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Praise for John Kerr’s Cardigan Bay
“This is fine writing…a compelling tale. I can see why people are so interested in this writer.” C. Michael Curtis, Atlantic Monthly
Read more praise & reviews

A Rose in No Man’s Land was released in November of 2011 by Book Guild, a publishing company based in the United Kingdom. Set in Flanders and France during World War I, A Rose in No Man’s Land opens with Frank Harrington’s first trip to collect wounded British soldiers in his American Field Service ambulance. After making the perilous journey under German bombardment, he allows himself a brief respite and meets Kit Stanley, which changes everything.

John Kerr’s first novel, Cardigan Bay, was published by Corona in 2008. Not only a love story, Cardigan Bay incorporates some of the most important and dramatic events of the Second World War, including the detailed planning for the Normandy invasion, the secret code-breaking operation at Bletchley Park, and the plot to assassinate Hitler. Kerr also co-authored Only A Khaki Shirt, A Memoir of the Pacific War with his late father, Baine Kerr, which the Admiral Nimitz Foundation published in 2006.

Available for purchase through:
Book Guild
Barnes and Noble
Amazon

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A Rose in No Man’s Land

The Year is 1915, the setting France and Flanders. When A Rose in No Man’s Land opens, Frank Harrington is making his first trip to collect wounded British soldiers in his American Field Service ambulance. After making the perilous journey under German bombardment, he allows himself a brief respite and meets Kit Stanley, which changes everything. Read More →

Available for purchase through Book Guild
Barnes and Noble
Amazon

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Fell the Angels

Kerr’s third novel, Fell the Angels, will be released in the summer of 2012 by London-based publisher Robert Hale Ltd. This novel is based on the well-known, unsolved murder by poisoning of Charles Bravo in Victorian-era London, whom Kerr re-christens Charles Cranbrook. In Fell the Angels, crime detective Duncan Cameron investigates Cranbrook mysterious murder. Read More →


Available Summer 2012

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Cardigan Bay

Churchill calls it England’s “darkest hour.” In a hospital south of London, Major Charles Davenport recovers from wounds received at Tobruk. Meanwhile, Britain’s War Office plans the future invasion of the Continent—a plan destined to include Davenport, who is also bound to meet Mary, a young American widow seeking refuge on Ireland’s eastern shore.
Read More →

Available for purchase through Corona Publishing Barnes and Noble Amazon

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Only a Khaki Shirt

Kerr also co-authored Only A Khaki Shirt, A Memoir of the Pacific War, with his late father, Baine Kerr, who fought in the Pacific during WWII. The Admiral Nimitz Foundation published Only a Khaki Shirt in 2006. Read More →

Available for purchase through Admiral Nimitz Foundation

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About John Kerr

John Caldwell Kerr was born and raised in Houston, Texas, where he graduated from St. John’s School. He received a BA from Stanford University, where he studied history, literature, and poetry, and a JD from the University of Texas. In addition to a diverse business career, he has been writing, primarily fiction, for the past fifteen years, which has been strongly influenced by his life-long study of European and American history. He has also been actively involved in civic and community affairs, chairing the Texas Advisory Board of the Environmental Defense Fund and serving as board chairman of the Texas Biomedical Research Institute and the Admiral Nimitz Foundation, which oversees the National Museum of the Pacific War.

Kerr resides in San Antonio, Texas, with his wife, two dogs, and pesky African Gray Parrot.

Praise for John Kerr’s Cardigan Bay
“This is fine writing…a compelling tale. I can see why people are so interested in this writer.” C. Michael Curtis, Atlantic Monthly
“A compelling tapestry of intrigue and romance out of complex political threads often overlooked by other novelists. The result is a satisfying, comprehensively researched novel that tells the story of the greatest invasion of all time…” San Antonio Express-News
“I enjoyed Cardigan Bay very much. I would be delighted to direct it if the opportunity arose.” James Cellan-Jones, British film director
“The theme of courage mingled with ambivalent attitudes toward the war is unforgettable. John Kerr gives the reader a new understanding of Irish neutrality, the thuggery of the IRA, and the moral resistance among a few officers of the Wehrmacht to the Nazi regime.” British Scholar (selected for Book of the Month)
“Set against the backdrop of Ireland, England and Wales in World War II, Cardigan Bay is a wonderfully crafted story [with] intriguing, quirky side characters, and great descriptive details of living and loving in the war years.” Irish American News

