Kate Williams

Hello! Thank you for visiting my page. It's a great privilege to be on here - and to say hi to readers. Thank you very much for all your support and interest in my books! My twitter account is @katewilliamsme and I have a facebook page for Kate Williams author, come and say hello! I'm always thrilled to hear from you and your thoughts about my work. I grew up in a very modern house in a dormitory village in the Midlands- and as a consequence became completely obsessed by the past. When I was about six, we got a new washing machine - and I took the huge cardboard box, covered it in silver foil and told my little brother it was a time machine. I used to rumble it about and tell him 'Look! We're in Egypt in the time of the pyramids - but you can't get out!' So he had to listen to all the stories inside, my poor brother...'One of Britain's best young historians', Independent. 'Historian Extraordinaire', The Today Programme, Radio 4'Queen of historical fiction' and 'History at its best', Guardian'Unforgettable', (the book, not me!), The Lady. 'Gripping, seductive', The TimesI'm still looking for that time machine - and still living in it, really as I am obsessed by history. Thanks so much for coming with me in my time machine.....My latest novel, Edge of the Fall, is about the DeWitt family in the 1920s as they try to make sense of their lives in the aftermath of the war. It's the Flapper Age - and everything is in flux. As Kirkus puts it, there is ' a beautiful socialite threatened by a stranger, a murder trial and a baby born out of wedlock' - 'strange disappearances, unexplained deaths, dramatic births and a juicy court case' Grazia 'Brilliant', Daily Mail'Gripping from the first page', 'Thrilling' 'a must read', Grazia 'Imbued with a sharp awarenss of the devastating effects of war in any era, Williams' novel presents sympathetic characters who transcend history', Kirkus My previous novel, The Storms of War, is the first in a trilogy about the de Witt family. The first explores their lives from 1914-1918, as the youngest girl, Celia, sees her perfect world crumble and change. I've wanted to write about the wars since I visited the trenches in France when I was ten on a school trip. I was fascinated by how small they were - and how men could ever live in such places. I really wanted to go into the lives of Germans - the Victorians couldn't get enough of them. Then - almost overnight - they were the enemy and people saw German spies everywhere and the newspapers demanded that all Germans in the country be imprisoned. At the beginning of the book, Rudolf and Verena have four children - and their lives will never be the same again. 'Quietly impressive...hard to put down....Gripping, thoughtful, heartbreaking and above all human', Kirkus (starred review)'truly affecting...richly detailed, light of foot..tantalises with loose ends and disturbs with shocking shadows', Independent'Fans of Dowton Abbey will love it, as do I', Alison Weir'Vivid....fascinating,' Observer My most recent history book was in 2013, Josephine: Desire, Ambition, Napoleon (UK) and 'Ambition and Desire: the Dangerous Life of Josephine Bonaparte' (US). It has been optioned by Ecosse Films (Nowhere Boy, Mrs Brown) and they are working on the script now.'I send you a thousand kisses, but send me none back because they set my soul on fire', wrote Napoleon to Josephine. In 2012, my book about Elizabeth II, 'Young Elizabeth' was published, exploring the Princess's life before she became Queen - and how the abdication of Edward VIII changed her world. In 2011, I co-wrote The Ring and the Crown with Alison Weir, Tracy Borman and Sarah Gristwood about the history of royal weddings. My previous novel,The Pleasures of Men, about Catherine Sorgeiul, a young woman in 1840 who terrifies herself with her obsession with a murderer, appeared in 2012. I began writing the book while living in Paris, one