About the author

A.R. Homer has been fascinated with World War II all his life. A native of Birmingham, England, he grew up hearing stories of ration books and shortages, of the bomb that almost destroyed his parents' house, and of his father's service in the Royal Air Force. As a history major at Oxford University, he developed a serious interest in World War II. Later, he moved to Normandy, France, where he occasionally gave tours of the battlefields. He and his wife divide their time between New Jersey and Key West.

In 2006, Homer received the Distinguished Honor Award from the Military Writers Society of America (www.militarywriters.com).

Please contact him at: ARHomer@arhomer.com.

Comments from the author:

“Simply put, World War II was the greatest defining moment of recent history, a time when millions of ordinary men and women had to test their mettle in confrontation with a tyranny never before imagined and never after forgotten.

	“In my latest novel, Look Long into the Abyss, I try evoke the horrific chaos that reigned in the war’s last days when dedicated men and women travelled close behind the front lines to rescue looted art the Nazis had hidden in tunnels, mines, and castles.
	“The Devil’s Alchemists explores two aspects of the war – seemingly unrelated – that have always fascinated me: the failure of the Germans, who had both the raw materials and the expertise, to develop an atom bomb, and the rescue of virtually all of Denmark’s Jews.
	“In The Sobs of Autumn’s Violins I focus on the men and women who so bravely – and, indeed, so miraculously – managed to keep the secret of D-day safe.
	“And in my first book, The Mirror of Diana, I explore what it might have been like to have been a loyal German soldier who despised Nazism but was inescapably caught up in its ghastliness.

“I include love stories in my tales of World War II because I'm touched by the juxtaposition of the most sublime human emotion with the most dreadful human activity. Even in war people manage to fall in love, although war upsets lives and often throws together people who, in peacetime, would never cross paths. The love stories in my novels reflect this paradox.”