The Affair by Gill Paul

Set in Rome in 1961 during the filming of the classic Hollywood film, Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

Diana Bailey takes up a job on the film set in Rome as a historical advisor, leaving older husband Trevor back home to fend for himself, she knows this is one opportunity that she just cannot turn down.

She soon makes friends with a young make-up artist called Helen, and soon Diana is enjoying living her new life and realises that her marriage is in trouble. She becomes close to Ernesto a fellow member of the film crew. She even manages to rub shoulders with the great Elizabeth Taylor herself too. Things are going great for Diana.

Then tragedy strikes and Diana finds herself in deep trouble, and it is Trevor who comes to her rescue but will it save their marriage?

The Affair manages to capture an era of time of Hollywood glamour and by mixing fact and fiction it has created a wonderful story, of love and passion with the very public affair between the two leading stars. In this book Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are in the background, while our leading lady Diana Bailey a small-fry in a big film production is centre stage in this story.

I really liked the facts about the filming of Cleopatra at the back of this book too. This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the film, and although I have seen many films this is a film I have not seen but now I really want to see this film. I also found myself in The Works book store yesterday buying books on Taylor and Burton. So the book really inspired me to go research myself to see which parts of the book are fact and which are fiction.

The Affair is a book not to be missed an amazing and interesting read that I enjoyed from beginning to end. I really do recommend reading this book.

Gill Paul lives on London and is a full-time writer of both fiction and non-fiction. She is the author of Titanic Love Stories, a nonfiction book about honeymoon couple on the titanic. Her debut novel, Women and Children First, a fictional story set on board the Titanic was published last year.

To buy this book from Amazon UK click here

To buy this book from Amazon US click here

Women & Children First by Gill Paul

Women & Children First is a touching tale, about what it must have been like to survive the sinking of the Titanic.

Reg Parton is a good looking young steward, who works in the first class dining room. Reg dreams of one day running his own small restaurant.

Lady Juliette Mason-Parker is an English lady who is pregnant and unmarried. She is travelling to conceal her pregnancy in fear of been ostracised from society.

Annie McGeown is a mother of four, travelling with her children to join her husband in New York to start a new life living there from Ireland.

American millionaire George Grayling and his wife Margaret who have an unhappy marriage and George would like a divorce.

When the Titanic sinks on that fateful day back in 1912, in the North Atlantic, on its maiden voyage Reg, Juliette, Annie and George lives will be shook to the core. The lives of which they have known will change forever. They survived the Titanic, but will they be able to rebuild and survive the lives they now find themselves living?

This is a really moving story that will really touch your heart. The author Gill Paul says that she wanted to explore what it felt like to be on the Titanic and to survive. The main characters are all invented. The main character Reg was inspired by a photograph of a very handsome young man, who was a steward in first class and who died. In real life nothing is known of what happened to him and little is known of his background. Gill Paul created the character of Reg with this picture in her mind. Gill Paul’s characters may be fictitious, but many of their experienced are based on real events, which Gill Paul as researched. As a reader you really do get a feel of what it must be like, the book is excellently written so that it creates the build up and creates atmosphere and emotion of what it must have felt like to be on board, and then to have survived such a terrible disaster.

There is also a mystery theme to the story, which gets you as a reader more intrigued in the story. The chapters are written in such a way that leaves the reader in suspense and anticipation that makes you not want to stop reading and to carry on reading to find out what will happen.

I really enjoyed reading this novel by Gill Paul, it is a superb novel.

Gill Paul lives in London, where she runs her own company producing books for publishers and has worked as an editor and researcher for some eminent historians. Her previous novels include Enticement and Compulsion. She has written several non-fiction books, including Titanic Love Stories (2011) about honeymoon couples on board the doomed ship. During the course of her research, Gill talked to relatives of survivors and became passionately interested in everything to do with the Titanic.

To buy this book from Amazon.co.uk, click here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1847563252

To buy this book from Amazon.com, click here: http://amzn.com/1847563252

For more information about the author, click here: http://gillpaul.com/