Ask the Author: Ellie Midwood
Answered Questions (17)
Ellie Midwood
Hi Gary! Thank you so much for reading! "Auschwitz Syndrome" is the same book, it's just it was recently republished under a new title ("The Girl in the Striped Dress") and with a new cover by Bookouture. If you're looking for more Holocaust books of mine, "The Girl Who Escaped from Auschwitz" or "The Violinist of Auschwitz" are the closest to "The Girl in the Striped Dress" when it comes to the subject matter and both are also based on true stories. I hope this helps! Again, thank you so much for reading - I really appreciate it!
Ellie Midwood
Hi Stacy! Yes, it'll be released in print and also as an audiobook; all versions will be released August 9, but you can preorder the print version today (here's an Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Striped-D... ) and it should be delivered to you around the release day. Happy reading and I hope you enjoy!
Ellie Midwood
Hi Fleurine! Thank you for your question - yes, two projects already in the works and two more are planned! Besides The Girl Who Escaped From Auschwitz which comes out March 9, there will be two books about German Resistance women (also based on true stories), a novel based on my grandparents' war experiences and, hopefully, book 3 in the Metropolis series. Feel free to subscribe to Bookouture newsletter for my upcoming releases here: http://www.bookouture.com/Ellie-Midwood/
or join my newsletter here: http://elliemidwood.com/contact.html#...
Happy reading to you and stay safe!
Ellie
or join my newsletter here: http://elliemidwood.com/contact.html#...
Happy reading to you and stay safe!
Ellie
Ellie Midwood
Haha awww, thank you so much, Erika, I'm so glad to hear that you're enjoying my stories! I'm a full-time writer; writing is my day job, so finding the time is not a problem:) As for energy, I guess writing is in my blood and comes to me as naturally as breathing. I just can't imagine myself not writing. The characters will keep talking inside my head and driving me mad until I put their stories down on paper, so I guess that's the whole secret:))) Happy holidays to you and thank you for reading my stories!
Ellie Midwood
Hi Genevieve! Thank you so much for your question and I'm so happy to hear that you enjoyed them!
All of my books are historical fiction set around WWII, but I'd say the closest to "Emilia" would be the other two books in the same series - "No Woman's Land" and "Auschwitz Syndrome." Both are based on true events and are dealing with concentration camps/ghettos and the Holocaust in general. If you want something with espionage like in "The Girl from Berlin," "The Indigo Rebels" books are set in Occupied France and deal with the French Resistance. Also, my newest series "Metropolis" will be dealing with espionage as well; the first book is about Weimar Berlin and movie production mostly but "Spies" already has shady politics and spy stuff in it. I hope this helps and again, thank you for reading!
Ellie
All of my books are historical fiction set around WWII, but I'd say the closest to "Emilia" would be the other two books in the same series - "No Woman's Land" and "Auschwitz Syndrome." Both are based on true events and are dealing with concentration camps/ghettos and the Holocaust in general. If you want something with espionage like in "The Girl from Berlin," "The Indigo Rebels" books are set in Occupied France and deal with the French Resistance. Also, my newest series "Metropolis" will be dealing with espionage as well; the first book is about Weimar Berlin and movie production mostly but "Spies" already has shady politics and spy stuff in it. I hope this helps and again, thank you for reading!
Ellie
Ellie Midwood
Hi Laura! Thank you so much for reading it! I'm so glad you enjoyed Emilia's story!
Even though it's technically a novel most of the events described in it are based on experiences of real Holocaust survivors, and namely women who were subjected to sexual violence in German concentration camps. I mostly based my research on articles written about them and a few books, such as "Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holocaust" and "Jewish Women of Ravensbrück." Ruth Elias testified that sexual violence against women was common in concentration camps, and she wrote of her experience in Auschwitz: "Drunken SS men sometimes made unexpected appearances in our block... young Jewish women would be pulled from their bunks, taken away somewhere, and raped." I combined most of the described instances and put them together into a single character, Emilia. So, even though she is a fictional character, everything she had to go through is, unfortunately, based on true events.
