Having made her mark on the writing world with psychological thrillers The Girl Before You (2019) and 2020’s You And Me, Welsh-born Ealing-based author Nicola Rayner is moving in a different direction with her latest book. EALING.NEWS interviews her about The Paris Dancer.
The Paris Dancer, which was published on February 13, mixes sweeping historical drama with a present-day storyline, as a young woman heads to New York to learn the truth about her great-aunt’s life.
In doing so she uncovers her involvement with Annie Mayer, a famous dancer who was forced to keep her Jewish heritage a secret in wartime Paris, while at the same time secretly helping the Resistance.
While the characters in the book are largely fictional, Annie is based on real-life dancer Florence Waren, who had a similar career during World War II, even dancing for the Nazis as she secretly helped the French resistance – while keeping her own Jewish identity under wraps.
Nicola, who is originally from Abergavenny but has settled with her husband in Ealing, was inspired by her background in dance journalism to write the story, which is inspired by true events and people – EALING.NEWS caught up with her for a chat.
What’s your own background in dance journalism and how did it shape this book?
It started for me in Argentina, where I learned the tango in my 20s, and I ended up working at Time Out in Buenos Aires, and no one else was particularly interested in the tango. So I started to edit the tango section out there, and then when I came back to the UK I trained in journalism, took my exams and worked with local papers for a while, and then ended up working at Dancing Times, which was the best known and most respected dance publication in UK, it closed, sadly, a couple of years ago, and I was there for a really long time. I edited their sister magazine, Dance Today for quite a few years. So I’ve been so immersed in dance for so long. This book offered this really wonderful challenge of combining my love of telling stories and shaping narratives.
Did you have any contact with the family of Florence Waren?
I tried but I haven’t heard back yet. I would very much like to get in touch with them and send them a copy because I hope you can see it’s a very loving portrayal. Obviously it’s fictionalized, and I’ve changed a lot of details and laid in a fictional story in addition to the events inspired by real life.
How did you approach the Jewish aspect of the story?
I do have some Jewish heritage, but I was very conscious of the fact that I hadn’t grown up in a Jewish family right before I wrote it, and I did a lot of research. I read a lot of first-hand accounts of Jewish women who had been in Paris at the time. And I spoke to a lot of my Jewish friends, and I asked one of them in particular to give it a sensitivity read, she worked with me on a couple of points. I feel like I gave it my very best shot, but obviously it’s something I questioned on starting the book. But it was written with a huge amount of love.
The Paris Dancer is quite a departure from your previous thrillers. What can we expect from you next?
At the moment I’m writing a love story, after being in the dark world of thrillers for a while and World War II which involved a lot of research. I enjoy doing different things, and in publishing there’s a tendency to pigeonhole people in different genres and tell them what kind of writer they are. Quite early on, after I published The Girl Before You, I’d only completed and published one book and immediately people started saying ‘Oh you’re a thriller writer, you write thrillers, that’s what you do.’ And I might write thrillers again but I enjoy the mixture.
What advice would you give to anyone who wants to write a book?
I would say just start writing! If you’ve got a laptop or a notebook, just start. And you don’t have to intimidate yourself and sit down and write an enormous novel from start to finish, if you haven’t done much writing before. I mean, a lot of my early writing came out in fragments, perhaps observations or listening to conversations or beginnings of ideas, and it’s sort of playing really. The other thing I would say is keep going! I know some people who could be, or are, brilliant writers, but the thing that separates the people who get there from the people who don’t is the doggedness. And that’s such an important quality. There’s so many options to get published these days – Amazon, or you can self-publish. The main thing is that perseverance.
What do you like most about Ealing?
I moved in 2010 with my husband, who already lived here. We were thinking of moving further in town, and then fell in love with the property in Ealing here. It’s a fantastic place to live. It’s really green. For many, many years, we had a dog, so yeah, we were able to walk her in all the parks, in Lammas and Walpole, and not so far from Osterley. And I’ve met a lot of people here over the years. I also love Northfields Community Library, which is incredibly supportive of authors.
What would you like to see in Ealing that it doesn’t have?
You know, I’d really like to find a good Argentine tango class. Yes, that is what I’d like to find, because I am quite lazy these days in my old age, and I need a dance class that is near to my home. So I go to a salsa class in Ealing relatively close to where I live, but I would love to find an Argentine tango class in Ealing, there used to be one in Chiswick but it’s closed now. We’ve got that new studio in Dickens Yard so I feel like that would be a great place for it.
The Paris Dancer (Head Of Zeus) is out now.
Nicola Rayner will be taking part in a Q&A at Northfields Community Library on Thursday February 27. Tickets are £5 and people can book in the library or by phoning 020 8579 2394.
 and 2020’s You And Me, Welsh-born Ealing-based author Nicola Rayner is moving in a different direction with her latest book. EALING.NEWS interviews her about The Paris Dancer.){kind=link}