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FIELDS OF GRACE bittersweet romance set in 30s London's glittering theatreland http://bit.ly/WWFOG
My Books
CATCH THE MOON, MARY the story of a musical genius who attracts the attention of a desperate fallen angel http://amazon.com/dp/1700193538
Brilliant #review by Sarah Sansom. https://t.co/lvbnzT4ux7?amp=1
about Wendy Waters
Website ✦ AmazonUK ✦ GoodReads ✦ Twitter
Wendy Waters is an award-winning author, composer, lyricist and librettist. Born in Australia, she grew up in Sydney, lived in the USA for six years and now divides her time between London, Sydney and Paris. In 2011 Waters volunteered to work with OASIS Salvation Army Crisis Centre in Sydney, helping musically gifted young people streamline their talent and it was there that she first conceived of the idea of a guardian angel rescuing a troubled or abused child as many of the young people at Oasis spoke of guardian angels coming to their rescue at times of danger. Turning the angel into the one in need of rescue was the twist that gave Catch the Moon, Mary its leverage.
Waters has also written three musicals: ‘Fred’, ‘Alexander’ and ‘The Last Tale’ (with composer Shanon Whitelock).
Waters’ debut novel, Catch the Moon, Mary was published in the UK in 2015 and has been adapted by Waters into both a stage play and a screenplay. The play and Fred had staged readings at Tristan Bates Theatre in 2017 with graduate students from Amanda Redman’s ATS Drama School.
Music is a constant theme in Waters’ work and it still plays a major role in her latest novel, Fields of Grace.
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Book Review by @Sarah_Sansom https://thebookswhiskers.wordpress.com/2020/07/07/book-review-fields-of-grace/?fbclid=IwAR3DF7Dyl4H1di_smJk
Book Review: Fields of Grace
PUBLISHED ON 7th Jul 2020
I have SO much to say about this book. I genuinely hope you stay with me through to the end of my review … but if you’re in a hurry, here’s my six-word summary: you need to read this book. Now. It’s a stunner; it seeks out every emotion within your soul and awakens each of them in turn, sometimes gently, sometimes with calculated cruelty, but always with such precision that you’ll be talking about it for a long time afterwards. I’m not alone in my adoration of this book … it’s been snapped up by an American screenwriter just last week, and we all know we love to read the book before we watch it’s transformation to the big screen.
Historical Fiction ✦ Romance ✦ Theatre ✦ Arts ✦ WWII ✦ Nazism
Title - Fields of Grace
Author - Wendy Waters
Published by - Amazon (October 2019)
Format - Paperback
Pages - 442
My rating - ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️back cover blurb
From the author of ‘Catch the Moon, Mary‘ comes this sweeping epic drama spanning seven decades. Set against a backdrop of war in 30s Europe, Grace Fieldergill, a starry-eyed young actress from Devon moves to London to pursue her dream of becoming a star. The lovable boarders of Wyncote House, a ladies-only establishment, take her under their collective wing and share her triumph when she is accepted into the brilliant young John Gielgud’s Company as Peggy Ashcroft’s understudy. When Peggy misses a show one night Grace gets her chance. Watching her performance that evening are two people who will change her life forever, London’s most famous actress, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, and a man whose love she never thought she could win.
Fields of Grace is an abundant story which is brimming with such richly vivid detail that my review isn’t a short one. I genuinely hope you stick with it though as this is an incredibly beautiful book and I’m hoping to write something here that does justice to it. As I always promise, this is a spoiler-free review … so whilst there looks to be a lot of details these really are just the bare bones of the story which I hope dangle enough temptation to compel you to get your hands on a copy too.
my thoughts
Fields of Grace is a searingly beautiful love letter to the performing arts. It’s a story about every kind of love silhouetted against the evils of persecution and envy. Like love, it’ll sweep you off your feet, carrying you from the flirtatious bright lights of 1930s London, to the grand romance of Paris, before mercilessly setting you down in the hostile streets of Hitler’s Berlin.
The book gets off to a haunting start with the recounting of an ancient Devonian tale about the amberglow mist. As I was reading, a tremendous thunderstorm was crashing and brooding outside my own window, lending this prologue a particularly moody foreboding. If you usually dodge the foreword of a book, I recommend you don’t on this occasion … it sheds light on Grace’s family history, her mother’s pagan roots, and explains why Grace occasionally uses the ancient Druid language to evoke memories and resolve emotions.
