, is called to do war work at the Naval Dockyard in Rosyth in 1939, the very site of the first air raid of World War II, and Evie and her family learn of their loved one being in danger in the morning paper. This is just one of the many authentic experiences that are woven into my novel, and one reader let me know how it affected her.

Her own father served at Rosyth during the war, and reading Julia Sleeps inspired her to visit the site to learn more; this was no light undertaking, as like me, this lady is resident in France.

Another was so taken with the tales of Lunderston Bay in my novel that she made a special journey to see the location on the West Coast of Scotland from where she lives in Edinburgh. She knew that Julia Sleeps was inspired by a true story, and she told me that when she was at Lunderston Bay, she could feel the echoes of the characters in my novel all around her; it was where they, like many other Scottish city dwellers, would take their annual summer holidays, 'doon the water'.

You can imagine what these kinds of responses mean to me as a writer, and how proud I am to have inspired readers to go and see some of the locations in the book that have such meaning for many people.