Early 1942: the fate of the Suez Canal and access to Middle East oil hangs on the fate of an island just 17 miles long by 9 miles wide: Malta.
Determined to destroy the British forces threatening Rommel’s supply lines, the Axis powers drop more bombs on Malta than London endured throughout the Blitz. The population is forced underground, while the RAF struggles with inadequate resources to fend off defeat. Meanwhile, Britain’s Atlantic lifeline is fraying....
Voices on the Wind follows the fate of four of Malta’s defenders: Senior Intelligence Officer and former Battle of Britain ace, W/Cdr “Robin” Priestman; WAAF SigInt Officer Candice Weld, sent out from Bletchley Park to “man” the only X-machine outside the UK; F/O “Ned” Nettleton, a Beaufort torpedo bomber pilot engaged in suicidal attacks against enemy shipping; and Chief Officer Stevie Mackay of the British Merchant Navy, fighting to keep Britain’s own lines of supply open.
✨ Praise ✨
What emerges from these pages is more than a story of military operations. It is a portrait of service, endurance, and sacrifice viewed through multiple perspectives, each contributing to a richer understanding of a critical moment in history.
Yarde Book Promotions
Through a collective of narrators working in different areas of the war effort, mainly in and around Malta, "Voices on the Wind" by Helena P. Schrader explores a frequently overlooked aspect of history, delving into the defence of Malta during the Second World War.
The Coffee Pot Book Club
1. What inspired you to write this story, and what drew you to this particular historical period?
I come from the generation whose parents lived through the Second World War and one of my uncles was the navigator of an RAF Halifax that was shot down over Berlin; WWII was part of my indirect experience. In graduate school, I stumbled over references to the German Resistance and became so fascinated by an ethnical — as opposed to national — resistance movement that I went on to earn a PhD in History from the University of Hamburg with a ground-breaking biographical dissertation on a leading member of the Resistance to Hitler. Later, I published a novel based on my academic research. So, the Second World War was always in my blood.
Because I also loved aviation, I published a comparative study of women pilots in WWII and an account of the Berlin Airlift, but both of those books were non-fiction. My first novel on the Second World War was my Battle of Britain novel. This, by pure chance, fell into the hands of one of the few surviving RAF Battle of Britain aces, Wing Commander Bob Doe. He contacted me to say it was ‘the best book on the Battle of Britain’ that he had ever seen. He added: ‘Refreshingly, it got it smack on the way it was for us fighter pilots.’ To me, hearing from a veteran of the Battle, that I’d managed to capture the atmosphere was worth more than a thousand sales. It was the proof that I had an affinity with this era and was able to write about it well.
Not that it is the only period I’ve been drawn to or written about. I’ve written six novels set in Ancient Sparta and eight set in the Crusades Era. My novel about the destruction of the Knights Templar won the IndieReader Discovery Award for Fiction 2026. But I always come back to the Second World War as if it is home.
Malta attracted me because I have a home on a Greek island that lies less than 500 miles almost due East of Malta. Landscape, vegetation, climate, waters are very similar. While my island was insignificant compared to Malta’s layered history, the islands share some overall developments and I felt a strong affinity fr Malta from the first time I visited. In addition, the war in these waters seemed largely forgotten, and I wanted to correct that a little. Besides, sometimes it seemed as if voices were carried on the prevailing westerly winds….
2. How would you describe your book in a sentence to readers who haven’t discovered it yet?
An air assault a hundred times heavier than the London Blitz threatens to break the resistance of the British in Malta and enable the Axis Powers to seize Suez and Middle Eastern Oil; Voices on the Wind is story of four of Malta's defenders.
3. How much research went into the novel, and did you uncover anything surprising along the way?
I don’t know how to quantify research. This book is the sixth book about the RAF in WWII, so it builds on the research I did for Where Eagles Never Flew, Moral Fibre etc. The specific research on the siege of Malta, torpedo bombers, the Y-Service, and the British Merchant Navy in this period amounted to roughly 12 to 18 months of reading — histories, memoirs, novels — watching documentaries, going to Museums, and visiting Malta twice.