Grace is the story’s leading lady, and its main narrator. We first meet her in Sydney in the autumn of 2009; the winter of her life. An ethereal tawny fog has settled over the city, and its portentous arrival lets Grace know that this will be her last earthbound day; the day when she can finally set herself free from the secrets of her past, and heal old wounds. “Time has a way of sorting out most things, but I have no more time, so today I will unlock the trunk and pass John’s legacy on to Sam [Grace’s granddaughter], and tell my son the truth about his father. Then the amberglow may claim my soul.”
Locked for over seventy-four years, the trunk holds little of monetary value but its contents are the precious mementoes of an unparalleled life. A faded program from a production of Hamlet staged in Berlin in 1936 still holds the bloom of a lilac rose frozen in time between the pages. A scroll of handwritten notes remains tied with a lilac ribbon. The intoxicating scent of fresh roses. With the tenderest of prompts the scenery changes, and Grace is recounting her breathtaking story of theatre, friends, love and war…
When we next meet Grace she’s 22-years old, and it’s 1934. She’s left her childhood home on a Devonshire dairy farm and followed her lifelong calling to the lights and opportunity of London’s theatreland. Bit by bit we’re invited into Grace’s circle of friends, sipping illicit martinis with her vivacious and provocative best friend Georgina, persevering through soul-destroying acting classes, and engaging in lively chatter with her housemates every evening … conversations peppered with the quips, barbs and humour of familial warmth.
Whilst Grace is the book’s leading lady, Georgina is undoubtedly her stage-lighting. For it’s Georgina who encourages Grace to audition to be Peggy Ashcroft’s understudy for the role of Ophelia in a forthcoming production of Hamlet … providing the spark that ignites Grace’s career. Suddenly Grace’s circle of friends and acquaintances includes icons of the London theatre scene. Household names that carry immense kudos today have been woven into the story to dazzling effect: [Sir] John Gielgud, [Dame] Peggy Ashcroft, [Sir] Noël Coward, Ivor Novello, Laurence Olivier, [Sir] Alec Guinness, and Hugh Beaumont all play their parts … even Wallace Simpson, Vivien Leigh, and Virginia Woolf have roles.
One fateful evening Peggy Ashcroft is unable to perform, projecting Grace’s star into its ascendancy. As the curtain comes down after her first lead in Ophelia’s costume, Grace is sought out by London’s leading theatrical agent, the renowned John Hopkins-Reimer, setting in motion a chain of events that will change Grace’s life irrevocably. Their first meeting is prickly, but nonetheless, there’s a palpable attraction between them; one which quickly blooms into a close friendship and then – to the astonishment of their circle of friends – blossoms into love.
True to his word, John makes Grace a household name and a darling of the London theatre scene. He’s a man of ideas and ambition whose passion is to launch a ground-breaking theatre project. However, John can be ruthless in the pursuit of his goals. He needs money to finance this project – money that Dashiell Tanner has by the bucket – so he casts the talentless Dashiell as Hamlet, harnessing his vanity in order to get to his money.
In June 1936 John and Grace set sail for France, taking their production of Hamlet on a European tour to raise more funds. They’re travelling with a handful of fellow actors, as well as their good friends Harry Andrews, and the ill-fated Dashiell. Whilst war has not been declared at this time, the dark stain of Hitler’s cruelty is already spreading insidiously throughout western Europe. Grace is particularly uneasy about the Berlin tour dates, but John is immovable in his conviction that the city will be safe whilst the eyes of the world are on them for the Berlin Olympics. His desire to bring his new theatre to fruition is clouding his judgement, and he’s blind to the resentment and envy simmering beneath the surface of the group.
The production tours Calais and Lille to great acclaim, before making their much-anticipated arrival in Paris. Like the book’s characters, it’s impossible not to be entranced with this iconic city … even if you’ve never been. Written with such vivid abundance, every sight, sound, scent and sensation positively pop out of the pages. In one scene, Grace and John visit La Closerie des Lilas and are seated at literature’s most famous café table … the table Hemingway used to write at. It was written with such clarity, I could easily have been eavesdropping from the next table.
