Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for ASYLUM by Tamera Lawrence on this Blackthorn Book Tour.
Below you will find an about the book section, my book review and an about the author section. Enjoy!
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About the Book
Like all children living at Rose Hill Asylum, Kyle Hampton wanted freedom from the abusive staff and violent residents. When at nine he was adopted into a loving family, he left his younger brother behind and didn’t look back. Twenty-eight years later, his choices have returned to haunt him.
Now a family man, Kyle has hidden his true childhood from his wife, only to stir up the past when, as a lark, he revisits the underground tunnels and the abandoned asylum with a friend. A dark figure wants revenge and emerges ready to destroy Kyle and everyone he loves. But Kyle isn’t going down without a fight—he’s played in the shadows before.
Will his childhood, rooted in terror, be what saves him?
ASYLUM by Tamera Lawrence is a suspense/thriller standalone by a new to me author that left me guessing throughout. A creepy abandoned asylum, an atmosphere of fear and a history of violence and abuse all kept me turning the pages and keeping the lights on.
Kyle Hampton and his younger brother, Roy were both born at Rose Hill Asylum. As a young boy all Kyle wished for was to be freed from the abusive staff and violent residents. At nine, he was adopted, but he had to leave his brother behind.
Rose Hill Asylum has been vacant and abandoned for many years and it is about to be sold. Kyle wants to return to the place he was born one more time with is best friend, Randy who also grew up at Rose Hill and is a part-time urban explorer. The tunnels underneath the facility connect all the buildings and Kyle begins to remember the terrors they held for him.
A dark figure emerges from the asylum and wants revenge on all who wronged him. Kyle is one of his targets as well as all the people he loves, but Kyle will not go down without a fight.
This book gives you a building sense of dread and chills up your spine from beginning to end, but it is a slow start. I began this book thinking it would be a horror story, and it does scare you, but it is not supernatural. It is the horror of things that humans do to other humans. Kyle is a protagonist that kept my feelings in turmoil because at times I felt sorry for him and at other times I wondered how damaged he was from growing up in the asylum when he did not seem to connect with his wife. The author’s writing makes you feel the atmosphere of the abandoned asylum and the tunnels beneath as well as the menace and violence from the antagonist.
I recommend this chilling suspense/thriller and I will be looking into other works by this author.
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About the Author
With a passion for writing, Award winning author Tamera Lawrence likes to entertain readers with edgy thrillers and mysteries. As a mother of six, Tamera draws on personal experiences to bring to life interesting characters set in today’s complex world. She loves meeting fans and writes book reviews upon request.
Tamera also likes to play softball and clang out a tune or two on the piano.
Other books include:
THE POND, GHOSTS OF MAYFLOWER: A PENNHURST HAUNTING & PENNHURST GHOSTS OF MAYFLOWER 11
Today I am once again on the Harlequin Trade Publishing Historical Fiction Summer 2021 Blog Tour and I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for RADAR GIRLS by Sara Ackerman.
Below you will find an author Q&A, an about the book section, my book review, an excerpt from the book, an about the author section and the author’s social media links. Enjoy!
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Author Q&A
Q: What do you think drives authors to continue to find stories to tell set around WWII?
A: Perhaps it’s because there are still so many amazing untold stories out there? There are so many individuals with unique experiences during the war, all over the world, that the books could just keep coming. Also, I know for myself, while I’m researching for a novel, I often stumble upon something that makes me sit up and think, Wow, that would make a great story! And then I file it away for future consideration. This happened while I was researching for The Lieutenant’s Nurse, my second novel, and first heard about the Women’s Air Raid Defense. It’s how Radar Girls was born!
Q: How are you hoping readers will relate to Radar Girls?
A: I hope that readers will see a little bit of Daisy Wilder in themselves. I think it’s human nature to put yourself in the shoes of the characters and wonder about how you would react in a crisis. Would you rise to the occasion?
In Radar Girls, we have one woman trying to make her way in the world. Daisy is special in her own way, but no different than you or I, really. And then in one day, everything changes. Through her lens, we experience what it was like firsthand to live in wartime Hawaii, a very dark and scary time. We go along for the ride as she overcomes obstacles, deeply connects with other WARDS, falls in love, and proves herself as an important member of a critical command center Pearl Harbor. We feel her hopes, dreams and fears. As a reader, when I feel the humanity of a story, it makes me care. And when I care, I want to keep turning the pages. I hope that as readers turn the pages of Radar Girls, they will feel empowered and inspired and proud.
Q: What’s something that you connected with personally as you researched and wrote Radar Girls?
