Now Is the Hour

Hilary Green

LOVE and WAR. These are the themes that run through all my books. Why? Because I believe they are the foundation of all fiction. The central character in a story must care deeply for something or somebody - whether it is another individual or an abstract idea like 'honour' or 'patriotism'. And there must be conflict, because without that there is no dramatic tension. I do not write 'historical romance', I write historical novels which contain a romantic element.

My first books were inspired by the stories I heard from my parents when I was a child. My father was a professional singer with a fine baritone voice and my mother was a dancer. They met when they were both performing in a seaside variety show just before the outbreak of World War ll. I knew that the outbreak of war brought an abrupt end to that life. My father served all through the war with the RAF and never went back to singing. I was fascinated by the idea that the war had changed so many lives and sent people off in directions they would never have imagined and this became the inspiration for my FOLLIES quartet.

The research for these books led me to the FANY - the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry - a women's organisation with a remarkable history. This provided the material for two more WWll books, WE'LL MEET AGAIN and NEVER SAY GOODBYE, in which two young women become secret agents working for the Special Operations Executive. I then turned to the earlier history of the FANY and encountered the amazing Mrs Mabel Stobart, proto-feminist and peace campaigner, who took a group of volunteers to nurse soldiers at the front line, initially in the First Balkan War of 1912 and then in Serbia during World War l. This provided the basis for my 'LEONORA' trilogy - DAUGHTERS OF WAR, PASSIONS OF WAR, AND HARVEST OF WAR. These books have now been republished under m pen name Holly Green and re-titled FRONTLINE NURSES, FRONTLNE NURSES ON DUTY and SECRETS OF THE FRONTLINE NURSES.

I have also written books set in Ancient Greece (THE LAST HERO) the period of the First Crusade (IRONHAND and GOD'S WARRIOR) and the twelfth century