Wendy Holden's Podcast

In July 2021, Wendy was invited to the postponed Ways with Words Literary Festival at Dartington Hall in Devon to speak about her friendship and working relationship with the 100-year-old war veteran Captain Tom, who raised almost £40m for the NHS during the pandemic lockdown. This is the 50-minute audio recording of the video of that event, minus the first few minutes due to a technical fault. We hope you like it.

This exclusive interview with the brilliant Phil Williams on the award winning Times Radio aired on March 31. In it, Wendy and Phil talk about Tom's legacy work - Life Lessons - published April 2 to follow on from his bestselling autobiography Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day. Tom sadly died of Covid two months earlier on February 2, aged 100. Life Lessons, written in his own words before he died, is his parting gift to the world.

In this acclaimed first novel by author and former journalist Wendy Holden, Charlie, a war correspondent turned author who is haunted by her worst journalistic experiences, turns to the history of paper and the materials of JMW Turner to distract her from the ghosts of her past. Her research brings her into contact with Alan, a highly successful artist and Turner scholar. She falls under his seductive spell, only to discover that Alan has plenty of ghosts of his own. A book rich in history and war, love and obsession, yet intertwined with a thriller’s mysterious undercurrent, this novel is designed to wrong-foot the reader time and again...What the Critics SayA superior novel of suspense in a well-plotted debut...(Holden) weaves pages of esoteric paper lore into a tale that involves tenuous mental stability and growing mystery. Readers who are interested in art history and artists' lives will find themselves enthralled by the depth and scope of information - Publishers Weekly“With this appealing debut, journalist Wendy Holden turns to fiction, using Taylor as her first name. Her novel claims historical anchoring with a plot featuring retired war-zone journalist Charlotte (Charlie) Hudson’s research of 19th-century British artist JMW Turner’s relation to paper. But it is really a romance between Charlie and a famous contemporary artist, Sir Alan Matheson, who shares an obsession with Turner’s landscapes..... Charlie is an intriguing figure, haunted by her harsh past and her failed marriage. When Charlie begins investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of her new lover’s daughter, the story loses some of its more turgid claims to art and revels in its ability to suspend us for pages in its own thoroughly diverting obsessions." - Library Journal "(A) lusciously textured novel of suspense and discovery, full of emotional nuance as accurately and delicately rendered as Turner's clouds." - Booklist “Every once in a while I pick up a book by an author totally unknown to me, a book for which there has been no buzz, no recommendation from a friend. Perhaps it’s the cover or the title that influences me to choose this one over that. Maybe it’s just kismet. Whatever it was that drew me to this book, I am forever grateful… [Taylor Holden’s] writing is exquisite—rich and textured… What Holden has done so supremely well… is blend in the rather obscure information about the art of papermaking and the influence this “simple” material had on the artists who used it. This is not a novel that drops in somebody’s latest hobby; this is a fine character-driven suspense story that envelopes the reader in a world where passions run deep and hope and life is renewed. It's books like this one that keep me coming back every time...I have the eternal hope that there is another gem like this out there that I may just stumble across when least expected....” - Mystery News"Journalist Charlotte Hudson, exhausted, is casting around for her next project when she meets famed though reclusive artist Sir Alan Matheson in a Great Russell St. art supply shop and is smitten with the whole idea of paper--and with Alan. Though it unfolds with a lushly detailed pace, you'll find what follows gripping not just for the story and its wringing suspense, but for its art history and its richly detailed story of papermaking, paper in all forms for all purposes but especially its use in the art of JMW Turner, the controversial Romantic landscape/seascape painter whose life had a seamy side." - The Poisoned Pen "A fascinating novel - one that will hold your interest throughout the book. The two main characters are well drawn and the reader will feel the mystique and wonder about each of them as they read (on). For anyone who is an art historian, this book will be a double treat. ..An engrossing read and one that I highly recommend. To top it off, it is Taylor Holde

This is the audio only of a video presentation that aired at the end of 2020 featuring Edna Adam Ismail, the 'Muslim Mother Teresa' whose life of selfless devotion is soon to be a film. Her autobiography, A Woman of Firsts, published by Harper Collins, broke new ground. Here is some more information about it----Imprisonment. Mutilation. Persecution. Edna Adan Ismail endured it all – for the women of Africa. Edna saw first-hand how poor healthcare, lack of education and ancient superstitions had devastating effects on Somaliland’s people, especially its women. When she suffered the trauma of FGM herself as a young girl, Edna’s determination was set. The first midwife to practise in Somaliland, Edna became a formidable teacher and campaigner for women’s health. As her country was swept up in its bloody fight for independence, Edna rose to become its First Lady and first female cabinet minister.She built her own hospital, brick by brick, training future generations in what has been hailed as one of the Horn of Africa’s finest university hospitals.This is Edna’s truly remarkable story.

On this the 76th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Wendy Holden author of Born Survivors and One Hundred Miracles, reflects on how our experience of the coronavirus pandemic can impact on our thoughts about this memorial day #LightInTheDarkness #HMD2021

A beautiful glassmaker. Two damaged men who love her. Set in exotic Bohemia and the wilderness of an English coast, this is a story of obsession and passion and fear… Wendy Holden explains where she found the unlikely inspiration for her latest novel, The Cruelty of Beauty, set in pre-revolution Czechoslovakia and Norfolk. 'A seed had been planted in my writer’s imagination - the nucleus of a yellow-green flower that would blossom into my next novel. What if I created a glassmaker as a central character, a young woman who worked with uranium glass yet didn’t fully appreciate how dangerous it was? The more I thought about it, the more the seed germinated into a fully-grown bloom.....'

