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Welcome to the official website of ChriS Humphreys
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New Edition of SOMEDAY I'LL FIND YOU published on January 7th 2025 in Canada...
(As a celebration I'd like to offer my readers the original opening chapter. This was a classic case of what we writers call 'Kill Your Darlings': a piece of writing you love, but doesn't quite fit. Click HERE to read it.)
When Billy Coke steps onto the streets of London one December evening in 1940, he has no idea he is stepping to his fate. As Hitler’s bombers come close to burning the city down, Billy meets the woman who will change the course of his life: Ilse Magnusson, a musician from Norway, but also something more – a spy in training. Escaping the Blitz for three days, she and Billy drive, quarrel, conceal, reveal and fall finally, fully, in love.
Now they must part, each to fight the war their own way. Billy, a Canadian-British Spitfire pilot, to duel with the Luftwaffe over North Africa and the Med. Ilse to return to her conquered country, ingratiate herself with the Nazi elite – which includes her beloved father – and send vital intelligence back to Britain.
They know that the odds of both of them surviving are poor. All they can hope is that the other does survive – and that someday they find each other again.
From decadent pre-war Berlin to the atrocity at Guernica, from dogfights over Sicily to an Oslo ground under the German jackboot, through small victories and bitter losses, this is the story of a man and a woman at war. A tale of causes and compromises, heroism, and betrayal. Of choices made, with consequences unforeseen. And finally how sometimes . . . love can give you a second chance.
Six weeks in the Globe and Mail's Top Ten for Canadian Fiction. Got some nice write ups too!
"A nuanced portrait, tenderly drawn, of two devoted characters who do their part in the fight against fascism, their abiding love for each other sustaining them." —The Toronto Star
"Unputdownable. . . . A beautifully written, riveting, deeply moving novel about a man and a woman at war. . . . Someday I’ll Find You has a very cinematic feel to it, I thought, the dialogue pitch-perfect and propulsive. . . . [Humphreys is] one of the best writers of historical fiction in the business." --The Humm
Available in ebook or print EVERYWHERE! With the terrific cover below:
TO BUY:
Canadian Shopper? Buy HERE
International shopper? Available at your fave online shop. Click HERE
(As a celebration I'd like to offer my readers the original opening chapter. This was a classic case of what we writers call 'Kill Your Darlings': a piece of writing you love, but doesn't quite fit. Click HERE to read it.)
When Billy Coke steps onto the streets of London one December evening in 1940, he has no idea he is stepping to his fate. As Hitler’s bombers come close to burning the city down, Billy meets the woman who will change the course of his life: Ilse Magnusson, a musician from Norway, but also something more – a spy in training. Escaping the Blitz for three days, she and Billy drive, quarrel, conceal, reveal and fall finally, fully, in love.
Now they must part, each to fight the war their own way. Billy, a Canadian-British Spitfire pilot, to duel with the Luftwaffe over North Africa and the Med. Ilse to return to her conquered country, ingratiate herself with the Nazi elite – which includes her beloved father – and send vital intelligence back to Britain.
They know that the odds of both of them surviving are poor. All they can hope is that the other does survive – and that someday they find each other again.
From decadent pre-war Berlin to the atrocity at Guernica, from dogfights over Sicily to an Oslo ground under the German jackboot, through small victories and bitter losses, this is the story of a man and a woman at war. A tale of causes and compromises, heroism, and betrayal. Of choices made, with consequences unforeseen. And finally how sometimes . . . love can give you a second chance.
Six weeks in the Globe and Mail's Top Ten for Canadian Fiction. Got some nice write ups too!
