Featured Spotlight on Bookouture's "The Secret Twins of Paris" by Suzanne Kelman
- DK Marley
- 5 days ago
- 13 min read
Suzanne Kelman is a 2015 Academy of Motion Pictures Nicholl Finalist, Multi-Award-Winning Screenwriter and a Film Producer. As well as working in film she is also an International Amazon Bestselling Fiction Author of the Southlea Bay Series – The Rejected Writers’ Book Club, Rejected Writers Take the Stage and The Rejected Writers’ Christmas Wedding. Born in the United Kingdom, she now resides in Washington State.
Buy Here: https://geni.us/cHscz
‘You must find her, my darling girl.’ Lily’s mother whispers, pressing a small brass key into her palm. ‘You must find my twin sister, before it is too late…’
Paris, 2011: Lily Tremaine’s hands shake as she opens the envelope addressed in her mother’s hand. The faded letter inside reveals the long-buried family secret that her mother had a twin she was separated from during the Second World War. A tear slides down Lily’s cheek, knowing the loss of a sister caused her mother so much heartbreak. And now, after all these years, her mother needs Lily to find her…
As Lily begins to piece together the fragments of her mother’s story, she meets Julien, a photographer whose research contains the clues she needs to unlock the past. As they pore over faded black and white photographs together, a warm feeling begins to stir in Lily’s chest. But she knows she can’t bury her own recent heartbreak just yet, not until she has fulfilled her mother’s wish.
When the truth of what happened to the young twins is revealed, it is more shocking than Lily could have ever anticipated. And with her mother’s health failing, she is running out of time to find her mother’s missing sister. Can Lily piece together long-buried family secrets from the war in time to reunite the lost twins of Paris before it is too late?
This heartbreaking and page-turning novel in the Paris Sisters series tells a story of resilience and hope in the face of the darkness of the Second World War. Perfect for fans of Roberta Kagan, Kristin Hannah, and Fiona Valpy.
AUTHOR INTERVIEW
Bio:
Suzanne Kelman is an Amazon bestselling author of World War Two historical fiction and has sold over half a million books worldwide. She writes stories that shine a light on ordinary people asked to do extraordinary things. Her latest novel, The Secret Twins of Paris, is part of her Paris Sisters series and follows two sisters separated in wartime Paris, as long-buried truths rise to the surface decades later and threaten to rewrite everything their family believes about the past.
Q1: What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?
For me, stories rarely begin with big history books or detailed timelines. They start with a small human detail that will not leave me alone. Often, I will stumble across a brief mention of a real person or event, sometimes in another book, sometimes in an article or documentary. With my last book, for example, I discovered a tiny nugget about a woman who wove Resistance codes into music scores, and that one spark grew into an entire story in my imagination.
Once I have that kind of spark, I build the book around it. I follow questions like, “Who else might have been in the room?” and “What would it have felt like to live through this?” The emotional journey of the characters leads the way, and the history grows around them.
When it comes to making sure the historical details are accurate, I am very lucky because my husband helps me with that side of the work. Together, we go through the manuscript and check that dates, places and practical details line up with what really happened. That partnership allows me to stay close to the heart of the story while still feeling confident that the world around my characters is believable and true to the period
Q2: Tell us about your novels or series and why you wrote about this topic
I write World War Two historical fiction that focuses on ordinary people, especially women, whose lives are turned upside down by war. My current series is set largely in occupied Paris and follows a single extended found family whose lives intersect across the books. Each story can be read on its own, but together they trace the long echo of the war through that one family and the people who become important to them.
What draws me back to this period again and again are the quieter, often overlooked stories. I am fascinated by the bookseller who smuggles banned books to the people who need them most, the ballerina who gives ballet lessons while secretly working with the Resistance, or the child put on a train to safety with no idea where they are going. Those smaller, very human acts of courage and fear move me deeply and I want to bring them to the page.
I also came to writing later in life, in my mid-forties, and I think that makes me especially interested in characters who discover unexpected strength in themselves. During the war many women stepped into roles they had never been allowed to hold before. They became couriers, journalists, resistance workers and caretakers of children who were not their own. Writing about them has been a way of honouring what they lived through and exploring how love, family and hope can survive even in the darkest seasons
Q3: What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?
For me, the hardest part is often the middle of the book. I love beginnings. I am full of enthusiasm, the characters are talking to me, and the setting feels fresh and exciting. I also enjoy the end, when all the threads are coming together and I can see the emotional landing clearly.
There is a stretch in the middle where doubt tends to creep in. At that point my job is simply to keep going. I lean heavily on my outlines and beat sheets, and I remind myself that the first draft is allowed to be messy as long as it is honest.