Thirty years after she first heard his voice singing to her from a jukebox at her local drive-in, Barbara Ann Blakely began her love affair with Frank Sinatra. After a tempestuous courtship, she finally heard him say the wedding vows that began his fourth, final, and most enduring marriage; one that would last more than two decades until the end of his life. Generous and jealous, witty and wicked, Frank comes alive in this poignant inside story of the highs and lows of marriage to one of the world's most famous men. In this, her first public love letter to the husband she adored, his wife celebrates the sensational singer, sexy heartthrob, possessive mate, and loyal friend that was Frank Sinatra. Biographer Wendy Holden recounts her fond memories of working with 'Lady Blue Eyes.'

Imprisonment. Mutilation. Persecution. Edna Adan Ismail endured it all – for the women of Africa.Edna saw first-hand how poor healthcare, lack of education and ancient superstitions had devastating effects on Somaliland’s people, especially its women. When she suffered the trauma of FGM herself as a young girl at the bidding of her mother, Edna’s determination was set.The first midwife to practise in Somaliland, Edna became a formidable teacher and campaigner for women’s health. As her country was swept up in its bloody fight for independence, Edna rose to become its First Lady and first female cabinet minister.She built her own hospital, brick by brick, training future generations in what has been hailed as one of the Horn of Africa’s finest university hospitalsThis is Edna’s truly remarkable story.

THE COVID-19 pandemic has caused untold heartache around the world and the subsequent lockdown separated thousands of people from their loved ones. But for one disabled boy and his three-legged rescue dog who captured the hearts of millions, being forced to live apart was especially hard.

This lockdown podcast was a first for me, a request to answer questions about life lessons as if I were leaving them on a telephone answering machine. In it I talk about Born Survivors, the human instinct for survival, the nature of evil and how to bring about change in the world.

Author Wendy Holden tells how miracle Holocaust 'baby' Eva Clarke and her mother Anka survived imprisonment, slave labour and finally murder by gas, as the world commemorates 75 years since the end of WWII and Eva privately marks her 75th birthday

Recorded direct from a Youtube video for the virtual book launch for the new WWII75 commemorative paperback edition of this bestselling book, published in 22 countries. To watch the video go to t https://youtu.be/DT7xINWaHfM

Young musician Zuzana Ruzickova was just eighteen years old when, after almost six years of imprisonment and slave labour under Nazi rule, she and her mother were liberated from Bergen-Belsen by the British. The date was April 15, 1945, seventy-five years ago today, and they very nearly didn't make it. In her memoir One Hundred Miracles, published in paperback by Bloomsbury on May 14 and available for pre-order now, she described that day with vivid clarity. Author Wendy Holden, who wrote the book, describes it here.

Bestselling author Wendy Holden, in coronavirus lockdown at her home in Suffolk, is remaining philosophical about a forthcoming milestone in her writing career that has been badly affected by the pandemic. With the PR campaigns for three new books coming out in less than two weeks all but scuppered, she is drawing inspiration from the remarkable women she writes about.For more information, see www.wendyholden.com

Having taken part in the London service for Holocaust Memorial Day, attended by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Wendy Holden reads from her international bestseller Born Survivors, now published in 22 countries and translated into 16 languages. We must never forget.

Wendy Holden talks about another of her books, Shell Shock, an exhaustive historical record drawn from the WWI case histories and painful testimony of numerous veterans and their doctors. Individuals tell of events that pushed them to the brink of human endurance. Shell Shock also relates the history of military psychiatry and the dilemma of those entrusted to balance the demands to ‘cure’ soldiers and return them to battle with the needs of the soldiers themselves, who were struggling to understand their condition. This book is now available as an ebook across all formats.

Susan Travers was a frail old lady living in a nursing home in Paris when I met her to ask about her remarkable time in the Second World War. What she told me was astonishing and unique. It formed the basis of her memoir, Tomorrow to be Brave, which was subsequently published in twelve countries and is soon to be a film.Here is an Amazon link to the book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tomorrow-Be-Brave-Memoir-Foreign/dp/0743200020/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1547217103&sr=1-2&keywords=tomorrow+to+be+brave

Author Wendy Holden, who has written two books with Goldie Hawn including the bestselling 10 Mindful Minutes, talks about the passion and compassion of her friend and co-author in giving parents and children the emotional and psychological tools to handle stress.

Author Wendy Holden, also known as Taylor Holden, talks of the inspiration behind her first novel The Sense of Paper.

Author Wendy Holden talks about her latest book, One Hundred Miracles, the acclaimed memoir of Czech musician and Holocaust survivor Zuzana Ruzickova. Describing working with her in Prague shortly before her death, aged 90, in 2017 Wendy paints a vivid picture of a tiny, twinkly-eyed woman who chain-smoked as she recounted her remarkable life story. Published by Bloomsbury in the UK and in seven other countries soon, this is a biography like no other - one that encompasses the horrors of war, a passion for music and especially Bach, the persecution of Communism and the sustaining quality of love.

When author Wendy Holden was researching and writing her international bestseller Born Survivors, a true story about three young mothers who hid their pregnancies from the Nazis, she found solace in the simple pleasures of searching for pebbles on her local Suffolk beach. When she had collected enough stones, she headed off to Poland, Germany, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to lay three at each of the sites relevant to the story she was crafting. One stone represented each of the three mothers who somehow managed to survive the Holocaust, each with their own 3lbs babies.