A book usually begins with a single idea that appeals to me, sometimes just a small one, and I start building the plot from there.

But as the story develops, I often realize that I’m actually writing about something much larger and more meaningful than the initial idea.

For example, I began The Wounded Nurse based on the concept of “Dear John� letters.

When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, millions of soldiers were drafted and sent to the front, thousands of miles away from home, to Europe or the Far East in the Pacific theater.

The only connection they had with their loved ones left behind was through letters. Wherever they were, they would take out pieces of paper and pens, writing words of longing to the women they’d left behind, hoping so much that the letters would reach their destinations and that they would receive replies.

Sometimes the separation would last for years, and those letters from home were the soldiers� only connection to a world that wasn’t filled with the sounds of rifle fire, tank engines and thundering cannons.

However, there were cases where the women at home gave up waiting or had met new men, and with great sorrow wrote farewell letters sadly announcing that they no longer loved them and had found someone else. These letters became known as “Dear John� letters.

But as the plot of the book began to progress, the character of Grace � the nurse who cares for John � began to take shape in the words I was writing, and I realized I wanted to write about something bigger: not just the distance from home and separation from loved ones, but the physical and mental injuries caused by war and the need to recover from them. And that’s how the plot of The Wounded Nurse came together.

This is why I chose to tell the story of a nurse who is wounded herself, and needs to deal with her injury and rehabilitation. During her healing process, she meets an injured soldier named John, and begins to read him letters from home. In doing so, she transforms both of their healing journeys into a shared one.

In the end, an entire book grew from that one single idea, as well as a sequel that tells the story of Francesca, one of the supporting characters, which I’ll talk about another time.

Every book begins with one small idea, like a single step at the beginning of a journey.

It was a bright December day, and I was on a romantic holiday in Paris with the woman by my side.

The early morning air was cold as we passed the bridge, stopping for a moment. I set the camera up on a tripod and photographed us kissing.

Afterward we went to a small café with a black and white tiled floor, and brown chairs made of old wood. A gray-haired waiter smiled at us and spoke French, which we couldn’t understand. She drank coffee, and I had hot chocolate and a croissant. Later we continued walking arm-in-arm through the cold streets.

This was my favorite photo from that Paris holiday.

A few months after that trip, I started writing my first book, and when I became an author I started looking for a logo and remembered that morning.

I write about people, about their journeys, and an embrace on one cold Paris morning in December that became part of my journey as a writer.

The years have passed, the woman photographed with me that cold morning is no longer by my side, life’s paths have taken us in different directions. But this special picture from that morning has remained my logo, and I’m currently writing my tenth book.

My logo is part of my journey.

Four yearsago, in January 2021, I published my first historical novel. Now, four yearslater, I’m beginning to write my seventh book. But today, I want to talk aboutthat first book I wrote, The Girl Under the Flag.

Every timeI start writing a book, I invest considerable time in choosing the supportingcharacters and their names. I try to link each character’s personality withtheir name; the meaning, the sound, and whether I want the reader to love orperhaps hate them. I imagine what the reader will think of the character whenthey first encounter their name.

Only afterI’ve named the supporting characters and developed their descriptions do Ibegin writing the book. There’s logic in this; after all, these characters,alongside historical events, will either help the heroine progress through theplot or try to harm her.

I don’tname all supporting characters. Those who appear only briefly remain anonymous,with the heroine referring to them by their profession or role in the story:the soldier, the baker, the train conductor. However, in my first book, TheGirl Under the Flag, one nameless character stands apart. I deliberatelychose not to give him a name.

He doesn’tappear throughout the entire story, but precisely because of his anonymity, heare my favorite character in the whole book, second only to the main heroine,Monique.

The GirlUnder the Flag isset during World War II and the Holocaust in France. While it’s true that manyFrench people collaborated with the Nazis, a lesser-known fact is that evenmore French people helped Jews.

Seventypercent of French Jewry survived World War II, with French farmers hiding Jewsin villages and farms, in monasteries, and in their homes.

By comparison, only ten percent of DutchJewry survived the Holocaust.

Theanonymous character in my book is a market merchant, dressed in dirty clothesand smelling of cabbage. He is a simple man, yet he saves Monique twice andprotects her life. To me, his character symbolizes the French nation during thewar. Despite being conquered by the Nazis, and without glory, France saved somany Jews.

Today,exactly eighty years ago, the Russian army liberated Auschwitz, and the worldobserves International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In honor of all the anonymouspeople who saved Jews, The Girl Under the Flag will be free on Kindletoday. You’re invited to download and read it.

Thank you

Alex Amit

For days, I’ve planned to write about my new book, but the red flames engulfing Los Angeles keep pulling my attention to images of destroyed homes and fleeing families. I find myself praying that firefighters will gain control of the fire and that people will find a way to rebuild their lives.

But how much can one truly rebuild after such a disaster?

As a historical fiction writer, primarily focused on World War II, this is a question I wrestle with often. And, truthfully, I don’t always have an answer.

One thing, however, remains deeply rooted in me: optimism. Optimism that things can be mended, that smiles can return, even after profound tragedies.

