Rose Alexander
Author Rose Alexander
1. I work full-time as a teacher in an inner-city secondary school in north London. Like other public servants, we worked all through the pandemic and we’re still dealing with the fall-out now. Covid-19 has had long-lasting repercussions on children’s attendance and behaviour, making what was already a difficult job even harder. One reviewer really touched my heart when they wrote something along the lines of, ‘I’m surprised Rose is able to write as well as teach because teachers don’t get much time to themselves.’ It was gratifying to find that someone understood!2. I’m really into fitness and I’ve always gone to the gym etc. When I was younger I swam a mile before work every day. Then about ten years ago I joined Be Military Fit and discovered the wonderful joy of exercising outside. I attend sessions three or four times a week and I absolutely love it - it’s my sanity and my social life. We train whatever the weather - rain, sun, blizzards, storms - I’ve come home with an inch of snow on the brim of my cap. I’ve made so many friends through the group and, even if I don’t feel like going, I know that once I’ve done the session I’ll be so glad I went.
3. Having said that about fitness, I’m a really appalling tennis player. I once gave myself a black eye with my own racket. Yes, that bad!
4. All my life, I’ve struggled with depression, but I only realised this about fifteen years ago. Before that, I just thought there was something wrong with me and that I was generally a pretty rubbish person. When a psychotherapist I was seeing finally told me, ‘you have depression’, it was a revelation. Suddenly so many things made sense. I date my first symptoms from when I was about four years old, and things became really bad in my teenage years, and then intermittently for the next couple of decades. In my youth, depression was rarely acknowledged and never discussed except as a personal failing. I’m glad that is changing now, but there’s a long way to go.
5. I absolutely love sewing and make all my own clothes. Fast fashion is wreaking such environmental havoc in our world and I’m glad I don’t contribute to that. I’ve recently begun doing English Paper Piecing patchwork and have just finished my first quilt! It’s taken me eight months but it’s worth it. My kids are fighting over who has it so I just tell them I’ll give it to my favourite child…
6. In my very misspent youth, I spent a year living in Brazil. It was amazing, incredible and awful all at the same time. Brazil is a stupendously beautiful country but, when I was there, a very hard place to live, with so much crime and poverty all around. However, it gave me a love of the Portuguese language and inspired my third novel, Along the Endless River.
7. My books feature places I know and love - from Brazil at the height of the rubber boom in Along the Endless River, to Montenegro in Under an Amber Sky and Albania in Out of the Mountain’s Shadow. The Lost Diary is set in WW2 Germany and London in the 1990s, and the book that’s coming out after that will take readers to Naples and Sicily.
The Book
Germany, 1945. As the ground shakes and the air raid sirens wail, Katja holds her tiny baby to her chest. She pictures Karl’s handsome face and kind blue eyes, her breath catching at the thought of him heading back to the front. She must never tell anyone about the letters she delivered for him, or the other secret she is hiding…
London, present day. In the midst of a divorce and with her mother Katja recovering from major surgery, Jo is heartbroken and lost: especially because Katja has always been distant, even when Jo was a child. Now, Katja is too frail to be alone, and has moved in to Jo’s cosy bungalow – where Jo hopes they can finally find peace with each other.
But clearing out her mother’s empty home, Jo discovers a dog-eared black diary hidden in a tiny kitchen cupboard. Tucked within the pages is a yellowed envelope with an unfamiliar, faded postmark. The scrawled handwriting reveals a shocking past Jo can scarcely believe, and she realises that she must finally learn the truth about where she came from, before time runs out…
As Katja slowly opens up, she is thrown back to the war-ravaged German countryside: where a brave young woman in love risked everything to memorise detailed maps by candlelight, and had to flee from soldiers in the early light of dawn to save herself and her child.
But Jo can see the pain in Katja’s eyes. She is still holding something back, and the key to her silence lies within the pages of the diary.Will uncovering the devastating truth about a forbidden love affair kept secret for decades tear mother and daughter apart forever? Or will confronting the past finally help Jo and Katja heal?
Based on an incredible true story, The Lost Diary is a gripping and unforgettable tale about bravery in the face of unimaginable terror and how a woman pushed to the brink was forced to make a terrible choice.
The Lost Dairy is out 31st August 2023
Author Bio
Rose Alexander has had more careers than she cares to mention and is currently a secondary school English teacher. She writes in the holidays, weekends and evenings, whenever she has a chance, although with three children, a husband, a lodger and a cat, this isn't always as often as she'd like. She's a keen sewist and is on a mission to make all her own clothes.
Find out more and keep update about Rose on her website www.rosealexander.co.uk and on Twitter
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