Again, thank you so much for reading it! I really appreciate it:)
Even though it's technically a novel most of the events described in it are based on experiences of real Holocaust survivors, and namely women who were subjected to sexual violence in German concentration camps. I mostly based my research on articles written about them and a few books, such as "Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holocaust" and "Jewish Women of Ravensbrück." Ruth Elias testified that sexual violence against women was common in concentration camps, and she wrote of her experience in Auschwitz: "Drunken SS men sometimes made unexpected appearances in our block... young Jewish women would be pulled from their bunks, taken away somewhere, and raped." I combined most of the described instances and put them together into a single character, Emilia. So, even though she is a fictional character, everything she had to go through is, unfortunately, based on true events.
Again, thank you so much for reading it! I really appreciate it:)
Ellie Midwood
Hi Riga! I've been told by readers that they would all make excellent movies or mini-series lol but my personal favorites are "A Motherland's Daughter, A Fatherland's Son," "Emilia," and my newest one "No Woman's Land." They are all stand-alone novels, which would be perfect for film adaptations. Feel free to check out their blurbs and choose the one you like the best:) Whatever you choose, I hope you'll enjoy it! And thank you so much for your interest!
Ellie Midwood
Hi Mary! Aww, I'm so happy to hear that you enjoyed all of my books! Thank you so, so much for reading them - I really appreciate it!
Yes, Book 3 in The Indigo Rebels series is definitely coming! I have another project (also a WWII novel which will be set on the Eastern Front) which will be released sometime in January, and right after that, I'll immediately start working on the last book in the French Resistance series.
Thank you so much again for your question and for your kind words! You made my day today!:)
Ellie
Yes, Book 3 in The Indigo Rebels series is definitely coming! I have another project (also a WWII novel which will be set on the Eastern Front) which will be released sometime in January, and right after that, I'll immediately start working on the last book in the French Resistance series.
Thank you so much again for your question and for your kind words! You made my day today!:)
Ellie
Ellie Midwood
Thank you so much, James! It's funny that you asked me that because "Emilia" that won the award this year is so far a personal favorite of mine!:) But that's if we're talking a personal book overall; my favorite couple though is definitely Annalise/Ernst, and my favorite protagonist is Giselle from "The Indigo Rebels," but "Emilia" definitely holds a special place in my heart because I wrote her story based on what really happened. Thank you so much for your question!
Ellie Midwood
Hi Norm! Thank you so much for your question! My latest standalone novel was released in September 2016 (in case if you haven't read it yet:)) - it's a Holocaust novel called "Emilia." As for the new series, I have just released the first book in my newest French Resistance series - "The Indigo Rebels." The second book in the series, "The Lyon Affair," is currently in the works and hopefully will be released by the end of summer. Thank you so much again!
Ellie Midwood
Hi Ken!
Thank you so much for your question! There are different approaches to the question of life after death in different religious movements of Judaism, so I'll just explain it the way I was taught when I was a little girl. First of all, in my family it was taught that you should concentrate on how you live your life first, and not on some afterlife to come, so to be honest I very rarely think about what is going to happen to me once I die:) I was taught to mostly live good and do good, to create "good karma" if you will, and that's what I firmly believe in: if you do wrong by someone, it'll come back to you, and vice versa. Second, I firmly believe in multiple reincarnation (however, this belief also alters from one religious movement of Judaism to another to a certain degree), and that a soul is reborn multiple times to "serve the world," but again only if it has "good karma" it is permitted to come back to Earth to do more good deeds. Third, we do believe in some sort of Heaven, but it's not really Christian Heaven, so I'm not sure how to better explain it. It's called The World to Come and basically it's an idea of a perfect world that will be created after Messiah comes and resurrects all the righteous souls. However, most Jews (and myself) mostly concentrate on living a good life instead of thinking of afterlife, but again, I guess, just like in different movements in Christianity, it may differ.