I also find it challenging to balance historical accuracy with storytelling. I want to be as faithful as I can to the truth of the period, but I also need to honour the emotional truth of the characters. When those tensions arise, I usually step away and ask, “What is the heart of this scene?” Once I know that, I can go back to the history and find a way to make both work together.
Q4: If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
I would tell her it is never too late to get started. I began my own publishing journey in my forties, and it turned out to be the perfect timing for me. All the years before that were not wasted time, they were the years I was quietly gathering stories, listening to people and living a life that would one day feed my books.
I would also tell her to be kinder to herself. You do not have to get everything right on the first try. You are allowed to write clumsy pages on the way to the polished ones. You are allowed to learn through each book.
Most of all, I would tell her to protect the joy and celebrate every win. I finished a first draft. I finished a second draft. I kept going. There will always be deadlines, sales figures and opinions, but under all of that is the girl who loved stories and wanted to share them. Make time for her. Let her play. When you keep that sense of play alive, readers can feel it on the page.
Q5: What are common traps for aspiring writers? Advice for young writers starting out.
One of the biggest traps I see is waiting for permission. Many new writers feel they need someone to tell them they are “good enough” before they can really own the word author. In truth, the only way to become a writer is to write. Not perfectly, not with all the answers, but regularly and with as much skill as you have at the time. Writing is a craft you learn as you go. It is a lot like cooking: you might have the same ingredients as another chef, but the longer you stay with the craft, the better you become at bringing out the best in what you have.
Comparison is another easy place to get stuck. It is so tempting to look at someone’s third or fourth draft and wonder why your first draft does not match up. The truth is, it is not meant to. Your job is to keep learning, keep finishing projects, and keep finding joy in the act of telling stories.
Q6: Do you read your book reviews? How do you deal with bad or good ones?
I never read any reviews below four stars, because anyone who has left lower than that is not the audience I am trying to please. I read my four and five-star reviews and try to do more of what those readers are enjoying.
It is very easy to take book reviews personally, but people are all so different. I learned a saying when I worked in the theatre: you cannot please all of the people all of the time, only some of the people some of the time. That is as true for books as it is for a live performance. If you need every review to be five stars in order to feel good, I do not recommend writing for a living. Reviews, good and bad, are simply part of the journey.
Once a book is out in the world, readers bring their own tastes, moods and life experiences to it. Not every story will be right for every reader and that is completely natural. If you ever need to feel better about a bad review, go and look at some of the negative reviews left for the greatest writers of our time. It is strangely comforting.
The healthiest response for any review is to return to the work, focus on the readers who do connect with your stories, and keep writing the next book.
Q7: What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?
One of my earliest memories of understanding the power of language came through performance. Long before I was a novelist, I worked in the theatre, and I remember standing on stage with a script in my hand and feeling the atmosphere in the room change as the words landed. The lines were the same every night, but the way the audience reacted was always slightly different. You could feel a pause, a laugh, or a held breath move through a crowd like a wave, all because of a single line spoken in just the right way.
I realised then that words were not just ink on a page or sounds in the air, they were bridges. They could connect strangers, shift a mood, or open a door in someone’s imagination. That sense of connection stayed with me when I began writing fiction in my forties. Now, instead of saying the words aloud on stage, I put them on the page and trust that somewhere, in a quiet corner of the world, a reader will feel that same little jolt of recognition and think, “Yes, me too.”
Q8: What literary pilgrimages have you gone on?
Because I live in America and many of my stories take place in Europe, a lot of my “pilgrimages” start on a screen. I spend a surprising amount of time in Google Maps, virtually walking down streets in Paris or London, looking at doorways, bridges and little side alleys and thinking, “Could a scene happen here?” It helps me place my characters in a real landscape, even when I am thousands of miles away.
Whenever I am back in England I try to build in as many museum visits as I can. The Imperial War Museum in London was the foundation for one of my books, When We Were Brave. I took notes on everything, right down to how the rooms felt and smelled, because I do not just want to know what a place looks like, I want to know how it feels to stand in it. I love looking closely at artifacts and imagining the hands that once held them.
Closer to home, I am very lucky to have the Flying Heritage museum in Everett, which has a collection of old warplanes. When I was writing We Fly Beneath the Stars, they happened to have the same type of aircraft the Night Witches flew. They kindly let me look inside the cockpit and spend time with the plane. It was an amazing and quite an emotional experience, because in that moment the history stopped being abstract. You suddenly understand how small the space was, how exposed those women were, and how real their courage had to be.
Q9: Tell us the best writing tip you can think of, something that helps you.
One of the most helpful tips for me is to separate “writer me” from “editor me.” When I am drafting, I try very hard to let writer me have the room. Her job is to be curious, playful and brave enough to put words on the page, even if they are clumsy or uneven. Editor me is not allowed in the room at that stage. She is only invited in later, once there is something to shape.
