Author Interview; Miller Caldwell
Author Interview: Miller Caldwell
Hey All!
Today is my stop on the A Reluctant Spy blog tour and I am here today with an interview with the author!
Title: A Reluctant Spy
Publisher: Clink Street Publishing
Published: 24th September 2019
Format: Paperback
Source:: N/A
Add It: Amazon UK. Goodreads.
Summary: Hilda Campbell was born in the north of Scotland in 1889. She married German national Dr Willy Bűttner Richter in 1912. They honeymooned in Scotland and returned to settle in Hamburg. Dr Richter died in 1938. After visiting her ailing parents, Hilda returned to Germany just before the Second World War began. She became a double agent, controlled by Gerhardt Eicke in Germany and Lawrence Thornton in Britain. How could she cope under such strain, and with her son Otto in the German Army? Nor did she expect her evidence to be so cruelly challenged at theNuremberg Trials. Learn of her post-war life, which took her abroad as a British Ambassador’s wife.
This is an extraordinary story based on the life of the author’s great aunt, Hilda. The book includes several authentic accounts.
The Interview
What is your favourite thing about writing books?
It is finding the inspiration to get the first paragraph down. Then of course the feel of the book once published and placing its birth on my website, Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Who is your favourite character in your book and why?
Hilda Campbell who became Hilda Richter before ending her life as Lady Hilda Simpson.
What is your favourite drink to consume while writing?
One coffee a day in the morning; tea in the afternoon and if still writing at night a glass of cold water.
Do you have any bad habits while you’re writing?
Not getting on with house or garden priorities. Writing is all consuming at times.
How do you research your books?
Don’t we all use the internet these days? But with A Reluctant Spy it was by speaking to my godmother and my uncle that the story emerged.
Are you a plotter or a pantser?
Somewhere between both; if I only knew what a pantser was!
If you could live in any fictional world, which would you choose and why?
It would still be on Earth but in the Victorian age. It was a time of invention, exploration and literature as well as great international music.
If you could befriend any fictional character, who would you choose and why?
I’d befriend Beethoven. Give him support so he would not be so moody and in return, I’d love to have a few piano lessons from him.
About the Author
I retired at the age of 53 as I found I had mild cognitive impairment MCI. This is a condition which gives me a poor memory but a sharp mind. It was difficult to find work that would take me and so I decided to write books. Sixteen years later, I have written twenty three books with another two yet to be published. I have learned the book writing skills though writing clubs and writers magazines. Over the years I find my writing is much better received. I am seen as a novelist but I have three illustrated children's books, several biographies and three self help books as well. My website sags with the volume. But I cannot be pigeon holed. It depends what theme obsesses my thinking, as that will be my next book.
I have been on the committee of the Society of Authors in Scotland and have been their Events Manager. I am due to speak at next year's Wigtown Book Festival as A Reluctant Spy will be a documentary by then. That reminds me I have an agent. A Literary as well as a Film agent in Mathilde Vuillermoz. With her on board I will release some of my self published books through her. Without an agent it is becoming more difficult to attract traditional publishers. So I remain optimistic and find like a graph, my trajectory is currently on an upswing.