4. How do you balance historical accuracy with creating an engaging story?
History offers the most amazing stories! The siege of Malta alone could give rise to a thousand novels. Indeed, a good novelist could probably turn the biography of everyone who lived through this dramatic episode of history into a thrilling or a moving or insightful novel. We don’t have to change history to create engaging stories. The best and most engaging stories are based on historical/biographical events.
I’m a fanatic about accuracy and authenticity really. Which means that while I use fictional characters and hence fictional dialogue, their actions, attitudes and fates are largely based on actual events. That said, in order to weave together four plotlines, I occasionally found it useful to move historical events marginally forward or backwards, but I provide a historical note at the end that flags deviations from the historical record and highlights those historical facts that may seem invented.
5. Which character was the most interesting or challenging for you to write, and why?
Those are two different questions!
The most interesting character is Ned. OK. To be fair, Robin’s terribly interesting, too, but I’ve written about him before in my Battle of Britain novel, Where Eagles Never Flew, and in my Berlin Airlift Trilogy, Bridge to Tomorrow. So, effectively, I know him so well he’s not intriguing anymore. Ned, however, was the man who inspired this book, and it’s because I wanted to understand him better that I embarked upon the project. What triggered everything was seeing the photo on the cover after three years of seeing a very different picture of him. Suddenly, I grasped what a transformation he’d undergone, and I felt that journey needed to be depicted. I’m just not sure if I’m going to succeed.
The most challenging character, on the other hand, was Stevie. I came very close to removing him from the novel altogether. I wanted a Merchant Navy plot line because of the supreme importance of the Merchant Navy in the relief of Malta — and because I’ve served in the Merchant Navy and it was a vital but almost universally overlooked participant in WWII. But Stevie was shy and hard to pull out of the sea mists. The scenes at sea seemed to work, but his core character remained elusive. I tried to give him a love-story that went bad, but my test readers disliked her so much that she was dragging him down. Finally, one of them said: “Ditch Rosemary” — so I pulled the break with her forward in the plot and used the space to develop some of Stevie’s shipmates more fully.
6. Did the story or any characters evolve in unexpected ways while you were writing?
When I conceived of this book in the abstract, I thought the female protagonist would be tough WAAF officer, focused on her job to the point of being abrasive. I saw her a woman who’d had to fight for recognition, expected prejudice, and was not afraid to put men in their place. I saw her as someone who derived satisfaction from doing her job and viewed relationships as an unrewarding distraction. I presumed her character arc would be about her softening, becoming more feminine and opening her heart.
When I sat down to write the first scene with her, she just wasn’t like that at all! She was so much more complex, more vulnerable, more confused — so much better than my stereotype!
7. What does your writing process look like—are you a planner or do you prefer to write freely?
A little of both. I’m very tied to the historical record, which means that history always provides the skeleton or framework of my books. Building on that, however, I try to give my characters as much leeway as possible. I want them to take the lead and show me their story. In practical terms, I have an outline with key events that I want to include (and the dates they occurred), and I have a one-liner of how I envisage the characters participating or responding to events. When I sit down to write, however, it’s mostly about letting the creative energy flow through me and allowing my characters to dictate to me what they want me to record of their thoughts and actions. This often takes place in phases, however. I generally write the actions/plot first, and then add on the thoughts and feelings.
8. What do you hope readers will feel or take away after finishing your book?
My motto as a novelist is: “Understanding ourselves by understanding the past.” What I mean is that my novels are as much about today as they are about the past. This book isn’t about “Malta in World War Two,” it is about the many faces of courage, ambition, duty, sacrifice — and about the price of survival. I hope the novel will remind each of us to recognize the debts we owe to others — most especially to the dead — and inspire readers to read more, especially history and historical fiction!
9. If you could step into the world of your novel for a day, what would you most want to experience?
Either the “glorious 10th of May” or the arrival of the Ohio on Aug.15, 1942 — which in my novel doesn’t occur until book two. In short, one of the two decisive victories.
10. Just for fun—if your book were adapted into a film, who would you love to see in the cast? 🎬
I’m sorry, but I’m so out of touch with cinema nowadays that I haven’t a clue! Maybe your readers could make suggestions to me!
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