Helen Simonson

Helen Simonson’s New York Times bestselling debut, ‘Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand’, instantly established her reputation as a gifted storyteller, with humour, wit, and a sharp eye for character.

Now she returns and talks to Jane Wenham Jones about her new compelling work of fiction that reaches far beyond the small English village in which it is set.

In 1914 in East Sussex at the end of England’s brief Edwardian summer, ‘The Summer Before the War’ is the story of an unexpected heroine and an unassuming village, caught up in an unimaginable war.

Helen Simonson was born and raised in Sussex. She now lives in America.