Interview with Soren Paul Petrek, Author of Wolves At Our Door @spetrek_toche44 #historical

I’m not on holiday, she told herself, but it’s my first time out of Germany, and I’m not going to waste it. She’d wanted to help with the war effort, and now she had her chance. Even after the invasion, everyone back home still thought Germany would win—Hitler told them so, and the propaganda films left no doubt. Why wouldn’t she believe it as well?

--From Wolves At Our Door by Soren Paul Petrek

Soren Petrek is a practicing criminal trial attorney, admitted to the Minnesota Bar in 1991.  Married with two adult children, Soren continues to live and work in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Educated in the U.S., England and France Soren sat his O-level examinations at the Heathland School in Hounslow, London in 1981.  His undergraduate degree in Forestry is from the University of Minnesota, 1986.  His law degree is from William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota 1991.

Soren’s novel, Cold Lonely Courage won Fade In Magazine’s 2009 Award for Fiction.  Fade In was voted the nation’s favorite movie magazine by the Washington Post and the L.A. Times in 2011 and 2012.

The French edition of Cold Lonely Courage, Courage was published January 2019, by Encre Rouge Editions, distributed by Hachette Livre in 60 countries.  Soren’s contemporary novel, Tim will be released along with the rest of the books in the Madeleine Toche series of historical thrillers.

The Allies and the Nazis are in a deadly race to develop the ultimate weapon while supersonic V-2 rockets rain down on London. Madeleine Toche and Berthold Hartmann, the German super assassin who taught her to kill, search for the secret factory where Werner von Braun and his Gestapos masters use slave labor to build the weapons as the bodies of the innocent pile up. The Allied ground forces push towards Berlin while the German SS fight savagely for each inch of ground.

Finding the factory hidden beneath Mount Kohnstein, Hartmann contacts his old enemy, Winston Churchill and summons Madeleine to his side. While she moves to bring the mountain down on her enemies, Hartmann leads a daring escape from the dreaded Dora concentration camp to continue his revenge against the monsters who ruined his beloved Germany.

Together with the Russian Nachtlexen, the Night Witches, fearsome female pilots the race tightens as the United States and the Germans successfully carry out an atomic bomb test.

Germany installs an atom bomb in a V-2 pointed towards London, while the US delivers one to a forward base in the Pacific. The fate of the Second World War and the future of mankind hangs in the balance.

Welcome, Soren!  Your new historical/action/adventure novel sounds thrilling! Can you tell us how you came up with the idea?

               

Soren:  Wolves at Our Door is a sequel to the anchor book of the Madeleine Toche Series, Cold Lonely Courage.  In Wolves, I wanted to directly address aspects of the Holocaust, the race for an atomic weapon and to feature Madeleine and her mentor in the field fighting together.

Can you tell us a little about the main characters?

Soren:  Madeleine Toche is a young French woman who found her way into the Resistance during WWII, helping Jewish children escape the Nazis.  Later, after she’s raped and has exacted revenge by killing the German SS officer who raped her, she escapes to England and finds her way into the British Special Operations Executive, Winston Churchill’s army of the shadows.

They say all books of fiction have at least one pivotal point where the reader just can’t put the book down. What is one of the pivotal points in your book?

Soren:  I try to keep the readers hooked from the beginning.  I have hundreds of reader and editorial reviews that mention, I couldn’t put the book down.  What a joy it is to read that and know that those readers will remember my books fondly.

In Wolves, when we first meet Madeleine Toche her remarkable talents, skills and courage capture readers who then cheer for her, worry about her and most of all wonder what she’s going to do next.

  

Do you proofread and edit your work on your own or pay someone to do it for you?

Soren:  I use Grammarly and have a professional editor who works for major publishers both as a freelance editor and ghostwriter.  Her name is Hannah Eason.  I couldn’t have a better fit for the way I write.

Do you believe a book cover plays an important role in the selling process?

Soren:  The cover needs to draw attention but should have a clear connection to the storyline.  I like covers that are unique.

What did you want to become when you were a kid?

Soren:  A Marine Biologist.  I loved everything Jacques Cousteau.

What is one thing you’d like readers to know about you?

 Soren:  I want people to be happy.  If I can contribute to their joy of reading, then I’ve accomplished a great thing.

Is there anything you’d like to tell your readers and fans?

Soren:  I write for everyone.  My characters appeal to men and women alike.