The Writers of Wales Database

ROSS, CAROLINE

Website: http://carolineross.info/index.html

Caroline Ross worked as a financial journalist in north-east England for many years. During this time, she also wrote features and short stories. She is now working towards an MPhil in writing at Glamorgan University. Caroline lives with her husband, a former Special Forces Vietnam veteran, in North Wales. The War Before Mine, published by Honno in 2008, is her first novel. She received an Academi Writers’ Bursary in 2009 to complete her next novel which is now in its first draft. Provisionally entitled Small Scale Tour, it follows the fortunes of Ham, an out-of-work actor in his fifties, now working in a corner shop in the North East of England. Caroline is a Member of Academi.

Reviews:
With respect to The War Before Mine (Honno, 2008)

"…Moving and involving. As it shifts from delicate love story to scenes of gunfire and battle, the pace never relents, its characters both appeal and convince…"
James Friel

"…More than a war story, more than a love story... A slice of living history..."
Philip Gross


Selected Publications:
The War Before Mine (Honno, 2008)
Small Scale Tour (forthcoming)




The War Before Mine (Honno, 2008)

2006 and Alex Mullen is coming to terms with a terrible past. Meeting up with Frankie, who shared the bad times, exposes one of Australia’s cruellest secrets.

Falmouth, 1942 and commando Philip Seymour sails for France. Left on the quayside is Rosie, a half-Romany girl looking for something more from life than collecting old clothes to sell on for pennies.

Philip, who turned down a commission on principle, is pal Tucker – haunted by dreams of strange beasts hanging in his father’s cold store, and Anderson – a mean spirited wide-boy who Philip doesn’t quite trust, are about to make history in the audacious raid on the docks of St Nazaire.

What befalls the commandos shapes the lives of Rosie, Alex and Philip in ways none of them could have imagined...

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