"A nuanced portrait, tenderly drawn, of two devoted characters who do their part in the fight against fascism, their abiding love for each other sustaining them." —The Toronto Star
"Unputdownable. . . . A beautifully written, riveting, deeply moving novel about a man and a woman at war. . . . Someday I’ll Find You has a very cinematic feel to it, I thought, the dialogue pitch-perfect and propulsive. . . . [Humphreys is] one of the best writers of historical fiction in the business." --The Humm
Available in ebook or print EVERYWHERE! With the terrific cover below:
TO BUY:
Canadian Shopper? Buy HERE
International shopper? Available at your fave online shop. Click HERE
And if you need a little more persuading to click on the above: this FABULOUS REVIEW just in from amazing historical novelist Genevieve Graham ('On Isabella Street') in July 2025 Globe and Mail:
"From the opening page, I was in 1940, in Europe, in the middle of the war, breathing real history and living alongside characters I both adored and despised. I read it twice, then I read it out loud to my husband – something we do on vacations – and he demanded I read one particular chapter three times because it was so enthralling. And it wasn’t a short chapter! I know that if I were to pick up the book right now and start again, I would be just as engaged. It really should be made into a movie, except a movie could never do it justice. “I am a romantic. I thrive on adventure and romance, but in order for a story to steal my heart, it has to be believable and deeply consequential. Someday I’ll Find You is loosely based on Chris’s parents – his mother was a spy and his father was a pilot – which made it even more meaningful. Chris’s gift, I think, is partially in how he can make his characters so courageous, and yet entirely vulnerable at the same time. Then there’s the impeccable research, the natural dialogue and his descriptive genius – just enough, never too much."
"From the opening page, I was in 1940, in Europe, in the middle of the war, breathing real history and living alongside characters I both adored and despised. I read it twice, then I read it out loud to my husband – something we do on vacations – and he demanded I read one particular chapter three times because it was so enthralling. And it wasn’t a short chapter! I know that if I were to pick up the book right now and start again, I would be just as engaged. It really should be made into a movie, except a movie could never do it justice. “I am a romantic. I thrive on adventure and romance, but in order for a story to steal my heart, it has to be believable and deeply consequential. Someday I’ll Find You is loosely based on Chris’s parents – his mother was a spy and his father was a pilot – which made it even more meaningful. Chris’s gift, I think, is partially in how he can make his characters so courageous, and yet entirely vulnerable at the same time. Then there’s the impeccable research, the natural dialogue and his descriptive genius – just enough, never too much."
TWENTY YEARS! IMPOSSIBLE!
And yet it's true. My first novel was published in 2002.
I'd always thought I'd stop with one. You know, ticked that box in my life's journey. Now its 20 years later - and I've written 21 more novels!
Wild! But it is so wonderful to revisit my first child - commission new art from the amazing Robert Edmonds, do a new foreword... even correct some errors (who knew they didn't invent telescopes till 1608? Well, I didn't obviously!)
I hope I can welcome back some old readers for another journey - and some new ones for what is still, truly, the wildest of rides.
Click on the cover and begin!
And yet it's true. My first novel was published in 2002.
I'd always thought I'd stop with one. You know, ticked that box in my life's journey. Now its 20 years later - and I've written 21 more novels!
Wild! But it is so wonderful to revisit my first child - commission new art from the amazing Robert Edmonds, do a new foreword... even correct some errors (who knew they didn't invent telescopes till 1608? Well, I didn't obviously!)
I hope I can welcome back some old readers for another journey - and some new ones for what is still, truly, the wildest of rides.
Click on the cover and begin!
JACK'S BACK!
(Except not yet!)
BREAKING NEWS!
I've just done a deal with Sapere, a London Publisher, to reissue all the Jack Absolute novels over the next year, concluding with the NEW JACK: 'THE RESURRECTION OF JACK ABSOLUTE' which is the sequel to the very first novel, 'JACK ABSOLUTE'.
So you'll soom be able to read for the first time, or read again, what the Good Book Guide UK called:
“The finest series of historical novels since Patrick O’Brian.”
Just not yet. I'll let you know soon.
Meantime, if you can't wait to enter the Absolute Universe then you can to ease into it, with the 'The Birth of Jack Absolute', a novella, available to you, in ebook and audio... HERE
(Except not yet!)
BREAKING NEWS!
I've just done a deal with Sapere, a London Publisher, to reissue all the Jack Absolute novels over the next year, concluding with the NEW JACK: 'THE RESURRECTION OF JACK ABSOLUTE' which is the sequel to the very first novel, 'JACK ABSOLUTE'.
So you'll soom be able to read for the first time, or read again, what the Good Book Guide UK called:
“The finest series of historical novels since Patrick O’Brian.”
Just not yet. I'll let you know soon.
Meantime, if you can't wait to enter the Absolute Universe then you can to ease into it, with the 'The Birth of Jack Absolute', a novella, available to you, in ebook and audio... HERE
