Q&As for The Paris Sister blog by inspiredbypmdd

By Adrienne Chinn

  1. What got you into historical fiction?

I’ve always been fascinated by history – I studied English Literature and History at university. I find it interesting to read about the lives and times of the people who inhabited this earth before us. As a teenager I read a lot of historical fiction – I particularly remember loving Ivanhoe and The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott and Le Morte d’Artur and The Mists of Avalon. I loved the King Arthur stories. Then I got into reading historical romances like Gone With the Wind and books like Green Darkness and Katherine by Anya Seton (one of my favourite novelists). When I began writing fiction myself, it was a logical step to write historical fiction – I enjoy the research!

  • Would you consider another genre, if so which one?

Yes, I’m also keen to write more fiction about contemporary women. I definitely see that in the future. I’ve been exploring it a bit in some of my timeslip books, like The Lost Letter and The English Wife.

  • If you could have a tea party with 3 Authors dead or alive, who would you choose?

Great question! Hmmm, Anais Nin – she sounds fascinating and would have a lot of naughty stories to tell!

Dorothy Parker because she’d be a hoot. Margaret Atwood, because she’s a Canadian like me, and I’ve been reading her books all my life. She seems very approachable.

  • Where do you prefer to write and how do you find your inspiration? 

When I’m in the UK, I write in an old 1930s Lloyd Loom chair by my bedroom window, with my laptop on my lap and my notes spread around me on the floor and bed. The window looks over my back garden and a local park – it’s very peaceful.

When I’m travelling, I tend to write on borrowed desks and tables in the houses of friends and relatives, or in cafes – wherever I can find Internet!

My inspiration comes from different places for each book. For my first book, The Lost Letter, I was inspired by my many trips to Morocco and my experiences there; The English Wife was inspired by the people on the 38 international airlines that were diverted to the small airport in Gander, Newfoundland (the town next to Grand Falls-Windsor where I was born) on 9/11, and my Newfoundland uncle’s romance and marriage to an Englishwoman he’d met in Britain during WWII. Love in a Time of War and The Paris Sister (and the third and fourth books in the series) were inspired by the lives of my grandmother, Edith Fry Chinn,

who married a British WWI army veteran and moved out to Alberta, Canada with him and their children after the war; and my great-aunts, Ettie and Jessie Chinn, who were, respectively, a British Army nurse in Egypt in WWI, and a bohemian milliner in London.

I’ve attached some old photos of my grandmother and great-aunts who inspired The Three Fry Sisters series. Picture 1 is my grandmother, Edith Fry Chinn, Picture 2 is my Great-Aunt Ettie Chinn sewing in her tent in Egypt during WWI, and Picture 3 is Jessie Chinn in an exotic costume.

  • What do you do to relax?

I love to travel and explore new places; I love to swim; I do amateur dramatics; I do needlepoint; I’m a keen flower gardener, movie goer, and photographer. And I read!

The Paris Sister

Three sisters separated by distance but bound by love

The Fry sisters enter the Roaring Twenties forever changed by their experiences during the Great War. Now, as each of their lives unfold in different corners of the globe, they come to realise that the most important bond is that of family.

Desperate to save the man she loves, Etta leaves behind the life she has made for herself in Capri and enters the decadent world of Parisian society with all its secrets and scandals.

Celie’s new life on the Canadian prairies brings mixed blessings – a daughter to adore, but a husband who isn’t the man who holds her heart.

In Egypt, Jessie’s world is forever changed by a devastating loss.

And back in London – where each of their adventures began – their mother Christina watches as the pieces of her carefully orchestrated existence begin to shatter…with implications for them all…

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Author Bio –

Adrienne Chinn was born in Grand Falls, Newfoundland, grew up in Quebec, and eventually made her way to London, England after a career as a journalist. In England she worked as a TV and film researcher before embarking on a career as an interior designer, lecturer, and writer. Her debut novel, The Lost Letter, a timeslip love story set in Morocco, was published by Avon Books UK in 2019. Her second novel, The English Wife — a timeslip story set in World War II England and contemporary Newfoundland — was published in June 2020 and has become an international bestseller. Her third novel, Love in a Time of War, the first in a series of four books in The Three Fry Sisters series, was published in February 2022. The second book in the series, The Paris Sister, will be published in February 2023.

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