Learn All About My First Book Defy
This will be my second post in the series – go back to last week’s post to read up on the inspiration behind the name of the book!
What’s fictitious and what’s not?
So, when I published my book, one thing that was pointed out to me by one of my readers was that I never do make it clear what in my novel is just pure fiction and what is actually based in reality. Given that it is historical fiction, it seems like there should be a good deal of it that is real. I decided that maybe I should dedicate a post or two to pointing out some historical facts embedded in the book.
First off, when writing a historical fiction book, adding accurate historical context just adds so much more to the story, making it more believable for the reader and the story even more plausible. When I began writing my novel, I did a lot of research for even the tiniest detail of the book – I wanted to make sure that the event I was writing about could’ve actually occurred during World War 2. By the time I finished writing my book, I had used about 3 pages worth of links to fact check my work and serve as inspiration for some of my scenes. It was a lot of work, but entirely worth it!
Now, into the historical context of my book!
For this first post, I’m going to focus on characters. I’ve sprinkled a couple of real people into the cast of characters in the book, so let’s get into who’s real and who wasn’t.
- Annabelle Dietmar, Dimitri Florimond, and Albrecht Fitzi – not real! (Sorry!) However, with all of the contextual work I’ve put in to making these characters realistic, these three could’ve very much been real people living at that time.
- Abbé Bernard Bouveresse – real! Yes, there really was an Abbé Bernard Bouveresse living during World War 2, however, he wasn’t priest at that church just yet. He actually worked in the resistance during the war and was later made parish priest and vicar at Basilica Sainte-Clotilde in post war years. So, while he was a real person, he didn’t technically work in Paris just yet when Defy takes place, making his character a little bit of fiction.
- Captain Emmerich – not real (thank the Lord)! Still, unfortunately, Captain Emmerich could’ve very much been an actual S.S. Officer who worked for the Nazis.
- Jean Moulin – real! He was actually a very well known resistance member who was actually betrayed by his associate René. Jean Moulin died shortly after being apprehended in the same circumstances in which I described in the book. He was a very active member in the French resistance and worked with some very notible members.
- Office members of Actualités Dietmar – not real! (Again, sorry!) I would very much like to be friends with Acadia, but unfortunately, none of them were real. 🙁
- Gerda – not real… but… The matchbox secret camera was a real gadget used by British Intelligence, later the Japenesse as well. It seems like Gerda was trying to plant some evidence… interesting…
Did any of the above surprise you? ! I hope this made it a little clearer and provided some cool little tidbits that you might not have picked up on while reading!
Next post with center around some of the events in the book, so stay tuned for some more interesting facts! Also, I’m going to try to post one of these little blog posts about Defy once every week on Thursdays – look for them then!
Sincerly,
L.A. Grabins
P.S. If you see a character missing, let me know, and I’ll add them!