T.A. Williams – Escapist Romance and Mysteries

The Joys of Binge Reading

T.A. Williams writes highly entertaining, escapist romance and cozy mysteries. that take you to exotic locations without you having to leave your armchair. Great in a time like this. Hi there. I'm your host Jenny Wheeler and T.A. or Trevor as his friends called him, came very close to getting published in his early twenties. And then he waited 40 years for the chance to come around again. When it did, he grabbed it with both hands and hasn't looked back since. This Week's Giveaway Our Giveaway this week is another BookSweeps Draw. This one is the Read and Reflect Literary, Historicals and Book Club Fiction draw - 40 books, $450 in value and a new E reader to the Grand lucky winner. Take a chance and enter the drawer, get yourself a library of literary historical and book club fiction. You'll have reading for the next season, including Sadie's Vow, Book #! in the Home At Last series. ENTER BOOKSWEEPS DRAW Links to thing mentioned in this episode: Cathy Rentzenbrink: thttps://cathyreadsbooks.com John Le Carré: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_le_Carré Agatha Christie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie Hilary Mantel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Mantel Via Francigena: https://www.viefrancigene.org/en/ Sigoric The Serious – founder of the Via Francigena:: https://www.onefootabroad.com/blog/explanation-via-francigena/ Where to find T.A. Williams online Website: www.tawilliamsbooks.com Facebook: @tawilliamsauthor X: @TAWilliamsbooks And remember if you enjoy the show, leave us a review so others will find us too. Word of mouth is the best way for others to discover the show and great books they will love to read. Introducing author T.A. Williams Jenny Wheeler: But now here's T.A. or Trevor. Welcome to the show, Trevor. It's great to have you with us. T.A. Williams - (Trevor) Moves easily from romance to cozy mystery in escapist locations T.A. Williams: Thank you, Jenny. It's very kind of you to invite me on. Jenny Wheeler: You've been writing very successfully fiction for a number of years now, but you did have a very successful entrepreneurial career and it is a later in life thing for you. Tell us how you got into the writing T.A. Williams: To be honest, my first ever attempt at a book was at age 14. It was called it was a shameless rip off of Arthur Ransom's story, set up on Lake Windermere, Swallows and Amazons. That obviously didn't get very far, all 44 handwritten pages of it. But in my twenties, I wrote a thriller - I was quite into thrillers in those days. And I still have a letter from Collins publishers before they became Harper Collins, where they actually read the manuscript that I sent them twice, and then came this letter saying, “We liked it a lot, but due to the parlous economic situation in the country at the moment, we can't splash out on a new author.” So that rather shot that one. So yes, had that all worked, then back in the seventies, I might have been a published author. As it is. I had to wait until 2013, 10 years ago. A medieval trilogy which captivated him Jenny Wheeler: Did you continue to write in that interim? T.A. Williams: I wrote another couple of thrillers. They are just sitting there, gathering dust. But I got hooked, to be quite honest, on medieval history. And I wrote a series of three books set around the time of the Crusades. And then - I don't know if you've come across people called the Cathars in southern France. They were basically a Christian sect, but they were deemed heretical by the Pope at the time, mainly because they weren't prepared to pay their subs to Rome. And as a result of which, he sent a crusade against them. It was the only crusade called by Christians on Christians in Western Europe. I got hooked on that, and wrote the books. Needless to say, nobody wanted to publish them, and it was over the course of years that I gradually changed from that to...