But what a difference a few days make. As the production arrives in Berlin the group attracts the unwelcome attention of the SS … the rash behaviour of the usually equable Harry first ruffles feathers, and then the alcohol-fuelled bitterness of Dashiell delivers the lethal blow. The contrast in atmosphere from their days in Paris couldn’t be more profound, with the author’s tone and intensity bringing a chilling savagery to these chapters. Not since I read the diary of Anne Frank as a teenager have I felt the threatening presence of menace rise from the pages of a book in such a way.
A shell-shocked and depleted group make their escape back to Britain, and at the first opportunity Grace heads back home to the comforting safety of home in Devon. And here she stays, in the nurturing love of her parents, for the months it takes her to feel ready to move forward. Despite these being the lowest days of her life, they’re punctuated by moments of tender humour that you can’t fail to laugh along with.
When the time comes for her to make her next move, it’s a big one. One that sees Grace boarding the RMS Aquitania as a married woman and a new mother. Every day of the month-long crossing to Australia I felt like my heart was going to burst with sorrow and injustice as Grace leaves behind her family and dearest friends to pursue a new life … a life she describes as a slow death. Yet the author manages to gently temper my emotions with glimpses of tenderness and compassion. It’s extremely clever writing that manages to create a character who you will heartily despise, and yet somehow feel a degree of pity for.
I’ll not say any more about Grace’s back story, but in her own words, “Time has a way of sorting out most things. As the book draws to a close the author brings us gently back to 2009 and we find ourselves at Grace’s bedside, her emerald-eyed granddaughter Sam at her side, and her beloved John, waiting as she shrugs off her earthly bonds. Without doubt, this part of the book is written with extraordinary intimacy and tenderness … but it felt a little short. Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t want to be reading about a protracted death but, after the expansiveness of Grace’s earlier life, this final act felt like it craved just a little more generosity.
You’ve probably got the gist by now that I’ve absolutely adored this book. This review has taken me three days to write … I wanted to capture enough of the story that you feel compelled to snap up a copy of your own but without the horror of spoilers or slippage into the realms of TMI. Such is the breadth of the book that this is one of the longest reviews I’ve written, yet I’m still astonished at how SO much story has been distilled into just 442 pages. It’s a tardis of a book!
Fields of Grace deals delicately with subjects and attitudes that can be quite difficult to stomach. For example, there are several conversations where key (and otherwise likeable) characters express unpalatable opinions of Hitler … this isn’t the author being deliberately provocative, she’s merely reflecting some genuinely held, albeit controversial beliefs that prevailed before the full horrors of Nazism became apparent. Likewise, the subject of gay relationships is a significant aspect of the story … and with the majority of the book being set in the 1930s, you’ll find yourself facing the lamentable injustices of this period. Lastly, whilst women do have the vote the story is set in an era that’s still hugely conservative, with the options facing women – especially single women with children – heartbreakingly limited.
Overall, this is a breathtaking story about every kind of love: the uplifting love of friends, the anchoring love of family, the romantic love of partners. It’s about true love, passionate love, unrequited love, forbidden love, illicit love, failed love, infatuation and forgiveness.
The incredibly vivid and honest characters are impossible to dislike, and the rich smokiness of the 1930s and 40s scenes all combine to create an atmospheric richness that makes this a book to savour. You need to read only a few chapters in one sitting and then go and do something peaceful – a hot bath, a walk in the country, sit in the garden – just to allow your mind the luxury of catching up with your heart to fully absorb what you’ve just read; to turn it slowly around and admire it from every angle.
Buy Fields of Grace at AmazonUK ✦ Amazon
cover story
The stunning cover of Fields of Grace was painted by a dear friend of the author’s. On the day I started to read this book I learned that the artist, @DigiluxEU, sadly lost his battle with cancer in June this year. Without a shadow of a doubt, he created an utterly captivating cover image here, and it feels appropriate to draw attention to his work. Once you read the book, you’ll learn the significance of the rose, the butterfly, and the striking colour palette.
Occasionally a book gets under my skin enough that I feel the urge to translate my experience of it into images. Fields of Grace has become one of these books, and throughout the days I was reading it I started building a new Pinterest board dedicated to the story. It’s filled with the hypnotic images of 1930’s sirens of screen and stage, the real life characters of the book, and the locations that we’ll only ever be able to experience through such timeless images.
