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WORK TITLE: Hotel on Shadow Lake
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.danielatully.com
CITY: Los Angeles
STATE: CA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: German
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2017075318
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2017075318
HEADING: Tully, Daniela
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370 __ |a Germany |e Mexico |e Dubai |e New York (State)
374 __ |a Novelist
670 __ |a Hotel on shadow lake, 2018: |b ECIP t.p. (Daniela Tully) data view (DANIELA TULLY has worked in film and television for decades, including with famed film director Uli Edel. She has been involved in projects such as the critically acclaimed Fair Game, box-office hits Contagion and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, as well as the Oscar-winning The Help. She splits her time between Dubai and New York. This is her first novel)
670 __ |a Legend Press website, viewed Jan. 10, 2018: |b (Daniela was born in Germany, and has lived all over the world, including Mexico, New York and Dubai. As a film-maker she has been involved in projects such as the critically-acclaimed Fair Game, box-office hits Contagion and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, as well as the Oscar-winning The Help. Hotel On Shadow Lake is her first novel)
PERSONAL
Born in Bielefeld, Germany; married.
EDUCATION:Holds a master’s degree; studied in Australia.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, novelist, network executive, educator, producer, and filmmaker. Middlesex University Dubai, member of faculty. Worked as head of script development for a film production company in Munich, Germany and as a network executive of original programming at a German private network. Worked in the United Arab Emirates to develop the country’s film industry. Worked with director Uli Edel. Worked on film projects such as Fair Game, Contagion, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and The Help.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Daniela Tully is a German writer, novelist, filmmaker, and film producer. While still a film student, she worked with German film and television director Uli Edel, traveling to film production locations all over the world. She has spent decades in the film industry, working in such positions as the head of script development for a Munich-based film company and as a network executive in charge of original programming for a German private network. She has played a major role in the development of the film industry in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Tully holds a master’s degree in English literature and linguistics.
In an autobiography on the Daniela Tully website, Tully observed that, although she is grateful for her career in film, the “art of story telling in film making can be compromised by the number of cooks in the kitchen.” In response, “I sat down one day and started writing my own story,” she stated on her website. The result of that determination to be the only one in charge of a story was her debut novel, Hotel on Shadow Lake.
The inspiration for the story in the novel came from an incident involving her grandmother, extending all the way back to World War II. In an interview on the website My Novel Life, Tully stated, “A crucial moment in my grandmother’s life inspired me to write this novel: she had a twin brother, a German fighter plane pilot, who died during WWII. As he felt his death nearing, he wrote a farewell letter to my grandmother and their mother, at the end of 1944. That letter, however, was held up in the East, when the Berlin Wall was erected, and only reached my grandmother in 1990, after the Wall had come down. Forty-six years after his death!” The emotional impact of that letter on her grandmother, and on Tully herself, gave her the idea for her first book.
In Hotel on Shadow Lake, Martha Wiesberg receives a letter from her long-dead brother, one that had been stopped by the Berlin Wall. The letter, received in 1990, inspires memories of 1938, when Martha, her brother, and her brother’s friend Siegfried were together in Hitler’s Germany. Shortly after receiving the letter in 1990, Martha disappears. The narrative then moves to 2017, when Martha’s granddaughter Maya receives word that Martha’s remains have been discovered in a forest in upstate New York, near where the older woman lived for a time. Maya immediately heads out to look into the matter and recover her grandmother’s remains. As Maya finds out more about her grandmother and the events from World War II, she realizes that her long-dead ancestors were harboring startling secrets. A Publishers Weekly writer remarked, “this is a story about murder, greed, love (won then lost), and, above all, intrigue.” A contributor to the website Advocate of Books commented that Tully has “written a novel which encapsulates the pain, heartache and the power of love and determination that endured despite the war and long after it.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
GulfNews Expresss, June 26, 2018, Sapna Dhanwani, “Thirty Seconds with Daniela Tully.”
Publishers Weekly. February 12, 2018, review of Hotel on Shadow Lake, p. 55.
ONLINE
Advocate of Books blog, https://advocateofbooks.wordpress.com/ (February 21, 2018), review of Hotel on Shadow Lake.
Daniela Tully website, http://www.danielatully.com (July 29, 2018).
Historical Novel Society, https://www.historicalnovelsociety.org/ (June 29, 2018), review of Hotel on Shadow Lake.
Macmillan website, http://us.macmillan.com/ (June 29, 2018), biography of Daniela Tully.
My Novel Life, http://www.mynovellife.com/ (April 11, 2018), “Q&A with Daniela Tully, Author of Hotel on Shadow Lake.“
Nudge Book, https://www.nudge-book.com/ (January 24, 2018), Gill Chedgey, review of Hotel on Shadow Lake.
Pontas Copyright Agency website, http://www.pontas-agency.com/ (June 29, 2018), biography of Daniela Tully.
ABOUT ME
Since early childhood I have dreamt of exploring the world outside of my birthplace, the mid-sized city of Bielefeld in Germany. Too young to yet fulfil my wanderlust, I escaped into the world of storytelling, and - as soon as I was able to read - was always seen with a novel plastered in front of my face. In fact, for many years, I wanted to become a librarian. Instead, I chose a different path and dove into the world of audio-visual storytelling: first, with film making. I began my career working with famed director Uli Edel while completing my film studies, which allowed me to work on sets all over the world. Once I met my husband, on one of those films, I settled down in Munich for a while, and first became head of script development at a film production company in Munich, and then a network executive of original programming at one of Germany’s major private networks. After this I moved to the United Arab Emirates, where I had been hired to help develop the country’s film industry. Through our company’s partnerships with Hollywood, I was involved in projects such as the critically-acclaimed Fair Game, box-office hits Contagion and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, as well as the Oscar-winning The Help. However, as nice as it is to be able to include these titles on my resume, I sometimes felt, especially with other films I produced, that the art of story telling in film making can be compromised by the number of cooks in the kitchen. And so I sat down one day and started writing my own story, the first of many to come.
DANIELA TULLY has worked in film and television for decades, including with famed film director Uli Edel. She has been involved in projects such as the critically-acclaimed Fair Game, box-office hits Contagion and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, as well as the Oscar-winning The Help. She splits her time between Dubai and New York. Inspired by a real family letter received forty-six years late, Hotel on Shadow Lake is Daniela Tully's first novel.
Daniela Tully
Daniela Tully has been working in the field of story telling for decades, mainly in film and television. She began her career working with famed film director Uli Edel while completing her film studies, went on to become head of script development at a major film production company in Munich, and then moved on to one of Germany’s major private networks. After this she moved to the United Arab Emirates, where she had been hired to help develop the country’s film industry. She has been involved in projects such as the critically-acclaimed Fair Game, box-office hits Contagion and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, as well as the Oscar-winning The Help.
NEWS
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June 26, 2018
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NEWSLIFE & STYLECOURTS & CRIME SPORTPICTURESFOLLOW XPRESS ON TWITTER
30 seconds with Daniela Tully
filmmaker and faculty member, Middlesex University Dubai, on her debut novel Hotel on Shadow Lake
Image Credit: Supplied
Daniela Tully
Published: 16:34 February 21, 2018 XPRESS
By Sapna Dhanwani, STAFF REPORTER
What inspired you to write the book?
My grandmother had a twin brother, a German fighter pilot, who died during WWII. He wrote a farewell letter to my grandmother, towards the end of 1944. That letter, however, was held up in the East, when the Berlin Wall was erected – and it only reached my grandmother in 1990… 46 years after his death. I had just returned home from school when I found my grandmother sitting at our kitchen table, her eyes swollen from crying. I was 14, we had barely touched on the Second World War in my history class. But I will always remember Adolf Hitler looking at me from that crumpled envelope, yellowed with age. This is what the book is about and a lot more.
How does the book connect with the present generation?
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I think what essentially creates relevance for the young is that it brings back memories from a lost generation. Both the main characters, the protagonist Maya, who is in the past and the heroine Martha, who is in the present, are identifiable for younger readers.
Will there be a follow-up project?
I didn’t think of that while writing my first book, but I am now looking forward to going down that road one more time.
Where’s the book available?
The book can be bought online on Amazon or in Magrudy’s.
Q&A with Daniela Tully, Author of Hotel on Shadow Lake
April 11, 2018 - Allison
hotel on shadow lake
In acclaimed film producer Daniela Tully’s debut novel HOTEL ON SHADOW LAKE , one woman will risk it all to investigate her grandmother’s disappearance, discovering a deeper, darker mystery than she had ever imagined.
What inspired you to write this story?
A crucial moment in my grandmother’s life inspired me to write this novel: she had a twin brother, a German fighter plane pilot, who died during WWII. As he felt his death nearing, he wrote a farewell letter to my grandmother and their mother, at the end of 1944. That letter, however, was held up in the East, when the Berlin Wall was erected, and only reached my grandmother in 1990, after the Wall had come down. Forty-six years after his death! I still remember coming home that day, to find my grandmother at our kitchen table, sobbing, in her hand a letter yellowed with age, Adolf Hitler looking sternly at me from an old stamp. I still have the letter. It is heart wrenching. The letter in my novel, however, contains much more than just a “simple” good bye (the reader doesn’t learn the content until the end).
The book takes place in Germany and America. Have you spent time in Germany? What inspired you to make this an international novel?
Thank you for this question! I AM German, and German is my first language. I hold a masters degree in English literature and linguistics. I spent a year studying inn Australia, worked for several years on international film sets with English speaking crews, and on one of those I met my American husband – who introduced me to the Hudson Valley, the setting for my present day plot strand!
I asked my literary agent, Anna Soler Ponts, back then if I should write the novel in English or German and she told me that I should write in a language that I feel most comfortable in but that, of course, English would be easier for an international launch. So I tried – and found out that after years of developing English scripts I did feel pretty proficient.
The Germans, my people, haven’t even bought the rights yet, even though half of the novel takes place in Germany! At first I didn’t want to set part of the plot in the past, in 1938. I don’t identify with that part of German history anymore. I’ve grown tired of it, but then I realized that I needed to write about it. That we needed to know what happened to the recipient of the letter, to get to know Martha in her youth. I surely have never regretted it!
I loved writing about it, also because I found yet another new angle on WWII, but I cannot mention this here in detail as it would give away one of the twists! I have been blessed with many positive reviews already, and the international readers really love the plot strand set during the Third Reich.
While Germans might think that I am not telling anything new, the readers outside Germany do. Most of the stories that have had international coverage tell the Jewish side. Mine doesn’t. When Maya finds out her grandmother’s remains have been found in the USA, of all places, a country she had no connection with whatsoever, I felt I had to bridge the ocean between the two countries. And after all, I also bridged that ocean when I married my husband, didn’t I?
hotel on shadow lake
This story is about unrequited love. Do you believe in soul mates?
I absolutely believe in soul mates. Some are too afraid to stay alone forever, but others will only settle for their soul mate, and nobody else. I found my soul mate, and I am so very grateful for him!
What are you reading right now?
I just finished the The Perfect Nanny by Leila Sliman and The Woman in the Window by A.J.Finn. And I just started reading The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Settefield.
What authors have influenced or inspired you?
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, for his magic realism. Carlos Ruiz Zafón, for similarreasons, Jojo Moyes and Kate Morton. For atmosphere and suspense, I love Jennifer McMahon’s novels!
Since most of your career has been in television, why did you decide to make the transition to writing fiction?
Even when I worked in television I dealt with fiction. In fact, my department was called German Fiction – a drama department where we developed dailies, series, and TV movies. There, I made my first suspense film, a ghost story based on a Northern German folk legend.
I then worked for an Abu Dhabi based film company which had partnerships with some of the best production companies in the world, like Participant Media, and I got closer to features. I’ve spent years working in script development, but I always “delegated” the writing itself to others.
This was a big leap, the leap to write myself. And I enjoy it immensely. As opposed to the US, where a lot of the feature scripts are written on spec, in Europe, development is a big part when it comes to drama production. Expose, treatment, first draft, second draft, ….hundredth draft, shooting script. This is, however, like writing a manual for a story, unfortunately. It kills the original flow right in its germ.
How long did it take you to write Hotel on Shadow Lake?
I wrote the first chapter in 2012. Then I stopped for a year, because of work. Then I got pregnant and picked it up again, and worked on it especially during the first year after giving birth. The biggest chunk I wrote in one go on a two week holiday in Morocco, on a road trip with a friend. Moving, traveling, on
trains, planes, that gets me going.
Are you working on anything right now? Can we expect a follow-up novel anytime soon?
Yes, I am writing a thriller set in Dubai, where I currently reside. It will have similar elements of this novel, stories within a story, dual narrative.
As a new author, what has been your favorite part of the writing/publishing process?
I had no idea how the novel will reach its end. I knew beginning and end, but nothing in between! I always thought that one HAD to know the whole story before you start writing. Also that thinking came from my experience in script development.
Once I threw that idea out, it all began to fall into place. I always thought it was cliché when a writer spoke about that moment when a character told you what he or she would do, and not the other way around. But it IS true! And I LOVE this moment. When it all takes on a natural flow and the laptop calls you, and you HAVE to write and get it all out!
Thanks to Daniela for answering my questions!
Print Marked Items
Hotel on Shadow Lake
Publishers Weekly.
265.7 (Feb. 12, 2018): p55+.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Hotel on Shadow Lake
Daniela Tully. St. Martin's/Dunne, $26.99
(256p) ISBN 978-1-250-12696-2
Tully's first novel, an intricate read-it-in-one-sitting mystery-cum-family saga, spans a hundred years, two continents, and two world wars. In
Munich on German Unity Day in 1990, septuagenarian Martha Wiesberg receives a letter that was trapped behind the Berlin Wall for more than
four decades. The words of her long-dead twin brother triggers events that lead to her sudden disappearance. In 2017, Maya Wiesberg, a reclusive
Munich independent bookstore owner, learns that the body of her beloved grandmother, Martha, has been unearthed in an upstate New York
forest preserve. Maya drops everything to investigate the mysterious death. She reserves a room at a resort hotel that lies amid the splendor of that
New York forest, where Martha undoubtedly spent her last days. Told from the point of view of three central characters--and including its own
fairy tale--this is a story about murder, greed, love (won then lost), and, above all, intrigue. Readers will be eager to see what Tully, who has
worked in film and TV for many years, comes up with next. Agent: Anna Soler Pontas, Pontas Literary Agency (Spain). (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Hotel on Shadow Lake." Publishers Weekly, 12 Feb. 2018, p. 55+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A528615476/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=b3e68477. Accessed 26 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A528615476
Hotel on Shadow Lake
BY DANIELA TULLY
Find & buy on
The novel begins with Martha Wiesberg in 1990. This part is quite brief, and the action immediately jumps back in time to the same character in 1938. She is in Hitler’s Germany with all the tension, fear and uncertainty this era contains. Martha’s twin brother has been seduced by Nazi propaganda, and his enigmatic blond Aryan poster boy friend, Siegfried, seems to be cut from the same cloth. Nevertheless, Martha is drawn to Siegfried, but all is not as it seems.
There is another jump in time, to her granddaughter, Maya, in 2017. Her grandmother disappeared some years ago, and now remains have been discovered in the US near where Maya lived for a time. She travels out to investigate, conquering her fear of flying to do so. It is a case of murder, and despite dire warnings to not meddle with the case alone, Maya does just that. Her life is complicated further by the appearance of love interest, Ben, whose family secrets may just be connected to the mysterious death of Martha, so far from her home.
The different settings are clearly conveyed, and the theme of family secrets is an interesting one that draws the reader in, making them want to unravel the mystery.
FEBRUARY 21, 2018JADEKMOORE
BLOG TOUR: Hotel on Shadow Lake – Daniela Tully
Published February 1st 2018 by Legend Press
Author: Daniela Tully
Format: Paperback (I read an uncorrected proof copy from Legend Press)
Genre: Historical fiction, mystery
Pages: 291
Star rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Opening line:
“Martha Wiesberg was a woman of strict routine: Sunday, church; Monday, lunch with her neighbor; Tuesday, book club; Wednesday, laundry press; Thursday, aerobics – all at exactly the same time each week.
Synopsis:
When Maya was a girl, her grandmother was everything to her: teller of magical fairy tales, surrogate mother, best friend. Then her grandmother disappeared without a trace, leaving Maya with only questions to fill the void.
Twenty-seven years later, her grandmother’s body is found in a place she had no connection to. Desperate for answers, Maya begins to unravel secrets that go back decades, from 1910s New York to 1930s Germany and beyond.
But when she begins to find herself spinning her own lies in order to uncover what happened, she must decide whether her life, and a chance at love, are worth risking for the truth.
My review
Sometimes the best stories are the ones we didn’t know we’d end up telling. Hotel on Shadow Lake is inspired by a true encounter in Daniela Tully’s life – when her Grandmother received a farewell letter from her twin brother 46 years after it was written. Tully has taken this, and written a novel which encapsulates the pain, heartache and the power of love and determination that endured despite the war and long after it.
Martha Wiesberg is the character inspired by, and named after. Tully’s own grandmother, and it’s at the beginning of the novel that she receives the letter which turns her strict, routine life upside down. The sheer significance of this letter isn’t clear at the start of the novel, only that it’s very late on arrival and is the final correspondence she will have with her twin brother. We don’t get to read the letter, and instead we hop back in time to meet Martha as a much younger girl, and it’s from there that the story begins to unfold.
There are a few time frames in this novel: We begin in 1990, then jump back to 1938. Next, we find ourselves in the present, 2017, with Maya as our main character. Maya in Martha’s granddaughter, and we quickly realise that she is tied up in a family mystery: her grandmother disappeared years ago and she doesn’t know what happened – but she is determined to find out.
“GRANDMOTHER HAD BEEN HER MOTHER WHEN MAYA’S OWN HAD REJECTED HER. GRANDMOTHER HAD BEEN HER FRIEND WHEN THE OTHER KIDS HAD BULLIED HER. GRANDMOTHER HAD MEANT LIFE TO HER.
This plot is so intricately woven, that after reading the entire book, I feel like I need to go back to the beginning to re-read the first few chapters in light of what I’ve discovered on my journey with Maya. Everything is significant, even if it doesn’t seem so at the time. I’m not usually into family drama or historical fiction, but Tully has made it the perfect combination to tell this story, and has woven in a wonderful, timeless romance.
The book starts of by making us curious, then frightened for Maya. She travels to the Montgomery Hotel, where she knows her grandmother spent her final days. She doesn’t know the connection, but it’s her determination to find out that kept me reading. I wanted to know what happened just as much as she did. Tully manages to give away just enough at any given moment, and discoveries are made through items such as a booklet from the library, and letters that re-surface. There’s also a fairy-tale, which we get to read in full, that was told to Maya by Martha, and which she now holds dear as the last thing she has of her grandmother.
For me, I wasn’t blown away by the fairy-tale. After reading it, I didn’t find it to have the level of charm and significance that was given to it as a story. I can see the message in it, but I think the most important role the fairy-tale had to play was being a story between only Martha and Maya, a secret only they are in on. Or so Maya thinks. I liked it more as a plot device than a standalone story.
The family drama aspect is complex at times, and I found myself getting confused with who each member of the Montgomery family was, but towards the end this becomes a lot clearer. And there was a definite moment of ‘ohhhh’ when I realised just who one character really was. I thought it was brilliant, and from that point on the book found it’s crescendo and everything I’d read previously started to fit nicely into place as a whole, rather than a fragmented mystery.
At its core, this is a love story. It’s a story of family history, and of a love that refuses to die.
Link to the book on Goodreads: Hotel on Shadow Lake
About the author
Daniela-Tully-web
Daniela Tully has been working in the field of storytelling for decades, mainly in film and television. She has been involved in projects such as the critically-acclaimed Fair Game, box-office hits Contagion and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, as well as the Oscar-winning The Help. She currently lives in Dubai.
Read an extract from the book here: Hotel on Shadow Lake extract
Hotel on Shadow Lake by Daniela Tully
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Review published on January 24, 2018.
This novel is a debut work from an erstwhile film producer. Not surprisingly there are some visual elements to the story and it has many of the hallmarks of a debut novel encompassing what I always like to call debut novel exuberance syndrome. Starting the book I was both tantalised and confused in equal measure; the blurb references Maya and her grandmother with no mention of lakes, hotels and shadows. The prologue of no more than a paragraph introduces us to Maya. But the main commencement of the book acquaints us with Martha. And this, what I would call ‘patchiness’ for want of a better word, pervades the whole book. There is a dual narrative between Maya and Martha but that was interspersed with other letters, diaries and stories all fundamental to the plot but their inclusion rendered the narrative overall as a little staccato. Gosh, I sound like I’m being overly critical don’t I? I would prefer to call it being honest though because I celebrate and appreciate the debut novel.
I enjoyed the story very much and where the book demonstrated the strength and potential of its writer was in the straightforward passages of narration and story telling. Initially there seemed to be a tentative feel to her words almost as if she couldn’t quite believe she was writing a novel. The passages where Ms. Tully really gets into her stride allows the words, the plot and the characters to flow with ease and there were sections of the story that were quite unputdownable and I couldn’t wait to find out what happened. Events did seem a little tangled at times and I did get a bit lost with some of the family members.
One could compartmentalise it as historical fiction and applaud the research but it is also a human tale of standing up for beliefs, overcoming obstacles and persisting in the search for truth. There’s a mystery to be solved with some complexities that aren’t always convincing. And there’s some pleasing word pictures painted that might hint of some celluloid promise for the future.
With this one book under her belt I’m sure Daniela Tully can look forward to developing and progressing as a writer and hopefully offering her readers further entertainment.
Gill Chedgey 3/3
Hotel on Shadow Lake by Daniela Tully
Legend Press 9781787198890 pbk Feb 2018