In recent months, I wrote a new book, released just yesterday: For My Child. This story is a departure from my previous works. It explores the other side of the front line, following a German woman living in Nazi Germany; a figure we often view as the enemy.

Elke, a young German woman, is happily married with a seven-year-old child. All she desires is for life to stay the same. But war arrives, and everything changes. She, too, must change. She faces impossible decisions and must conceal her true thoughts from those around her.

I think this is one of the things I love most about being a writer—challenging myself to think like different people and stepping into the minds of my characters. I imagine how they would behave, what choices they might make in certain situations, and I ask myself difficult questions. What would I have done if I had lived in Germany in 1940? Would I have had the courage to oppose the Nazi regime? How far would I have been willing to go against them?

Ìý

I invite you to visit the book’s page, and I’m hopeful that this terrible fire will soon come to an end.

Ìý

Alex Amit

Ìý

In the photo: The book cover, in its final stages of preparation for print, alongside a cup of tea.

Every book has its own unique beginning, which is often quite different from the final result.

Saving Rebecca began two years ago at a brunch with friends I meet once a year. As we sat in the garden, eating and chatting, among the guests was a lovely elderly woman I hadn’t met before. During the conversation, when the topic of my being an author who writes about World War II came up, she suddenly said to my surprise: “I was a child during World War II, in Italy and Yugoslavia.�

With my curiosity piqued, we started talking. It turned out she was eighty-five, though she looked much younger. She told me she was Jewish, born in Italy, and during the war, as a young girl, she and her mother had been transferred to a detention camp in Yugoslavia, guarded by Italian soldiers.

I was charmed by the things she remembered as a child. For example, she told me they would collect empty copper bullet casings to trade for food. She also recalled the screaming of German Stuka dive bombers swooping down from above. But what touched me most was when she mentioned a particular Italian soldier who would give her sugar cubes, the kind specially provided for soldiers to feed their horses, but he had shared them with her.

That was the moment I decided I wanted to write a story about the relationship between a soldier and a girl imprisoned in a concentration camp.

However, when I started thinking about the characters, I realized a six-year-old girl couldn’t narrate an entire book from her perspective; she was simply too young, and her language too simple. So I added her mother, Sarah, who began as a secondary character but became the main protagonist of the book � Sarah, who fights for the survival of her daughter Rebecca.

Yet I didn’t give up on the policeman in the story, who forms a special bond with Rebecca that I won’t reveal here.

Although the book changed significantly throughout the writing process, I’m very fond of the final result, and am excited to upload it for pre-order on Amazon.

I’ll be celebrating the launch in just over a month; a new book is always a reason to celebrate.

The day I decided to write my next book

Vienna, summer 2022, the Belvedere Museum, early morning.

My 23-year-old daughter Dana and I stood in line to enter the museum. We ordered tickets online for the opening. We wanted to be among the first visitors that day, before the rooms became crowded.

The gate opened, we validated our tickets and hurried to follow the signs that pointed to one room and one painting, Gustav Klimt’s painting The Kiss.

There was a special feeling standing alone for two or three moments—just the two of us in front of this large painting. We stood there silently, observing this masterpiece and enjoying every brush stroke, before the moment was gone and other visitors arrived. They talked excitedly, pulled out their cell phones, and started taking pictures of themselves and the painting.

Later on we parted at the museum and agreed to meet later. She likes classical art, and I like impressionist paintings.

While walking through the rooms, I suddenly saw one of Egon Schiele’s famous paintings, Death and the Maiden, which was painted in 1915 and showed Death embracing a red-haired woman.

I stood and looked at that painting. Honestly, I didn’t like it. In my opinion it was too dark and depressing. I like his other painting much more. But what caught my attention was the small note beside it. It said that the model for that painting was Wally Neuzil, who had previously also modeled for Gustav Klimt.

At that moment, I knew I wanted to write Wally’s story, the story of one young girl wandering between these two giant artists. I knew dozens of books had been written about Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, but I wanted to tell Wally’s story. To let her be the hero of her life for once.

Later that day, when we got to the hotel and I started reading about her life, I learned that this was the last painting Egon Schiele had painted of her. I also learned that her life was much more fascinating than I had thought. I sat by the small table in the hotel room and started writing the first lines of her story, The Last Portrait of Wally.

Death and the Maiden by Egon Schiele, 1915

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In Tel Aviv last week, among 200,000 people

Since I write my books in English and publish them on Amazon, not many people know that I’m not American and don’t live in the US. I live in Israel, that tiny state in the Middle East full of internal conflicts and surrounded by enemies. Thee are only ten million people on this little strip of land, but sometimes we feel like we take up the biggest portion of the world’s news headlines. Ìý

And me? As a person who lives here, I describe myself as a man of contradictions. As a younger man, I served as an officer in the Armored Corps, but I believe in peace and hope that a Palestinian state will be established one day. And although I love being Israeli, I have been opposed to this government’s activities for many years.

