Holden, Wendy 1961- [A pseudonym] (Taylor Holden)

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Holden, Wendy 1961- [A pseudonym] (Taylor Holden)

PERSONAL:

Born 1961.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—Stephanie Cabot, The Gernert Company, 136 E. 57th St., 15th Fl., New York, NY 10022. E-mail—TayHolden@aol.com.

CAREER:

Author. Worked as a reporter for eighteen years, including ten years for the Daily Telegraph, London, England. Has also worked as an editor for The Writer's Workshop (literary consulting firm).

WRITINGS:

(Under name Taylor Holden) The Full Monty (novel based on the screenplay by Simon Beaufoy), HarperCollins (London, England), 1998.

(Under name Taylor Holden) The Sense of Paper (novel), Bantam Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Also author of novel The Language of Glass, and movie novelization Waking Ned.

NONFICTION

Unlawful Carnal Knowledge: The True Story of the Irish "X" Case, HarperCollins (London, England), 1994.

Shell Shock, Channel 4 Books (London, England), 1998.

Kavanagh Q.C.: The Ties That Bind, Coronet (London, England), 1998.

(With Susan Travers) Tomorrow to Be Brave: A Memoir of the Only Woman Ever to Serve in the French Foreign Legion, Free Press (New York, NY), 2001.

(With Marthe Cohn) Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany, Harmony Books (New York, NY), 2002.

(With Deana Martin) Memories Are Made of This: Dean Martin through His Daughter's Eyes, Harmony Books (New York, NY), 2004.

(With Goldie Hawn) A Lotus Grows in the Mud, Putnam (New York, NY), 2005.

Also author of other nonfiction books, including Till the Sun Grows Cold, Fools Rush In, Footprints in the Snow: How Science Helped Turn Tragedy to Triumph, Biting the Bullet, and Good Vibrations.

ADAPTATIONS:

A Lotus Grows in the Mud was adapted as a sound recording, Penguin Audio (New York, NY), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS:

Wendy Holden, a pseudonym for Taylor Holden, is best known for her nonfiction work, especially for coauthoring a number of biographies. Among these are two autobiographies of extraordinary women living through World War II: Susan Travers's Tomorrow to Be Brave: A Memoir of the Only Woman Ever to Serve in the French Foreign Legion and Marthe Cohn's Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany. Holden has also helped Deana Martin write the story of her father, singer and actor Dean Martin, and cowrote actress Goldie Hawn's A Lotus Grows in the Mud.

Tomorrow to Be Brave tells how Travers ended up in the Foreign Legion. The daughter of a military officer, she felt she could not gain her father's approval because she was not a boy. Rebelling, she gambled and had affairs with aristocrats until World War II began in 1939. She joined the Free French and became a driver on the front lines in North Africa, where she was decorated for her participation in the battle of Bir Hakeim. After a doomed affair with a married general ended, Travers joined the French Foreign Legion. Her I-regret-nothing attitude will sound "inspiring to modern ears," according to a Publishers Weekly critic. Margaret Flanagan, writing in Booklist, called the book an "extraordinary true story of love, war, and adventure that reads like fiction." Behind Enemy Lines is about a young Jewish woman who, because of her blonde hair, is able to pass for a German nurse and spy on the Nazis during World War II. Cohn was awarded France's Medaille Militaire for bravery, and her story is described in a "compelling memoir," according to a Publishers Weekly writer.

Memories Are Made of This: Dean Martin through His Daughter's Eyes is a biography in which Deana Martin portrays her famous father sympathetically, though he was often absent from his children's lives. Booklist reviewer Ray Olson remarked that it is Holden's assistance that "makes quite a treat of [Deana's] … account." Library Journal contributor James E. Perone also remarked on the "quality of … writing" in this "fascinating book."

As a fiction writer, Holden has novelized the popular movies Waking Ned and The Full Monty. Her first original novel, The Sense of Paper, draws somewhat on her own journalism experience. Her heroine, Charlotte "Charlie" Hudson, is a war reporter. A failed marriage and painful memories of the horrors she has witnessed cause Charlie to retreat into a more sedate subject of research. She wishes to write about the artist J.M.W. Turner and his scholarly interest in paper. Her work leads her to Alan, a Turner scholar, and a romance begins to unfold. "By turns love story, mystery and the history of fine paper," remarked Luan Gaines on the Curled Up with a Good Book Web site, "the personal relationships of the protagonists lack subtlety, a black and white morality play with no middle ground." New Mystery Reader contributor Susan Illis considered the story "quietly engrossing." "This is an attempt at serious literary fiction even if it comes across as a modern Gothic novel," concluded Mark Rose on the Bookgasm Web site.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 2001, Margaret Flanagan, review of Tomorrow to Be Brave: A Memoir of the Only Woman Ever to Serve in the French Foreign Legion, p. 1833; March 1, 2002, review of Tomorrow to Be Brave, p. 1087; October 1, 2002, review of Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany, p. 297; September 1, 2004, Ray Olson, review of Memories Are Made of This: Dean Martin through His Daughter's Eyes, p. 37.

Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2002, review of Behind Enemy Lines, p. 1512.

Library Journal, April 15, 2001, Mary Salony, review of Tomorrow to Be Brave, p. 108; September 1, 2004, James E. Perone, review of Memories Are Made of This, p. 153.

Publishers Weekly, April 9, 2001, review of Tomorrow to Be Brave, p. 57; September 9, 2002, review of Behind Enemy Lines, p. 49; September 6, 2004, review of Memories Are Made of This, p. 57.

Spectator, July 30, 2005, Frederic Raphael, review of Golden Lads and Girls, p. 30.