Send John Kerr a message

Events

Book Signings


Wednesday, Nov. 30
The Twig Bookstore
San Antonio, TX
5:30pm – 7:30pm

Thursday, Dec. 1
The Brazos Bookstore
Houston, TX
7:00pm – 8:30pm

Speaking Engagements

none scheduled

Miscellaneous

none scheduled

A Rose in No Man's Land

A Rose in No Man’s Land

A Rose in No Man’s Land has just been released by British publisher Book Guild. The story is set in Flanders and France in 1915, in the midst of the heavy fighting between the British and German armies in the First World War. In the opening chapter, Frank Harrington, an American who just graduated from college, is taking his ambulance, a converted Model T Ford, out for his first pick-up of badly wounded British soldiers at the front. He makes the perilous trip, in the darkness under German bombardment, to a British Casualty Clearing Station in a converted monastery, where he meets Kit Stanley, a young volunteer British nurse, taking a break after working through the night assisting in the operating theatre. Thus begins a love affair between Kit and Frank, complicated by the fact that Kit is already in a relationship with Captain Nigel Owen, the CO of a battalion of British infantry in the thick of the worst trench fighting in the Flanders sector. Frank Harrington is one of several thousand young Americans who volunteered to drive ambulances for the British and French armies under the auspices of the American Field Service, despite strict American neutrality.

Available for purchase through Book Guild Barnes and Noble Amazon

Fell the Angels

Fell the Angels


Kerr’s third novel, Fell the Angels, will be released in the spring of 2012 by London-based publisher Robert Hale Ltd. The novel is based on the well-known, unsolved murder by poisoning of Charles Bravo in Victorian-era London. The victim, re-christened Charles Cranbrook in the novel, died in his bed from poisoning a mere four months after marrying the beautiful and exceptionally wealthy Cecilia Henderson. During the course of the coroner’s inquest into the death it emerged that Cecilia had been involved in a scandalous affair with the much older, famous physician Dr. James Gully, whose patients numbered William Gladstone, Lord Tennyson and Charles Darwin. In Fell the Angels, Cranbrook’s mysterious murder is investigated by the brilliant crime detective Duncan Cameron. The novel’s title is taken from Shakespeare’s Henry the VIII: I charge thee, fling away ambition. By that sin fell the angels.

Available Summer 2012

Cardigan Bay

Cardigan Bay


Cardigan Bay opens during 1942: A Year of Crisis. Germany’s armored divisions have swept across the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and France, and control the continent known as Fortress Europe. In Operation Barbarossa, Hitler drives a surprise attack eastward against the Russians. America, drawn into the war after Pearl Harbor, has yet to reach its full military complement. In North Africa, Rommel’s Panzer divisions overrun British positions at Tobruk, taking 25,000 prisoners. Churchill calls it England’s “darkest hour.” In a hospital south of London, Major Charles Davenport recovers from wounds received at Tobruk. In Whitehall, a top-secret operation is underway. Britain’s War Office is hard at work on a plan for the future invasion of the Continent—a plan destined to include Davenport. Across the Irish Sea, a young American widow seeks refuge on Ireland’s eastern shore. MaryKatrin Kennedy has suffered her own wounds—the recent death of her husband and young child. Ireland remains steadfastly neutral in the War, but the island is a battleground nevertheless, home to desperate IRA plotters and German provocateurs. Two separate lives, swept up in a year of crisis, and brought together in Cardigan Bay.

Available for purchase through Corona Publishing Barnes and Noble Amazon

Only a Khaki Shirt

Only a Khaki Shirt


Kerr also co-authored Only A Khaki Shirt, A Memoir of the Pacific War, with his late father, Baine Kerr, who fought in the Pacific during WWII. The Admiral Nimitz Foundation published Only a Khaki Shirt in 2006 and sells the memoir through its bookstore.

Available for purchase through Admiral Nimitz Foundation