Sarah Sansom Sirens Follow On
about Wendy Waters
Website ✦ AmazonUK ✦ GoodReads ✦ Twitter
Wendy Waters is an award-winning author, composer, lyricist and librettist. Born in Australia, she grew up in Sydney, lived in the USA for six years and now divides her time between London, Sydney and Paris. In 2011 Waters volunteered to work with OASIS Salvation Army Crisis Centre in Sydney, helping musically gifted young people streamline their talent and it was there that she first conceived of the idea of a guardian angel rescuing a troubled or abused child as many of the young people at Oasis spoke of guardian angels coming to their rescue at times of danger. Turning the angel into the one in need of rescue was the twist that gave Catch the Moon, Mary its leverage.
Waters has also written three musicals: ‘Fred’, ‘Alexander’ and ‘The Last Tale’ (with composer Shanon Whitelock).
Waters’ debut novel, Catch the Moon, Mary was published in the UK in 2015 and has been adapted by Waters into both a stage play and a screenplay. The play and Fred had staged readings at Tristan Bates Theatre in 2017 with graduate students from Amanda Redman’s ATS Drama School.
Music is a constant theme in Waters’ work and it still plays a major role in her latest novel, Fields of Grace.
Display real testimonials
Editorial Reviews
Review Catch the Moon, Mary
What a talent! The Antipodean Susskind! Superbly crafted prose in which every single word is 'in its proper place' - to quote Mary Granger, Catch The Moon, Mary's unlikely heroine. Wendy Waters' prose is breath-taking and shines like a Bulgari bracelet, each sentence perfectly merging into the next. Rarely has a first novel been so perfect in its intent, its spirit and its craft. One reads Mary Granger's adventures with the criminal yet well intended Angel Gabriel with a sense of intellectual jubilation. It is thrilling, full of suspense, entertaining, witty, and at times roaringly funny. - Isabelle Vallin-Thorpe, former speechwriter to the Hon Gareth Evans, Australia's former minister for Foreign Affairs Original and scintillating, tantalising and thought-provoking. Is the angel real? You bet he is! A novel about the transforming powers of music and beauty. Wendy Waters' words shimmer off the page. - Hazel Phillips OAM, Gold Logie Winner, author of Black River, Bright Star Weaves a singular spell, mesmerising the reader on several levels like a fugue. Wendy Waters and her characters believe deeply in the transformative power of music which pours lyrically from her sentences. - Joshua Rosenblum, composer, conductor, music critic A rare and ingenious glimpse into the real and the surreal. Waters interfaces these twin realities with ease and dexterity...A brave and unique journey. - Gerry Taylor-Wood, international lecturer on Esoteric Sciences and author of The Journey to a Sacred Well Wendy Waters writes with an angel's quill. - Anthony O'Neill, author of Scheherazade, The Lamplighter, Empire of Eternity A consummate tale of magical realism... richly satisfying and redemptive. - Scott Hastie, writer & poet, author of Meditations and Angel Voices A scintillating tale of the devastating choice between art and love. - Anne Eston, writer, director and filmmaker, Los Angeles A beguiling fantasy, original and unexpected, with glorious prose that drips like honey. - Donald Macdonald, writer and director of Letter to Larry and Caravan An incredible insight into the fragile nature of humanity and angels... a dark and disturbing world leading to a beautiful clearing where love, fragility and spirituality are revealed in crystal clarity. Sentences of pure gold take us on a magical journey. - Nigel Lewis, lighting designer Beautifully haunting, achingly lovely. Poetic simplicity within the prose and a story which unfolds with so much tenderness and grace. - Simon Egerton, theatre director, writer and composer/MD Waters composes an extraordinary tale that intertwines a Faustian pact between a musical child-prodigy and a beguiling angel with the themes of family, love, and the transcendent powers of art. Waters' style is lyrical, captivating, and rich, flowing melodiously through the original structure that comprises musical compositions and rhythms rather than conventional chapters. continue reading review → - Marija Spirkovska, MSc graduate of the University of Edinburgh
my thoughts
Catch The Moon, Mary is the story of a gifted young girl, whose musical enchantment was borne out of the horror of being abused, sexually and emotionally, by her father. Her music comes to her not as you and I perceive it, but as colour and texture and instinct … each note has a personality, each chord is ablaze with meaning, and the people she meets are interpreted as melodious harmonies or clashing discords. Whilst her music has never failed her, self-belief is an enigma, and it’s difficult to read the passages where such a young girl describes herself a ‘mad’ or ‘ugly’; a conviction that’s taken root in her because of the thoughtlessly cruel jibes of others.
