Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year on the US calendar. In keeping with that fine tradition, loveahappyending is proud to support featured author Harry Leslie Smith‘s launch of not one, but two of his Books of Memoirs.

Hamburg 1947: A Place for the Heart to Kip

Twenty-two years old and ready for peace, Harry Leslie Smith has survived the Great Depression and endured the Second World War. Now, in 1945 in Hamburg, Germany, he must come to terms with a nation physically and emotionally devastated. In this memoir, he narrates a story of people searching to belong and survive in a world that was almost destroyed.

Hamburg 1947 recounts Smith’s youthful RAF days as part of the occupational forces in post-war Germany. A wireless operator during the war, he doesn’t want to return to Britain and join a queue of unemployed former servicemen; he reenlists for long term duty in occupied Germany. From his billet in Hamburg, a city razed to the ground by remorseless aerial bombardment, he witnesses a people and era on the brink of annihilation. This narrative presents a street-level view of a city reduced to rubble populated with refugees, black marketers, and cynical soldiers.

At times grim and other times amusing, Smith writes a memoir relaying the social history about this time and place, providing a unique look at post-WWII Germany. Hamburg 1947 is both a love story for a city and a passionate retailing of a love affair with a young German woman.

Hamburg 1947 can be bought in paperback format from Amazon.co.uk for £11.95 or Hardcover for £18.95

The Barley Hole Chronicles

If you didn’t purchase Harry’s first book of memoirs, 1923: A Memoir, this is your chance to get it and Hamburg 1947 under one cover in The Barley Hole Chronicles – From Hell to Hamburg 23/47.

Barley Hole was for my great grandfather Canaan, the land of milk and honey. For my father, it was paradise lost and for my mother, Barley Hole was a curse. It was a place that haunted her spirit and her soul throughout her life. To me, Barley Hole is a name forever etched on the map of my family’s heart; it is where betrayal and injustice nearly thrust us into oblivion.

The Barley Hole Chronicles are an odyssey of the human spirit that stretch across time and geography to incorporate, diverse personalities, personal hardships, World Wars and the struggle for peace and love, in a society fallen from grace. These Chronicles document one Yorkshire family’s descent into the wilderness of poverty and hunger. It is a personal record of one young man’s struggle to survive the great depression, the Second World War and the hazards and wonders of life in post war Germany. The Barley Hole Chronicles are a summation of two memoirs by Harry Leslie Smith 1923 and Hamburg 1947. The Barley Hole Chronicles are a true account of a time and place when life, full of raw emotion, was never so real. It is also a social history of the 20th century at its bloodiest and deadliest time.

The Barley Hole Chronicles are available for the Kindle from Amazon.co.uk for £1.14 or from Amazon.com for $1.50 US.

Hamburg 1947 is available in Paperback for $17.95 US and Hardcover for $27.95 US from Amazon.com and will be available for the Kindle for $1.99 US.

And for Black Friday, Harry is reducing the price of The Barley Hole Chronicles to $0.99 US and his first book, 1923: A Memoir will be reduced to $0.75 US.

Author, Pauline Barclay has been busy behind the scenes working on re-editing and polishing her novel, Satchfield Hall, for a re-launch today. Along with the work between the covers, Pauline has a brand new cover designed by Cathy Helms of Avalon Graphics in the US!

When the news reached Henry Bryant-Smythe about his daughter’s indiscretion, he not only dealt with it, but stamped on it with such a resounding thud, that the consequences ricocheted through the years and well into the future. Henry Bryant-Smythe cared nothing for the consequences of his actions and even less for the feelings of those involved, with the exception of his own, and these he cosseted.

Celia Bryant-Smythe’s disgrace set in motion events that would affect the lives of many people, taking decades to unravel. Lives would be lost and destroyed and it would take until the death of the one man who had callously started it all, Henry Bryant-Smythe, until it was finally over.

Satchfield Hall is not about gentleness, tranquillity and privilege; it is about, power, love, lies and in the end revenge.

Satchfield Hall is available for the Kindle at Amazon.co.uk for £2.32 and at Amazon.com for $3.25. In addition, a paperback version will be released in the coming weeks.

About the Author

Years ago Pauline gained a BA (Hons) degree from the Open University, today she spends her time writing fiction and has three books published: Sometimes It Happens, Magnolia House and Satchfield Hall.

She’s a Yorkshire lass, from the UK but has lived in several different locations including, Suffolk, UK, Surrey, UK and the beautiful country of Holland. Today, Pauline lives on the beautiful volcanic island of Lanzarote in the Canary Isles with her husband and her two gorgeous rescue doggies.

Well, it’s almost ready to reveal. I’ve spent a lot of time today with my face in the computer working on it. And starting from scratch with the Windows 7.0 version of Movie Maker, it’s not so difficult to work with at all. So selecting my photos, transitions, effects and what not took a lot of time, albeit enjoyable. Then I spent a period of time where I was sequestered off in the bedroom recording the audio track of the first two chapters using my Sony MP3 recorder. It didn’t seem like it at the time but when I opened the file in Audacity, it was the better part of half an hour!

Another bonus to Audacity, is I was able to edit out any flubs I made since I don’t read out loud well (and believe me, I flubbed in a few places) and shorten some long pauses when I wasn’t able to move to the next screen on the iPad in a timely manner. My first recording might have lasted 30 seconds and I shut it down on my own. Second time around things went swimmingly but still a few moments but I perservered and finished the recording.

Back in touch with humans, I self-taught myself in the workings of Audacity. It’s a really cool program and am looking forward to doing more things with it than I did today. Anyway, I worked away at editing the audio track… reducing the length of gaps, removing moments of tongue-tideness and cut it down to about 8:00 minutes.

I’ll reveal the finished product here soon so stand by for the official announcement of its unveiling.