A: When I was reading about the real WARDs, the thing that stood out to me the most was how these women quickly became a sisterhood. And I know that many were still close and kept in touch until their dying days. I have a band of friends who I love like sisters, so this really resonated with me. I greatly admire how the WARDs held each other up and maintained such grace under pressure, as well as a great sense of humor throughout. It was so inspiring to me, and made me want to hug all of my friends.
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About the Book
WWII historical fiction inspired by the real women of the Women’s Air Raid Defense, RADAR GIRLS follows one unlikely recruit as she trains and serves in secrecy as a radar plotter on Hawaii. A tale of resilience and sisterhood, it sees the battles of the Pacific through the eyes of these pioneering women, and will appeal to fans of Kate Quinn and Pam Jenoff.
An extraordinary story inspired by the real Women’s Air Raid Defense, where an unlikely recruit and her sisters-in-arms forge their place in WWII history.
Daisy Wilder prefers the company of horses to people, bare feet and saltwater to high heels and society parties. Then, in the dizzying aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Daisy enlists in a top-secret program, replacing male soldiers in a war zone for the first time. Under fear of imminent invasion, the WARDs guide pilots into blacked-out air strips and track unidentified planes across Pacific skies.
But not everyone thinks the women are up to the job, and the new recruits must rise above their differences and work side-by-side despite the resistance and heartache they meet along the way. With America’s future on the line, Daisy is determined to prove herself worthy. And with the man she’s falling in love with out on the front lines, she cannot fail. From radar towers on remote mountaintops to flooded bomb shelters, she’ll need her new team when the stakes are highest. Because the most important battles are fought—and won—together.
This inspiring and uplifting tale of pioneering, unsung heroines vividly transports the reader to wartime Hawaii, where one woman’s call to duty leads her to find courage, strength and sisterhood.
RADAR GIRLS by Sara Ackerman is an engrossing historical fiction story featuring young women on the island of Hawaii after the attack on Pearl Harbor who are enlisted and become the Women’s Air Raid Defense (WARD). This is a standalone historical fiction novel with a romance subplot set on a beautiful island with plenty of real life drama and intrigue.
Daisy Walker is more comfortable around horses than people and is working on the Montgomery Ranch to support herself and her mother. Then the attack on Pearl Harbor throws the island and the entire country into a panic. The men are needed for the front and Daisy is recruited with many other young women to be trained to take over their jobs in the newly formed Women’s Air Raid Defense (WARD) to protect the Pacific coast and help pilots find their way back home.
For the first time in her life, Daisy builds bonds with other women who like and respect her. The women are a diverse group who learn a strategic top secret skill and learn to work together even through their differences in education and social status. As the women bond, it is not all work, as the group gets caught up in several schemes and adventures. Daisy also learns about relationships from her friends and begins to fall for her neighbor who has always seemed out of reach.
Set between the attack on Pearl Harbor and VJ Day, this historical fiction drew me in immediately and I was sorry when it was over. Ms. Ackerman did amazing research not only on the time period and location during the early 1940’s, but on radar and all the skills the women needed to learn and do their jobs. Daisy is a memorable and strong lead character who matures and grows in confidence in herself as the story progresses. She also learns how strong the bond can be between female friends. The romance subplot between Daisy and Walker was realistically paced and intertwined with her relationship growth with the other women. All the secondary characters were believably written and Daisy’s female friends stood out. All of the story elements kept me turning the pages.
I highly recommend this historical fiction story!
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Excerpt
2
The Bust
Their shack, as Daisy referred to the house, was nestled in a cluster of bent ironwood trees, all by its lonesome. Set back far from the beach to protect it from a direct blast of onshore winds, it still took a constant battering and the salty air and elements had done a fine job reclaiming it. Windowpanes had been blasted opaque, you could see through the back wall, and flowers had taken up residence in the gutters. The siding had gone from forest green to pale green to peeling gray, the roof turned to rust.
When he had first started working up at the ranch, Daisy’s father had somehow persuaded Mr. Montgomery to sell him the small parcel of beachfront property for the price of a bag of sand. Most likely because it was in no-man’s-land between Waialua and the ranch. And because her father had been the best horse trainer in Hawai’i and everyone knew it.
She flung open the front door and ran inside. “Mom?” she called.
All quiet. She tiptoed across the lauhala mat in the living room, avoiding the creaking floorboards. Her mother spent much of her life in one of two states—sleeping or staring out to sea. The bedroom door was cracked and a lump lay under the blankets, pillow over her head. There was no point in trying to wake her, so Daisy ran back outside, hopped on her bike and rode for the stables.
The air was ripe with burnt sugarcane and a scratchy feeling of dread. She bumped along a dirt road as fast as her old bike would carry her. That plume of black smoke above Schofield caused her heart to sink. So many Japanese planes could mean only one thing. An attack or invasion of some kind was happening. But the sky remained empty and she saw no signs of ships on the horizon.