The instrument felt tired, flogged … Mary whispered assurances to the exhausted instrument, calming it as a jockey might calm a highly strung overworked racehorse … “What are you? A piano whisperer?” he asked with a sour laugh.
Whilst Mary’s music is her escape from life’s cruelest realities, it also summons the attentions of a fallen angel who will steer Mary’s future irrevocably. In return for freedom from her father’s abhorrent attentions, 11-year old Mary enters into an insidious pact with Gabriel, agreeing that her music will be his from the day she has grown up enough that her hands can span a full chord on the piano.
Lifting the piano lid was like opening a magician’s box
In spite of his angelic biology, Gabriel’s actions aren’t entirely pure of heart. Granted, he’s rescued Mary from her monstrous father, but his intentions are greedy and self-serving, and his possessiveness threatens to overwhelm Mary’s daily life. Yes, we are talking the archangel Gabriel here – and he’s been earthbound for centuries in a quest to restore faith amongst mortals, and to find his beloved brother, Rigel who he’s convinced will help him fulfil this.
Everybody rushing about in pursuit of nothing, producing little of lasting value. No-one stands still long enough to hear his own soul crying out for meaning.
In all honesty, I shrank back from the book initially as I thought it could tip over in to the realms of religion. At this point, I want to make it very clear that whilst I don’t follow any religion I wholeheartedly respect those who do … it’s just not for me. And if anybody comes knocking at my door, or approaches me in the street (pre-Covid, of course!!) to ‘sell’ the merits of their religion to me, they’re tapping-up the wrong gal … and I was nervous this book might head that way.
But it didn’t, not in the slightest … and so on I read.
From the very first moment Gabriel heard Mary’s music, he knew its beauty and power was his ticket to success … a ticket back into his father’s good books … and that any obstruction to his redemption was something to be removed. With Mary as his sole source of redemption, Gabriel’s attentions quickly turn toxic, killing those who have the power to stand between Mary and the fêted stage of Carnegie Hall.
“Carnegie Hall’s mission is to present extraordinary music and musicians, and to bring the transformative power of music to the widest possible audience.” Google
The dichotomy of this gentle, mild-mannered young pianist shines through in the face of Gabriel’s stifling control; vulnerable but courageous; naive yet wise; loyal but independent. As the book progresses, so too their relationship evolves and the power starts to shift – Mary becomes as much Gabriel’s rescuer as he was hers all those years ago. They reflect each other’s loneliness, understand each other’s emotional scars, and help each other live a life each thought was beyond their grasp.
Catch The Moon, Mary is an incredibly vivid and poignant book, lyrically written, and with a depth of wisdom and tenderness that speaks of someone who’s lived many, many lives. The chapters are short, yet full of life, and each is titled with a musical term that teases you into the themes woven into the following pages.
In fact, music is at the very heart of this book – which is not a surprise when you read about Wendy Waters’ background (as you’ll see when you read the author bio at the end of this review). The music has colour and scent and flavour; it drips from the pages.
To rip-off an infamous song: The pages are alive with the sound of music 🎼.
They chime.
They resonate.
They are pianissimo,
and they are forte.
And they are impossible to put downI feel extremely privileged to have read this book and, as I said at the start of this review, the end came without those dreaded post-book blues. That’s not for want of engagement – far from it! I found the story compelling, the prose hypnotic, the characters thoroughly human and likeable. I’ve even waited a few days since finishing Catch The Moon, Mary before writing this review, in the hope of understanding the magic that’s kept those blues away. I put it down to the very richness of Wendy’s storytelling; the human bonds of love, family, friendship, and loss fill the pages and resonate like the purest note long after the book is closed. Buy Catch The Moon, Mary at Amazon ✦ Waterstones
Brilliant #review by Sarah Sansom. https://t.co/lvbnzT4ux7?amp=1
ALEXANDER
Music by Wendy Waters & Ian Camilleri
Music by Wendy Waters & Ian Camilleri
Music by Wendy Waters & Ian Camilleri
My #musical ALEXANDER excerpt from
Canadian radio Wednesday 15th April. For those lucky enough to be in UK or US or Canada tune in. For everyone else ENJOY!
