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Simon Worrall

Simon's Story

The author of two highly acclaimed books, The Poet and the Murderer (Dutton & Plume/Penguin Putnam USA, 2002; Fourth Estate UK), which William Styron called, “A gripping tale, done with great style and elegance…it held me in its spell from beginning to end,” has also been published in Spain and France. His second book, the novelized true story of his mother in World War II, The Very White of Love (HarperCollins, 2018), was referred to by The Sunday Mirror as “A powerful and tender tale of love and war.” His latest book, StarCrossed: A True Romeo and Juliet Story In Hitler's Paris, which he wrote with his wife, critically acclaimed Holocaust biographer, Heather Dune Macadam, published by Kensington Citadel in September 2023.

Star Crossed

with Heather Dune Macadam

Coming August 2023

Paris, 1940. The City of Light has fallen under German Occupation. Among patriotic Parisians, the pursuit of art, culture, and jazz have become bold acts of defiance. So has forbidden romance for talented and spirited Jewish teenager Annette Zelman, a student at the Beaux-Arts, and dashing young Catholic poet Jean Jausion. Despite their devout families’ vehement opposition, the young couple finds acceptance at the famed Café de Flore, whose habitues include Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Pablo Picasso, Django Reinhardt, and other luminaries of the Latin Quarter’s creative world.For a time, Annette and Jean feel they have eluded the brute might of the relentless Nazis—and more immediately, their parents’ threats and demands. But as restrictions on the Jewish community escalate to arrests and deportations, the maleficent forces gathering around the young lovers set them on divergent and tragically inevitable paths. Drawn from never-before-published family letters and other treasures, as well as archival sources and exclusive interviews, Star-Crossed offers us precious insight into the Holocaust and the lives French people bravely led under the Hitler regime. This breathtaking true story of beauty, art, liberation and the transformative power of love resonates with an intimate story of undying devotion, seen through the prism of history.

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Erika Robuck,
National Bestselling Author of Sisters of Night and Fog 

“The depiction of the vibrancy of youth and its stubborn refusal to succumb to darkness reveals the remarkable human capacities for resilience and hope. Macadam and Worrall have done great honor to the women and men in these pages by keeping the flame of memory burning."

LEARN MORE ABOUT SIMON'S BOOKS

The Poet an the Murderer cover
Castles in the Air: A Journey Down the Rhine cover
The Very White of Love cover
The River of Desire: A Journey of the Heart Through Patagonia cover
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Patagaonia Cave of Hands
“Simon Worrall is a master storyteller.”

Carol Galanty, Amazon reader

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