One Last Summer

One Last Summer

by Catrin Collier (Author)

Synopsis

Allenstein, East Prussia, 1939 - Charlotte von Datski's parents hold a glittering ball to celebrate her eighteenth birthday and to announce her engagement to a Prussian Count. Meanwhile, Hitler is ready to plunge the world into war, one that will wipe East Prussia from the face of the map. Charlotte is forced to leave her beloved homeland. By 1946, Charlotte finds herself in London with her young son, struggling to adapt to a new country and a new way of life. The secret of Charlotte's life is revealed when a book entitled One Last Summer is smuggled out of a Russian prison camp and tells of an affair between a Russian POW and a Prussian aristocrat. It becomes an instant international bestseller. Years on, Charlotte's granddaughter, Laura, comes across material relating to these events. She persuades her grandmother to embark on a journey into her past. Charlotte finally faces the demons that have haunted her for over half a century and recalls the one great love of her life. A moving and turbulent novel unlike anything Catrin Collier has written before but which has her trademark storytelling skill and her ability to portray characters with depth and sympathy.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 336
Publisher: Orion
Published: 30 May 2007

ISBN 10: 0752885782
ISBN 13: 9780752885780
Book Overview: Catrin Collier's novels are now selling over 8000 in trade and 25,000 in mass market paperback The Hearts of Gold series shown on BBC1 attracted over six million viewers and raised Catrin Collier's profile Core author at WH Smith Two more series based on Catrin Collier's novels are in development

Media Reviews
Catrin has written a wonderful stand alone novel inspired by her mother's experience fleeing Germany at the end of the Second World War. There has been a great deal of interest in the story with several national newspapers interested in covering it. Confirmed so far: TELEVISION Catrin is appearing in a documentary on local celebrities and the streets they lived called 'Stories From the Street' HTV HTV will also be covering the story behind the book for the regional news in Wales. RADIO BBC RADIO WALES will be interviewing Catrin on her new book (date tbc) PRESS There will be a major interview in the WESTERN MORNING NEWS There wil also be an interview in SWANSEA EVENING POST Review to come in YOURS magazine ONE LAST SUMMER has been chosen as the bookclub read for COUNTRY AND BORDER LIFE magazine. EVENTS Catrin will be doing formal signings in WH Smiths Pontypridd - Saturday 2 June Borders, Llantrisant - Tuesday June Waterstones, Swansea - Saturday 9 June WH Smiths, Cardiff - tbc And stocksignings in Waterstones (Cardiff) and Camelot Books (Cardiff) Catrin has also been asked to judge a writing competition at Borders, Swansea in July
Author Bio
Catrin Collier was born into a close Welsh family in 1948 - very aware of her dual heritage. The war was recent, her mother German, her father Welsh. She loved her German grandmother, spent summers with her in Germany, and couldn't understand how ordinary Germans had allowed the monstrous Nazi regime to flourish. After working in various jobs, she became a full-time writer in 1994. In 1995 she accompanied her mother when she returned to East Prussia (now Poland) for the first time in fifty years. There she read the diaries that her mother and grandmother had kept and talked about life under the Nazis. ONE LAST SUMMER is the result of those conversations. She lives with her husband in Wales.