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AtFMpokjm_kBqyPF3qA26DO0kg6K?e=DjKFh3
ALEXANDER
Music by Wendy Waters & Ian Camilleri
Music by Wendy Waters & Ian Camilleri
ALEXANDER Star of Macedonia
The Show
Music by Wendy Waters & Ian Camilleri
The Show
The show is currently ready to be workshopped.
The Last Tale
The Last Tale
Baghdad 800AD, ten years after Scheherazade has told the last of her 1001 tales. She is Baghdad's beloved saviour. But her jealous husband King Shariah cannot share his people or his power with anyone and plots her abduction and murder.
Lyrics and Book by Wendy Waters
Music by Shanon D. Whitelock
The Last Tale is a lush, colourful romp through ancient Baghdad when carpets flew and genies blew and romance was encrypted in every dune and star.
My #musical ALEXANDER, based on the life of the great conqueror as seen through the eyes of his faithful servant, Bagoas, a eunuch whom he acquired from King Darius after conquering Persia.
ALEXANDER follows the inner journey of a man tortured by ambition and his desire to save the world. His outer journey is well-documented but his inner torment and eventual descent into madness and melancholy is less well-known.
*Newsflash WENDY WATERS RITES WORDS Cabaret Show at The Pheasantry London 3rd September featuring songs from ALEXANDER, FRED & THE LAST TALE starring Frank Loman, Lauren Lovejoy, Louise Burke and Ricardo Nunes Fernandes on Piano.
Frank Loman singing ONE BAG OF GOLD
Ricardo Nunes Fernandes on Piano
https://t.co/3RyUNVrmSI My Blog
About Me
My Beginnings
My Favorite Work
My Favorite Work
I started life as an actress/singer. My passion for the world of Arts and Entertainment was equalled only by my passion for nature and art. In some respects I am very lucky my career as an actress/singer never found traction. To relieve the frustration I wrote - poems, music, plays and prose. Soon my writing started to get the attention
I started life as an actress/singer. My passion for the world of Arts and Entertainment was equalled only by my passion for nature and art. In some respects I am very lucky my career as an actress/singer never found traction. To relieve the frustration I wrote - poems, music, plays and prose. Soon my writing started to get the attention I'd always hoped my singing would get. Transitioning to writing happened suddenly. I started winning prizes and found a freedom of expression and an autonomy over my career that acting and singing had never provided. Today I call myself a writer.
My Favorite Work
My Favorite Work
My Favorite Work
The work I enjoy most is polishing a first draft of a novel, play or lyric. I love it when the blank page is filled with scribbles and ideas and I can start
refining and polishing and crystallising my ideas. Completed works are Catch the Moon, Mary and Fields of Grace (novels) Miriam, Fred and Alexander (musicals) and a play based on Catc
The work I enjoy most is polishing a first draft of a novel, play or lyric. I love it when the blank page is filled with scribbles and ideas and I can start
refining and polishing and crystallising my ideas. Completed works are Catch the Moon, Mary and Fields of Grace (novels) Miriam, Fred and Alexander (musicals) and a play based on Catch the Moon, Mary co-written with Jemina Macedo. Currently I'm working on a sequel to Catch the Moon, Mary.
My Life Today
My Favorite Work
My Life Today
My life today looks very different from my life only a few short years ago. Prior to 2015 I was just another unpublished author. Today I have a novel published and two musicals ready to be staged and a musical about to be workshopped. I have had the privilege of working with talented composers and been fortunate enough to work with actors
My life today looks very different from my life only a few short years ago. Prior to 2015 I was just another unpublished author. Today I have a novel published and two musicals ready to be staged and a musical about to be workshopped. I have had the privilege of working with talented composers and been fortunate enough to work with actors in London who have given me their time and support in a reading at Tristan Bates Theatre in Covent Garden in 2017. Added to all this my work is being showcased at The Pheasantry on 3rd September.