An Open Letter to the Seven Men Who Broke My Heart

Hi All,

You know who you are – at least I hope you do. We went out together for a while way back when. Blonde. Tall. Hoping to be a writer one day. Ring any bells?

This is just to let you know that I did it! My tenth novel comes out this September and I’ve already delivered the eleventh. I write full-time, am translated into 21 languages, and have topped bestseller lists. Try Googling me! (But don’t be so arrogant as to think that I’ve Googled you. As if!)

I’m writing to thank you for all the help you gave with my research. You crop up in different places in my novels. I’m not going to name names or point fingers so you may not recognise yourselves (probably won’t). But when I needed a charming but feckless and cowardly husband for Lucy in No Place for a Lady, let’s just say I didn’t have to look far. And the womanizing, controlling character of Aristotle Onassis in Jackie and Maria was no stretch. 

Of course, it’s not all about you; it was always more about me. I was the insecure teenager who thought she would never recover from that first heartbreak, who sat in the corner of a party sobbing while he (you!) snogged someone else. I was the student with low self-esteem who went back time and again to the glamorous, much-older man (yes, you!) who was never faithful, not even for a weekend, and who, truth be told, never gave me official girlfriend status anyway. 

I got stronger during my twenties, more able to stick up for myself, and better at spotting the bad ’uns. But sometimes the good guys hurt you more, especially when there were built-in problems from the start (children from first marriage, living a long distance apart, crazy age difference, ego as inflated as a bouncy castle). Each of you hurt me in a different way, and that’s why collectively you were such a great training ground for a writer. Olympic athletes start preparing young and bounce straight back to practice after injury – and so did I.

I kept diaries through all of my heartbreaks, but I don’t need to refer to them when writing. There are key moments I can slide into with the ease of a seasoned Method actor. Drinking Chablis on the balcony of a Florida seaside motel after THAT conversation. Running along pitch-black country lanes with no idea where I was heading, just wanting to get away. Lying in bed watching you sleep with hatred in my heart.

If you’ve read any of my novels, you’ll know that the course of true love never runs smoothly in them. But I’m lucky enough to know what it’s like when love works out too. After all those false starts, I finally found someone with whom I am managing the long haul. Now, when I write about love, I have a new memory bank to draw on. Hugging on a cold starlit beach while watching plankton glow in the breaking waves. Watching him entertain a fractious toddler with a Kermit glove puppet, complete with funny voices. Nursing him when he was sick and wanting so hard to make him well.

Here’s the great thing about being a writer: no experience, good or bad, is ever wasted. There truly is a silver lining in every cloud, because we’re collecting material as we go.

If you’re one of the men to whom this letter is addressed and are reading now, know that I’m truly grateful to you. I hope your life worked out and you have found lasting love too. Goodbye, farewell, and thanks for all the material!

Gill

Xx

Gill Paul’s new novel, The Collector’s Daughter, is published September 7th in the US and Canada, September 30th in the UK and Australia/New Zealand

Gill Paul’s historical novels have reached the top of the USA Today, Toronto Globe & Mail and UK kindle charts, and been translated into twenty languages. She specializes in relatively recent history, mostly 20^th century, and enjoys re-evaluating real historical characters and trying to get inside their heads.

Gill also writes historical non-fiction, including A History of Medicine in 50 Objects and series of Love Stories. Published around the world, this series includes Royal Love Stories, World War I Love Stories and Titanic Love Stories.

Gill was born in Scotland and grew up there, apart from an eventful year at school in the US when she was ten. She studied Medicine at Glasgow University, then English Literature and History (she was a student for a long time), before moving to London to work in publishing. Her first novel was written at weekends, but she has now given up the ‘day job’ to write fiction full-time. She also writes short stories for magazines and speaks at libraries and literary festivals about subjects ranging from the British royal family to the Romanovs, and about writing itself.

Gill swims year-round in an open-air pond – “It’s good for you so long as it doesn’t kill you”– and loves travelling whenever and wherever she can.

Find out more about her on her website http://gillpaul.com/

Follow her on Twitter https://twitter.com/GillPaulAUTHOR

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THE COLLECTOR’S DAUGHTER

Bestselling author Gill Paul returns with a brilliant novel about Lady Evelyn Herbert, the woman who took the very first step into the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, and who lived in the real Downton Abbey, Highclere Castle, and the long after-effects of the Curse of Pharaohs. 

Lady Evelyn Herbert was the daughter of the Earl of Carnarvon, brought up in stunning Highclere Castle. Popular and pretty, she seemed destined for a prestigious marriage, but she had other ideas. Instead, she left behind the world of society balls and chaperones to travel to the Egyptian desert, where she hoped to become a lady archaeologist, working alongside her father and Howard Carter in the hunt for an undisturbed tomb.

In November 1922, their dreams came true when they discovered the burial place of Tutankhamun, packed full of gold and unimaginable riches, and she was the first person to crawl inside for three thousand years. She called it the “greatest moment” of her life—but soon afterwards everything changed, with a string of tragedies that left her world a darker, sadder place.

Newspapers claimed it was “the curse of Tutankhamun,” but Howard Carter said no rational person would entertain such nonsense. Yet fifty years later, when an Egyptian academic came asking questions about what really happened in the tomb, it unleashed a new chain of events that seemed to threaten the happiness Eve had finally found.

 

Links: 

US: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-collectors-daughter-gill-paul?variant=33011847888930 

Canada: https://www.harpercollins.ca/9780063079861/the-collectors-daughter/

UK: https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/the-collectors-daughter-gill-paul?variant=39321416040526

Australia: https://www.harpercollins.com.au/search-results/?keyword=The+Collector%27s+Daughter

 

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing