I’m delighted to welcome Luisa A Jones back to my blog today to talk about her sixth book Before the Mountain Falls.
Luisa A Jones lives in South Wales, and takes inspiration from the Welsh countryside, towns, history, and of course its people. She writes captivating and emotional fiction with characters you’ll root for from the first page.
Luisa studied Classical Studies at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London. Her previous jobs have included tour guide in an historic house; teacher in both primary and secondary schools; careers adviser; and corporate trainer/assessor.
Luisa loves using her creativity for crafting and baking, as well as writing historical and contemporary fiction with romantic elements. She and her husband are the proud owners of Gwynnie, a Volkswagen camper van built in 1974, which inspired the story behind Luisa’s first book, Goes Without Saying. They have three children, a dog, and two cats.
Becoming an author fulfilled a lifelong ambition.
Welcome back to my blog, Luisa to talk about your new book Before the Mountain Falls, but before we start, can I just say congratulations on being a finalist for the RNA awards for your third book – What We Left Behind.
What lovely recognition for your and your book. How much did this mean to you?
Thanks so much for welcoming me back, Anni – and thanks for your kind words. It means the world to me to have been shortlisted for the Saga Romance of the Year Award, especially as the books are judged by readers of romantic fiction, not a paid panel. When I opened the email telling me I’d made the shortlist, I shrieked so loudly my husband thought there must be a spider in the room! Getting this far feels like a win.
Well, good luck and I look forward to hearing how you got on. Last time you were here, you opted for Bara Brith, this time I thought Welsh Cakes, is that okay with you?
Welsh cakes are always okay with me!
So we’re here today to talk about your next book in the series, Before the Mountain Falls.
She fled to survive. She lied to belong. The truth could shatter everything.
1939. Norma knows what the world does to women in her position. Pregnant, unmarried… abandoned. And when the man who promised to marry her is arrested for murder, she has only one option left: run.
A borrowed wedding ring. A fake name. A one-way ticket to Wales. Mrs Finch never existed before that train journey, but now she’s Norma’s only chance at survival.
The remote valley of Pontybrenin should be her hiding place. Instead, even as the world teeters on the brink of war, it becomes the first place Norma’s ever felt seen. Billeted with a stern church minister and his family, she finds friendship, family and a love that makes her want to stop running.
But every day she stays is another day someone might discover who she really is. And as she falls deeper into this life – and this love – Norma will have to choose between the truth that could destroy her and the lies that are slowly suffocating the person she’s becoming.
I love this book. It was lovely being back in the same area and the nearby town of Pontybrenin and catching up with some characters from previous books too.
I don’t think it’s a spoiler alert to say this book is about Norma, a pregnant woman, who’s being evacuated from the East End of London to Wales. When we typically think of evacuees, most people think of children, so what made you decide to tell Norma’s story?
One of the reasons I came up with the character of Norma was because so few people realise that pregnant women and mothers of young children were also evacuated.
In my original story idea, Norma was going to be a young mum, but one morning I woke up with a vivid image in my mind of a blonde, pregnant girl waiting on a bench outside a register office for her fiancé to turn up for their wedding. The girl was getting angrier and more anxious as the minutes ticked by and she realised he’d left it too late to make her a “respectable” married woman. I knew in that moment that this was the way the book had to begin – I even had the first couple of sentences in my head, and wrote them down straight away.
I’ve often watched TV programmes like Long Lost Family and I know someone who felt they had no choice but give their baby up as a young, unmarried mother. It seemed worth exploring how difficult a situation that would be for a girl who had no support, and how the evacuation programme might give her a chance of a fresh start.
How would you have coped with an evacuee? And a child or a pregnant woman?
I don’t have a spare bedroom, so housing an evacuee would be tricky. In some ways housing a child might be easier than an adult, as they’d be out at school most days, and a youngster would probably be fun to have around. For two women to share a kitchen might be more difficult, especially if our backgrounds and attitudes proved very different. I like to think I’d make a stranger welcome, whatever their circumstances, but I suspect sharing the privacy of my home with someone I don’t know would bring a few challenges!
The requisitioning of whole villages is a lesser-known aspect of WWII, what led you to include it?
When I learned about the clearance of the Welsh mountain of Mynydd Epynt in 1940, I knew the story deserved to be included in the book. I was so moved by the stories of people losing their homes, livelihoods, community, and even the opportunity to speak their own language. It’s an event of huge emotional resonance, and it saddens me that the sacrifice made by ordinary people like these isn’t recognised more widely. Most Welsh people I’ve spoken to about it have no idea it even happened.