As an author of historical fiction, I spend most of my time learning historical facts and writing. I’ve currently also started writing my next book, but I’ll discuss that more in my next newsletter. Today I want to write about my feeling as a person who realizes he’s living in a time that will be written about in history books someday.

Four months ago a new government was established here, and from day one they started promoting laws that, if passed, will turn our Israel into a dictatorship. At first all the people around me wanted to give up, myself included. What’s the point of going out and demonstrating against the power of the government? What power do we simple people have?

But then more and more people started going out into the streets and protesting, and I didn’t want to give up anymore. I decided to join the fight for democracy. First I went to the demonstrations in Haifa, my hometown, and later I started attending the huge demonstrations in Tel Aviv. Hundreds of thousands of people march week after week, waving flags and protesting against the laws of dictatorship.

I don’t know if we’ll be able to stop those laws, I don’t know if we’ll win, and I don’t know what will happen in the future. But I know I don’t want to give up anymore, and I intend to continue fighting the dictatorship as much as possible.

I also believe that we, the demonstrators, will write the history to come.

Last month in Haifa, my hometown

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Today I’m going to tell you about creating the cover of The Wounded Nurse, or as you might call it: what happens when an author and avid photographer starts making his own covers.

‘Grace� and me, the photographer, who got into the frame.

When designing a new book cover, writers usually tend to purchase images from image stock sites, pay for the photos, and hire a designer to create the cover. It’s simple, it’s cheap, and in the end our goal as writers is to produce good books. The cover is just the wrapper for our words.

In my first historical fiction novel, The Girl Under the Flag, I used a picture I’d purchased from a stock site. Still, this time, as an amateur photographer, I wanted to photograph Grace the heroine myself, to create precisely the right cover for this story.

First, the makeup

So I searched and found the right young woman, got a dress and a nurse’s hat, as they used to wear back in the �40s, and brought a makeup artist to help me prepare the photo shoot.

Almost ready. Only the hat is missing

The result is before of you. I hope you like the cover that resulted.

The Final Cover

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Hi time travelers,

Today I’m excited to tell you about my new book, The Wounded Nurse.

This book, the second in the ‘WW2 Girlsâ€� series, is the story of Grace, Ìýa young woman who learns to love herself again.

Grace, an intern nurse, arrives in Italy to take part in the war and save lives, but eight days later she is wounded and loses her leg. For her, a much greater private war has begun.

During recovery, surrounded by other casualties and nurses, Grace will struggle to return to being a nurse despite her injury, and to find the man who will love her.

This book tells the story of soldiers fighting a never-ending war, trying to overcome their own wounds and keep their humanity: the blinded John, old nurse Audry, an Italian villager named Francesca, and B17-bomber pilot Henri. All of them have gathered with Grace to tell a story of struggle on the Italian front, the least-known of the European conflicts in WW2.

For American soldiers, the war in Europe began in November 1942, long before the invasion of Normandy that took place only two years later in June 1944. But the fighting began far from Europe, in North Africa, against the German forces of Rommel and the Italian army. In July 1943, after North Africa’s liberation, the Americans invaded Sicily and the Italian campaign began. The harsh fighting against the German lines in Italy would last until the end of the war two years later, and Grace’s story begins during one of those battles.

As a writer, I faced the dilemma of where to start Grace’s story, and I can tell you, my readers, that I wrote eight opening drafts of that story. The first was in the North African desert, then in Cairo, inside the headquarters of the British Army Mediterranean, standing in front of an arrogant British officer. Later on, I wrote an opening scene in an army supply truck headed from Naples north to the front lines and the war, but finally I decided that the book should start in a field hospital tent minutes before Grace is injured.

The book is in the final stages of print and digital preparation these days, and will be published soon.

I invite you to enter the book page.

Thanks

Ìý

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I’m 55 today, my first full year as an author of historical fiction.

Though I always dreamt of writing books, I only wrote my first one three years ago, at the age of fifty-two. I guess it’s never too late to start fighting for your dreams.

Before that, besides being a parent and working in computer programming, I painted and photographed for many years. Still, I opened my doc sheet just about three years ago and started to write my first novel.

To be honest, I think my first three books weren’t that good. They were romantic and sweet, but to me something was missing. It took me some time to figure out the missing part. After a lot of thinking, I said to myself: ‘Hey, why don’t you write about a subject you really like and know and read a lot about? Why don’t you write about history?� And on that day I started to write The Girl Under the Flag, my first historical fiction novel.

This year has been good to me,Ìý even though the pandemic affected the lives of everyone, and mine as well. A year ago, I released The Girl Under the Flag as the first book in a series. Later this year I wrote my second novel, The Wounded Nurse, due for release in a few months, and these days I’ve started the third book in the series, hopefully to be released in the coming autumn. It was a busy and enjoyable year of writing for me.

But all this couldn’t have happened without you, my readers, and I thank you for reading my books and newsletters.

And I want to thank you, my loyal newsletters readers, Ìýwith a small gift. Today and tomorrow, my two short stories “The Soldier’s Hobnailed Bootsâ€� and “Four Franc Coinsâ€� will be free on Amazon. You are invited to grab them.

Thank you, and Happy New Year!

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