Another simple but powerful tip is to make friends with small, steady goals. Big dreams like “finish a novel” are wonderful, but they are built out of many days where you simply sit down and write the next scene. For me that might look like a daily word count or a set amount of time. I rarely feel ready, but I nearly always feel better once I have shown up and done my piece for the day.
Finally, I remind myself that no writing is wasted. Even the scenes that end up being cut have taught me something about the characters or the world. When you stop seeing “mistakes” and start seeing “information,” it becomes much easier to keep going.
Q10: What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer?
I am very grateful to have author friends both locally and online. We write in different genres and are at different stages of our careers, but the support is incredibly grounding. Sometimes that support looks like a practical eye on a blurb or a synopsis. Sometimes it is just a message that says, “Yes, the messy middle is hard for me too, keep going.”
Spending time with other writers reminds me that the doubts and wobbles are normal. We talk about process, deadlines, the strange quiet that comes after finishing a book, and the nerves before a launch. Hearing how other people tackle those moments gives me new tools for my own work.
Writing can be quite a solitary job, but it does not have to be a lonely one. Having people who understand this peculiar life makes me a better, more resilient writer.
Q11: How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?
In some ways, publishing my first book did not change the heart of my process at all. I still sit down, wrestle with the story, and draft and redraft until it feels true. What did change was my understanding of everything that happens after I finish. Seeing a book move through edits, copyedits, covers and marketing made me much more aware that I am part of a bigger team and that deadlines really matter.
Before I was published, I was very much a discovery writer. I wrote whatever I felt like and was never entirely sure where the story was going. Now I am more disciplined. I work with a plan and an outline, and I treat that outline like a map. If I am travelling from here to Chicago, I know the main route, but I can still take side roads and stop along the way if something interesting appears. The outline is not a prison, but it does keep me on track so I can deliver the book on time.
Q12: What was the best money you ever spent as a writer?
Because I am dyslexic, the best money I have ever spent as a writer has been on tools that help me work with my brain instead of against it. Any service that lets me hear my words back is invaluable, because I often cannot “see” my mistakes on the page.
I use Speechify to read my work aloud to me, which makes problems jump out in a way my eyes miss. I also use Otter to draft my first drafts by speaking them, so I am not fighting spelling and typing while I am trying to create. Once I have a draft on the page, I can tidy it up, and that is where something like Grammarly becomes helpful.
Craft books and courses have certainly helped over the years, but for me, the real game-changers have been these tools that make it easier to move through my dyslexia and get the stories out of my head and onto the page.
Q13: What was your hardest scene to write?
The hardest scenes for me are usually the ones where a character has to face a truth they have been avoiding, especially around guilt or loss. In my World War Two stories there are moments when characters finally understand the cost of a choice they made, or realise that someone they love is not coming back. Those scenes are emotionally demanding to write, because you cannot rush them and you cannot look away.
On a practical level, I often write those scenes in layers. The first pass is usually quite bare, just getting the bones of the moment on the page. Then I go back and add the sensory details, the half-thoughts, the little physical reactions that make it feel real. I have learned that if a scene makes me tear up while I am working on it, I am probably somewhere close to the truth of it.
Even though they are hard, those scenes are often the ones readers mention later. They stay with people. Knowing that helps me push through the discomfort and do the story justice.
Q14: What is the best way to market your books?
I am very fortunate to have a great team at Bookouture, my publishers, who do a wonderful job with marketing, so I do not have to shoulder all of that myself. That support makes a huge difference and allows me to focus more on writing the stories.
That said, whether you are an indie author or traditionally published and wanting to sell more books, I think you cannot go far wrong with building an email list. I have a large list that I write to regularly, usually every couple of weeks, and it has become one of my favourite ways to connect with readers.
An email list is something you own. It gives you a direct, one-to-one line to the people who care about your work. You can share a mix of behind-the-scenes glimpses and book news, and when you do have a new release or a sale, you already have a warm group of readers to tell. For me, that steady relationship has been one of the most effective and satisfying forms of marketing.
Q15: Tell us your favourite quote and how the quote tells us something about you.
My favourite personal quote is, “To thine own self be true.” By William Shakespeare. It is a simple line, but it has become a kind of compass for me. In the middle of deadlines, opinions and noise, it reminds me that my job is to stay honest with myself and with my characters. If I am true to the kind of stories I am meant to tell, and the women I feel called to write about, then the work will find the readers it is meant to find.
I also carry a line from one of my own books, A View Across the Rooftops:
“One doesn’t know how brave one is until the cost outweighs the fear.”
For me, that sentence sums up all the heroines I write. None of them step onto the page as obvious heroes. They are ordinary people who are frightened, grieving or overwhelmed, but when the moment comes and the cost of doing nothing becomes too high, they find a way to act. That quiet, costly bravery sits at the heart of my historical fiction and, I think, at the heart of many real lives too.
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