SL Roman or – Sarah Onions and Laura Meloni Bywaters had their first historical Young Adult novel One Year One Night published in N. America last year and are now gathering research for their second creation, set in the same era.

Their current work in progress is set in the East End near the Cathedral, an area pummelled by the Luftwaffe for 57 consecutive nights from September 7^th 1940. Incredibly it survived Nazi bombing in the Blitz.

The two writers gather their research and then sit down together to create the story, focussing on the people who survived London’s trial by air, including children who slept rough.

A photo in an exhibition like the one at St Paul’s can provoke a new ideas in their writing.

One shot showed a group of watchers preparing for the nightly terror and two younger women are seen, wearing medical uniforms.

And another image shows 3 WAAFS – from the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force – inspecting bomb damage to St Paul’s Cathedral.

These groups of volunteers really embodied the spirit of Londoners and the British, in their determination to resist the Nazis.

However crime carried on in the capital, under the cover of the blackout so not everyone was pulling together in a dutiful way.

In the same week Sarah attended a zoom conference with Professor Tim Luckhurst, who’s written a book on the same era, ‘Reporting The Second World War’, published by Bloomsbury. It was chaired by Prof Tim Crook who’s researching into a massive bomb which fell on West London in WW2.

Luckhurst is former editor of The Scotsman and Crook had huge success with The Secret Lives of a Secret Agent: the Mysterious Life and Times of Alexander Wilson, published by Kultura Press which led to a BBC TV drama.

Sarah asked a question following Luckhurst’s online presentation on how photos of bombing in London were used in the national newspapers, linked to the question of censorship.

The summer research means Sarah and Laura can settle down in the autumn to developing lively characters who grip their readers.

Note to editor. SL Roman is the pen-name of Sarah Onions and Laura Meloni Bywaters who both live in the borough of Kingston in SW London. Sarah was born in Brighton in southern England and Laura was born in Rome. Permission for all photos has been applied for.

Now on sale in the US : https://www.amazon.com/One-Year-Night-2nd/dp/194715981X.Also, at Barnes and Noble in North America.

And in the UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Year-Night-S-L-Roman/dp/B09GZPYRJ4