I also found this article which probably describes the afterlife and other questions better than I do, so you can look it up if you like, it's very well written and explains everything in pretty simple terms:)
Thank you again for reading the series and for writing such wonderful reviews, I really appreciate it!:))) and feel free to ask more questions if you like - I'm always more than happy to answer them.
Ellie
http://www.jewfaq.org/m/olamhaba.htm
Thank you so much for your question! There are different approaches to the question of life after death in different religious movements of Judaism, so I'll just explain it the way I was taught when I was a little girl. First of all, in my family it was taught that you should concentrate on how you live your life first, and not on some afterlife to come, so to be honest I very rarely think about what is going to happen to me once I die:) I was taught to mostly live good and do good, to create "good karma" if you will, and that's what I firmly believe in: if you do wrong by someone, it'll come back to you, and vice versa. Second, I firmly believe in multiple reincarnation (however, this belief also alters from one religious movement of Judaism to another to a certain degree), and that a soul is reborn multiple times to "serve the world," but again only if it has "good karma" it is permitted to come back to Earth to do more good deeds. Third, we do believe in some sort of Heaven, but it's not really Christian Heaven, so I'm not sure how to better explain it. It's called The World to Come and basically it's an idea of a perfect world that will be created after Messiah comes and resurrects all the righteous souls. However, most Jews (and myself) mostly concentrate on living a good life instead of thinking of afterlife, but again, I guess, just like in different movements in Christianity, it may differ.
I also found this article which probably describes the afterlife and other questions better than I do, so you can look it up if you like, it's very well written and explains everything in pretty simple terms:)
Thank you again for reading the series and for writing such wonderful reviews, I really appreciate it!:))) and feel free to ask more questions if you like - I'm always more than happy to answer them.
Ellie
http://www.jewfaq.org/m/olamhaba.htm
Ellie Midwood
"The Forgotten Soldier" is one of my favorite books! So incredibly emotional! I believe I've read "All Quiet on the Western Front" as well, but it was a very long time ago... I definitely haven't read the other two, but I'll certainly look them up now! Thank you so much, Dennis - I'm always looking for more books to read about WWII!:)
Ellie Midwood
Thank you for your question, Sarkar! I only wrote one book that is crime fiction - "The Brooklyn Boys Club," to pay tribute to my borough:) after that I permanently switched to the historical fiction genre, which is actually my favorite both in reading and writing. So all my next future projects are also WWII related, probably because of my fascination with the time period, however I might write some crime thriller again in the future. You never know with us, writers;)
Ellie Midwood
Thank you so much, Ty! I am so happy you liked the third book and my favorite character in the series, Dr. Kaltenbrunner!:) And don't worry, you're not the only reader who fell in love with this sneaky bastard, he's getting all the girls as always! lol "The Austrian" is still a work in progress, but I promise that there will be steamy scenes in this book for sure;) when my protagonist is such a pervert, it goes with the territory:))) Thank you again, and I'm going back to writing!:)
Ellie Midwood
Hi, Alison! Thank you for your question. I've always been interested in WWII history, but the research for these particular series I started doing around February 2015 and started working on the first book in the end of May I believe. Right now the third one is being edited and I'm expecting to have it released at the beginning of December, so it took me about 6 months to finish three books:)
Ellie Midwood
Awww, thank you so much for your kind words, I really appreciate that you enjoyed the series so much, it absolutely made me day!:) As for the third book, 'War Criminal's Widow,' I'm trying my best to finish the manuscript by the mid-November, which will later take about two to three weeks to be proofread and edited, so I'd say by Christmas (or Hanukkah) it'll be out for sure.
P.S. It's readers like you make me want to get up early in the morning and start writing right away:) Thank you for your love from me and my characters!
P.S. It's readers like you make me want to get up early in the morning and start writing right away:) Thank you for your love from me and my characters!
Ellie Midwood
Hello, Patrick! Will certainly do, thank you for your invitation!:)
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