My guest today is one of our local authors, Greg Duncan.

J: Greg, you have recently published a historical novel with the intriguing title Champagne in a Broken Teacup. What’s the book about?

G: Without giving too much away, here’s a short summary I wrote for Amazon.

In the spring of 1940 recently married Marie-Claire is blissfully pursuing her career as a freelance artist in Paris. She has no idea that in early May Hitler’s armies will invade France and rip her life apart. In the book we follow her life as tragedies strike and she is forced to flee Paris to escape from the Gestapo. Using a false name and identity she begins a new life in the small provincial French town of Nevers. She finds unexpected inner strength as a resistance worker but her previous life in Paris catches up with her.

J: What inspired you to write it?

G: As a young boy growing up in Canada I was fascinated by the stories I was told about my French aunt. During WW2 she was an art teacher living in the small French town of Nevers where she became a document forger and fighter in the French resistance. As if that wasn’t fascinating enough for a young boy, even more exciting were some of the stories of her escape from the Germans.

Fast forward several decades to the time I retired and started to focus on my interest in writing and inevitably the stories of my aunt’s adventures came to mind. However, I realized I didn’t know enough detail about her life to turn it into a stand alone story and unfortunately she had passed away many years earlier. I decided I needed to find out more about the world she would have lived in and what life would have been like for her in occupied France.

Mare-Therese Pellissier 1949

Thanks to the internet and the digitization of many documents I was able to find out far more than I expected. I found it quite moving to be able to read the very newspapers my aunt would have been reading nearly a century ago. I was even able to look at copies of leaflets that the RAF dropped over France during the war – leaflets that my aunt would have picked up in the streets of Nevers and read. I was amazed to find out that the RAF dropped over 640 million such leaflets over France.

Like most of us I had been taught about the big battles and political aspects of the war but virtually nothing about the lives of the ordinary citizens. As my research progressed I became more and more fascinated reading about the things which affected people’s daily lives and the things they did to fight back against the German occupation. I decided that what I wanted to do was write a fictional novel that incorporated the stories I’d been told about my aunt interwoven with historical reality.

J: How much of the novel is true and how much is fiction?

G: That’s a good question. In one sense, being a fictional novel my characters are fictional. On the other hand some of the events included in the story are portrayals of events which involved my aunt – but obviously I can’t tell you what they are right now as that would give away too much of the plot. What I can say is that the picture on the back cover of the book, of German soldiers in the rain, was actually drawn by my aunt in Nevers in 1941 when she was a resistance forger. It is one of the few things I have of hers. It hangs on the wall beside my desk and helped inspire me to write the book.

The historical events mentioned in the book are real as I wanted my characters to react to the actual events of the time. Although a lot of what my characters experience and do may not have happened to my aunt they are based on my research and on true stories of what people actually did in the resistance at that time.

J: Did you spend a long time doing the research?

G: Yes, and I enjoyed the research almost as much as writing the book. I became engrossed in reading about such things as forging techniques, rat bombs and pencil detonators as well as more dramatic activities such as derailing trains and blowing up fuel dumps.

I was also fascinated by the small details I discovered during my research which I’ve never seen in a history book. For example, the fact that within six weeks of the fall of France the newspapers reported that it was now illegal for bakers to make croissant or brioche.

J: Illegal for the French to make croissant?

G: Yes, at first I thought the report might be some sort of joke by the newspaper, but thanks to the internet I was able to access and read the actual regulations issued by the Vichy government..

Also thanks to the internet I was able to research locations in Nevers. I even found a 1940’s picture of the steps of the Rue de Calvaire – a place which plays an important part in the story.

Nevers 1940 Rue de Calvaire

J: Tell me about the title. It’s so unusual.

G: The title is critical to the story so I can’t tell you too much about it. All I can say is I needed a title which would be unique and yet fit in the plot as plausible.

J: I enjoyed reading your novel and gave it a five star review on Amazon as a ‘cracking good read’. What have other people said?

G: I’ve had a lot of positive feedback. In fact several people have said the whole story would make a great film.

J: I agree. And before you go, that important question. Where can people get a copy of Champagne in a Broken Teacup?

G: The book is available via Amazon as a paperback, a hardback, a Kindle eBook or via Kindle Unlimited. Our website https://www.kenebec.com?d has a direct link to Amazon for this book and our other books.

I’d like to thank you for asking me to talk about Champagne in a Broken Teacup. I’m not sure how many of your readers are local but if they’re interested I’d just like to add that I’ll be giving a talk about the research behind the book in June at the Sturminster Newton Literary Festival.

Thanks for coming along Greg and good luck with your book sales and festival talk.

Janet Gogerty

5.0 out of 5 stars A great story that brings recent history to life.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 March 2025

This is a cracking good story and a very well written novel. Paris under German occupation in World War Two is the setting. This is history, but the novel goes far deeper than the classic black and white photographs of German soldiers marching past the Arc de Triomphe. The author takes us into the lives of happy young newly-weds and their friends. This novel is inspired by the author’s aunt who worked for the resistance and is backed up by careful research. Far from being a dry recounting of the times, we are soon wrapped up in the lives of young and older Parisiens determined to fight for their country as violence and the death of friends and family becomes a reality. The Germans are not the only enemy as informers and traitors make it impossible to know who to trust, keeping us in suspense in every chapter.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Champagne-Broken-Teacup-Adventures-resistante-ebook/dp/B0DPVJNZRM/