Christine Wells

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About Christine
Christine Wells
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Christine Wells
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About One Woman’s War
  • One Woman’s War is about Victoire “Paddy” Bennett, who is thought to have inspired the James Bond character of Miss Moneypenny.
  • Based on the true story of Paddy’s work for British Naval Intelligence during WWII as secretary for James Bond creator, Ian Fleming.
  • Paddy Bennett was involved in “Operation Mincemeat”, a wartime deception that fooled the Germans into believing the Allies would invade via Greece rather than Sicily. It saved many thousands of lives and has recently been the subject of a feature film starring two “Mr. Darcys”, Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen.
  • One Woman’s War also features Friedl Stottinger (Often called by her married name of Gaertner) who worked as a double agent for the British in WWII and her lover and dashing spy, Dusko Popov, who was thought to be one of the models on which Fleming based James Bond.

  • Sisters of the Resistance

    About Sisters of the Resistance
  • Sisters of the Resistance is about two sisters living in occupied Paris during WWII who are drawn into the resistance by Catherine Dior, sister of the famous fashion designer and a heroine of France.
  • Catherine was Christian’s favourite sister, and “Miss Dior”, the signature perfume of La Maison Dior is named after her.
  • Christian Dior is a character in the novel and his 1947 premier collection, dubbed “The New Look” is brought to life with a fashion show in which Yvette, one of the protagonists, takes part. Other real figures are couturier Lucien Lelong, the Swedish consul who saved Paris, Raoul Nordling and German Ambassador, Otto Abetz. Both Catherine Dior’s dear and brave friend Liliane Dietlin and the brutal rue de la Pompe gang feature as well.
  • The politics of fashion: When Christian Dior’s “New Look” came out in 1947, the fashion world applauded, but ordinary women did not. Tired of clothing restrictions that were still in force but did not apply to haute couture, women attacked Dior models on a fashion shoot and ripped at their clothes.
  • Recently, the House of Dior has celebrated Catherine with a ready-to-wear collection inspired by her love of gardening and a new bag, called “the Caro”, which was Catherine’s nickname.

  • About The Juliet Code
  • The central characters in this story are inspired by real people.
  • Like The Juliet Code’s protagonist, Juliet, Noor Inayat Khan was a wireless operator who worked for the British Special Operations Executive in occupied Paris during World War II. Everyone thought Noor was too gentle to survive such dangerous conditions but she managed to elude the Germans and operate effectively for months until she was betrayed. When German counterintelligence kept her prisoner in a mansion in Paris she made several attempts to escape and fought her captors so viciously that they deemed her a dangerous prisoner and kept her handcuffed in solitary confinement.
  • Felix is based on Leo Marks who was in charge of decoding wireless transmissions for the British Special Operations Executive during World War II. He wrote a poem for the agent Odette Sansom to use as a cipher key, called ‘The Life that I Have” which later became famous. He was the son of the owners of the bookshop at 84 Charing Cross Road (made famous by a novel of that name) and after the war he became a playwright and scriptwriter.
  • The tough Scottish SAS captain, Mac, was inspired by a real SAS commando who escaped the Nazis by using his watch spring to pick the lock on his handcuffs.
  • The commandant at the Paris mansion where Juliet is held prisoner is based on a German counterintelligence officer called Hans Josef Kieffer, who was accomplished at interrogating enemy agents. He preferred friendly conversation to violence, although he did not baulk at torture when he deemed it necessary and sent many to concentration camps where they were executed.

  • About The Traitor’s Girl
  • The Traitor’s Girl was inspired by two extraordinary women who worked as British spies in World War II.
  • The work of Carrie as an agent provocateur employed to test out the discretion of agents before they parachuted into Nazi-occupied France is based on that of wartime spy, Marie Christine Chilver, code name “Agent Fifi”.
  • The character of Eve was inspired by a passing comment in the memoir of British traitor Harold “Kim” Philby, who admitted the one person he thought might suspect him of being a double agent for the Soviets was former barrister and Russian expert at MI-5, Jane Archer.

  • About The Wife’s Tale
    The Wife's Tale

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    In the news:

    Books that Changed Me, Sydney Morning Herald

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    MindFood Magazine Book Club
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    Femail InterviewScreen Shot 2016-06-17 at 2.48.15 pm

    Culture Street, Books of Influence

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    Good Reading Magazine Cover, May Issue

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    QWeekend, Courier Mail, Saturday 30 April

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    Living in the Shires

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