‘I really
‘When people say Julian
and Josephine’s romance
seems unrealistic, Itell them... I’m writing
what I know’P
aullinaSimonsdoesn’t
havetolookfartofind
inspiration for her best-
selling novels. Her own life has
been filled with as much struggle
and romance as any book.
The author of The Bronze
Horseman trilogy grew up in
Russia during the Iron Curtain
years when life was restricted
and difficult. She was just a
child when her dissident father
Yuriy was arrested and sent
to a prison camp.
“My dad was a ‘life of the
party person’,” recalls Paullina.
“He and his friends had been
getting together too often,
drinking vodka and talking trash
about the Soviet Union, not
realising that the guy next
door had his glass to the wall- he was an informer.”
During the years her father
was imprisoned, Paullina and
her mother were forced to
continue living next to the
informer in theircramped
communalapartment.
Thankfully,oncereleased,
Y i
“Asa kidit wasthelittle
thingsthatmademeinstantly
recognisable as being different,”
recalls Paullina. “I didn’t have
a pair of straight-leg Levi jeans,
I’d never had potato chips or
chewing gum.”
While she’d always dreamed
of being a writer, Paullina first
had to learn English and over-
come her culture shock. By the
time she started writing her first
novel, Tully, she was a mother.
“I had just left my first husband
and the company I was working
for had gone bankrupt,” she
explains. “Perhaps a good single
mum would have gotten another
job to support herself and her
child. Instead I saw it as a sign
that I was meant to write Tully.
So I worked part-time in menial
jobs for cash and even though I
wasn’t sure I had the skills to do
it, the most important thing was
to finish the book.”
Tully was a huge hit and
publishedin 20 countries. Since
then,Paullinahas established
herself a hugely successful
mantic sagas. Today
vesin Long Island,
with her second
Kevin Ryan, also awriter, and has four children.
Sadly, in the past few years
she has lost both her parents
in quick succession. That
experience led her to write a
new, very different series of
books, The End of Forever
trilogy. It’s an epic love-at-first-
sight story about a man, Julian,
who falls for a mysterious young
actress, Josephine, and whose
passion is so great he travels
through time to pursue her.
The first book, The Tiger
Catcher, tells of how the pair
meet and if anyone questions
how rapidly their love develops,
Paullina reminds them of her
own parents and their love story.
“They met on a beach on
the Black Sea,” she explains.
“They were both so young and
beautiful and they completely
fell for each other. They were
married two months later and
remained together for 47 years.
“So when people say Julian
and Josephine’s romance seems
unrealistic, I tell them, ‘That’s
my own life, I’m writing what I
know, what my parents had.’”
Paullina spent five years
working on the new trilogy
so all three books could be
released this year. The second,
A Beggar’s Kingdom, is
available now and the final
instalment, Inexpressible Island,
ll be out before Christmas.
“Every day I would get to my
fficeat about 8am and stay
erefor 12 hours,” she says.ins
wiof
th“When the story was flowing
I would hardly move from my
desk. But sometimes it wasn’t
a flow, it was just a tiny drop
and I had to force myself to
ignore the outside world.”
Despite her success, Paullina
is often full of self-doubt when
she is writing.
“My husband has walked in
and found me on my knees on
the floor of my office with my
head pressed to the ground
because I can’t get something
right. I really do suffer for it.”
For a long time Kevin was
the only person she allowed
to read The End of Forever
books. “I trust his opinion and
he thinks they are the best
things I have ever done.”
Fans will be pleased to hear
that Paullina has four more
books in the planning stages,
including a return to the world
of The Bronze Horseman and an
adventure romance set around
the invasion of Normandy,
inspired by a exhibition on the
Second World War that Paullina
saw while on a visit to London.
When describing the moment
the idea struck, it’s with all the
drama and passion of one
of her stories.
“I was in the Imperial War
Museum looking at these photos
on the wall and something
gripped my heart and drove its
talons into me and it hasn’t let
me go,” says Paullina. #
Nicky Pellegrinod,
Yuriymanagedtogethisfamily
outofRussiaandtoAmerica.
Oncetheretheyhadtoadjust
to a very different way oflifherselfas
writerof
at 56 she
NewYork,
husband KPHOTOS:
ANGIE
HUMPHREYS
PAULLINA’S UNTOLD STORY AND
THE CHARACTERS THAT HAUNT HERA Beggar’s Kingdom by Paullina
Simons is available now. Published
by HarperCollins, RRP $36.99.Prolific Paullina!
The popular author
has four more
books in the
planning stages.