Love story: Corinne Simon-Duneau reveals how book became best-seller

ATLANTA, Ga. – The August issue of the free online Southern Review of Books newsletter features an interview by editor Noel Griese with California author Corinne Simon-Duneau about her work, and the work of her late husband, novelist and screenwriter Trevor Meldal-Johnsen.
Meldal-Johnson was a newsman from New Zealand who moved to Hollywood and wrote a number of books, including the classic romance Always, which sold more than a million copies with Avon, and was then made into the movie “Déjà vu.” Simon-Duneau was a French fiction writer and journalist who, like

Meldal-Johnsen, moved to the United States.
The love story of Meldal-Johnson and Simon-Duneau began in the early 1990s. They met in the United States and married soon after. Together, they toured much of the world, and produced a commemorative hardback edition of Always before Trevor died in 2003.
According to Simon-Duneau, when Always was first published, Meldal-Johnsen received hundreds of letters from his readers, many inspired by the idea that love never dies. The majority asked where he got the idea of past lives.
He replied to all of the letters, but when the special edition of Always was published, he wrote an afterword explaining his beliefs and the reasons for them. He says in the afterword that past lives are not so much a “belief” as a personal experience.
Meldal-Johnsen began looking for answers to the subject of spirituality in India, in Nepal, in the Vedas and the writings of the Gnostics and other spiritual works. Meldal-Johnsen was one of the first to popularize the subject of past lives and reincarnation in the Western world.
Since the death of Meldal-Johnsen, Simon-Duneau has resumed her own writing.
As for how she’s acclimated to life in the United States, she told the Southern Review, “I love America. It’s a beautiful country, so much SPACE. And people are friendly and easy to work with. You can’t say the same of the French. They’re funny but can get ratty. When I first came here I was a tour guide for French speaking tourists. They were ratty too at times. They didn’t like the food.”
The Southern Review of Books is a monthly publication of Anvil Publishers, an Atlanta-based newsletter and book publisher.