I know that you said Moel Carnau is fictional, but there were many villages in both the UK and Wales that were requisitioned during the war and whole communities displaced. How do you balance historical accuracy with storytelling?
I try to research with a shovel but include details with an eyedropper, as the saying goes. It helps that my setting is fictional, so although it’s inspired by what happened, I can manipulate events to suit my timeline and focus on the elements that matter to the characters in my story. The novelist’s role is to bring characters to life for a reader, not to give a history lesson. It’s more important to be authentic to the past than to stick rigidly to the bare facts. I can only hope I strike a balance that works.
There are two villages quite close to us at Tyneham and Imber, where this happened, which are still owned by the MOD and only open to the public on a handful of days during the year. The people who left the villages were apparently told it was only temporary, but once the Second World War was over, there came the Cold War and so on. Will Emrys’ family be able to move back?
Sadly, it seems unlikely. I based Moel Carnau on Mynydd Epynt, which is also still owned by the MOD and used for military training. In real life, people’s lives moved on and even if they’d been allowed back it would have been difficult to drop everything and return to land that hadn’t been cared for during six long years of war. Some people moved far away, even abroad; some died not long after being evicted, their hearts broken by their loss. I imagine that once a close-knit community has been shattered and forced to start over, it would be very difficult to put it back together again.
Norma’s a seamstress. I used to love making curtains, although blackout material is extremely hard to work with. Are you a needle woman? What was the last thing you sewed?
I enjoy dressmaking, and I like making clothes for myself, but I haven’t done it for a few years now as I don’t have enough time. My Nana was a talented seamstress, and she taught my mum to sew, then she taught me. I have some of my Nana’s sewing tools, including a box of needles labelled in her handwriting. She passed away in 1990, so when I use them they give me a precious feeling of connection to her.
I miss the old fabric shops of my childhood. I used to spend ages looking at patterns and dream of working in one. But if you could work in one shop in Pontybrenin, which one would it be?
I think I’d like to join Dodie Fitznorton and work in the library, if that’s allowed. If it has to be a shop, I’ll choose the stationer’s. I love a nice fountain pen, and what writer can resist a pretty notebook? They were probably in short supply during the war years, though.
Norma made sure she had her sewing machine, but if you were evacuated, what would be something you make sure you packed in your suitcase? I’m only going to allow you one book and one other item. And don’t forget you need to be able to carry it – So, the Ninja 15-1 cooker is definitely out!
I’m quite sentimental about things, so I’d probably choose our old family photo scrapbook as the book. It contains family photos from as far back as the 19th century. The object would have to be our family christening robe. It was made with parachute silk by my great-grandmother in 1947 for my mum’s christening, and it’s been worn by three generations of babies so far.
The comment “there’s scarcely a family in Pontybrenin that hasn’t been blighted by the effects of the last war. And yet mankind doesn’t seem willing to learn from the past.” That really resonated with me. And feels so true today. It still seems incredible that eighty years on, there are those who still believe war is the only answer. How easy do you find it writing about dark topics like war?
Writing stories that resonate with readers requires emotional courage, as you know from your own experience as an author. It’s difficult to write about things like people being evicted or forced into paths they wouldn’t have chosen, or coming home with shellshock. But if I don’t feel the anguish of it, my readers won’t, so I can’t shy away from painful things. However, it’s important to me to always offer a hopeful outcome at the end of the book, even if the characters and I have a painful time getting there.
So as always I’m going to ask, what are you working on?
At the moment I’m playing with ideas. I’m not sure yet what my next book will be, but hopefully I’ll enjoy the process of working that out.
A question another writer asked me last year, was what was on my vision board for 2026? So, I thought it would be fun to ask all my guests this year if they would share one item on their board for 2026 – I might come back to you to later in the year and ask whether you achieved it! So what would be one item on yours?
Giving a talk at a conference or writing festival has been on my list of author goals for a while, so I’m happy to say I was invited to speak at the Newport Festival of Words in March, and I’ve been booked to speak at the Meet Cute Festival and the Romantic Novelists’ Association conference this summer. And of course, being shortlisted for an award has been a dream come true. It would be greedy to ask more from 2026 than that!
Thank you so much for talking to me today, Luisa, about Before the Mountain Falls. It’s great as always to chat and good luck with publication. Anni x
Thanks so much for inviting me along. It’s always a joy to chat about books with you, Anni.
Book link: https://geni.us/729-cr-fbo-am
Social Media links:
Website: www.luisaajones.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Luisa-A-Jones-232663650757721/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luisa_a_jones_author/
Anni Rose’s six uplifting and heartfelt romantic comedies are now available from Amazon in one box set:
