Annemieke Waite

'As the Tree Falls' is my first novel, so I am thrilled to be a finalist for the Pageturner Award, and for the novel to be longlisted for the Yeovil Literary Prize 2022.

This novel has been a long time in the making. It was 10 years ago, when while exploring our family tree I discovered my ancestors had been forced to leave their homeland in the Bernese Alps in 1711 and found sanctuary in the Netherlands. Persecution, forced exile and refugees. An age-old story, but today more relevant than ever.

A Dutch national, I lived in many countries before finally settling in the UK, where I now live with my husband, our boomerang children and two dogs. Life's travels have given me a real understanding of the ache for ‘home’, the process of (re-)settling and the need to become part of a new community. It is this sense of longing and belonging that I have tried to capture, as well as the hardship encountered by some of my early ancestors, and all of it seen through the eyes of the strong women I placed at the heart of the novel. Spanning three distinct locations in Switzerland, the Netherlands and Pennsylvania, it covers the period 1709-1720, and although a work of fiction with fictional protagonists, the story is firmly rooted in real-life people, places and events.

Authenticity and doing justice to this remarkable story were always my greatest concerns, and now, after years of painstaking research, there is so much unused material that plans for a prequel and sequel are well under way. I love my novel, and hope anyone reading it will enjoy it as much as I did researching and writing it.