By the time she reached the stables, she had worked out what to tell Mr. Silva—the only person at the ranch who was even close to being a friend—and beg that he help her find Moon. Whether or not he would risk his job was another story. Jobs were not easy to come by, especially on this side of the island. Daisy counted herself lucky to have one. When she rounded the corner by the entrance, she about fell over on her bike. Mr. Silva’s rusted truck was gone and in its place sat Mr. Montgomery’s shiny new Ford, motor running and door open.
As far as old Hal Montgomery was concerned, Daisy was mostly invisible. She had worked for him going on seven years now—since she was sixteen—but she was a girl and girls were fluffy, pretty things who wore fancy dresses and attended parties. Not short-haired, trouser-wearing, outdoorsy misfits. And certainly not horse trainers and skin divers. Nope, those jobs belonged to men. There was also the matter of her father’s death, but she preferred not to think about that.
Should she turn around and hightail it out of there before he caught sight of her? He’d find out eventually, and he would be livid. Daisy pulled her bike behind the toolshed and slipped around the back side of the stables, peering in through a cloudy window. The tension in the air from earlier had dissipated and the horses were all quiet. A tall form stood in front of the old horse—Ka‘ena—she was supposed to ride. It was hard to tell through the foggy pane, but the man looked too tall and too thin to be Hal Montgomery.
Horsefeathers! It was Walker, Montgomery’s son. A line of perspiration formed on the back of her neck and she had the strong urge to flee. Not that Daisy had had much interaction with Walker in recent years. He was aloof and intimidating and the kind of person who made her forget how to speak, but he loved Moon fiercely. Of that she was sure. Just then, he turned and started jogging toward the door. His face was in shadow but it felt like he was looking right at her. She froze. If she ducked away now, he would surely catch the movement. She did it anyway.
She had just made it to her bike when Walker tore out of the tack room with a wild look in his eye. He had a rifle hanging across his chest, and he was carrying two others. He stopped when he saw her. “Hey!” he said.
“Oh, hello, Mr. Montgomery.”
He wore his flight suit, which was only halfway buttoned, like he’d been interrupted either trying to get in it or trying to get out of it. His face was flushed and lined with sweat. “Don’t you know we’ve been attacked? You ought to head for cover, somewhere inland.”
He was visibly shaken.
“I saw the planes. What do you know?” she said.
“Wheeler and Schofield are all shot up, and they did a number on Pearl. Battleships down, bay on fire. God knows how many dead.” His gaze dropped to her body for a moment and she felt her skin burn. There had been no time to change or even think about changing, and she was still in her half-wet swimsuit, hair probably sticking out in eleven directions. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I was worried about the horses,” she said.
“That makes two of us. And goddamn Moon is not in his stall. You know anything about that?”
Taking Moon had been about the dumbest thing she could have done. But at the time, it seemed a perfectly sane idea. The kind of thinking that got her into plenty of trouble over the years. Why hadn’t she learned? She looked at the coconut tree just past him as she spoke. “I have no idea. Perhaps Mr. Silva has him?”
“Mr. Silva went to town last night to see his sister,” he said.
She forced herself to look at him, feeling like she had the word guilty inked onto her forehead. “Looks like you have somewhere to be. You go on, I’ll find Moon. I promise.”
Her next order of business would be scouring the coast and finding that horse before Walker returned. There would be no sleeping until Moon was safely back at the stables.
“I sure hope so. That horse is mighty important to me,” he said.
Tell him!
She was about to come clean, when he moved around her, hopped in the car and slammed the door. He leaned out the window and said, “Something tells me you know more than you’re letting on, Wilder.”
With that, he sped off, leaving her standing in a cloud of red dirt and sand.
In the stables, the horses knew the sound of her footsteps, or maybe they smelled the salt on her hair. A concert of nickers and snorts erupted in the stalls. Daisy went to the coatrack first, and slid on an oversize button-up that she kept there for chilly days. It smelled of hay.
“How is everyone?” she said, stopping at each one to rub their necks or kiss their noses. “Quite a morning, hasn’t it been?”
Peanut was pacing with nostrils flared, and she spent a few minutes stroking his long neck before moving on. Horses were her lifeblood. Feeding, grooming, riding, loving. She only wished that Mr. Montgomery would let her train them—officially, that was. Without being asked as a last resort by Mr. Silva when everyone else had tried. Lord knew she was better than the rest of the guys. When she got to Moon’s stall, all the blood rushed from her head. The door had been left open and two Japanese slippers hung from the knob. She had hidden them in the corner under some straw—apparently not well enough.
Damn.
Just then she heard another car pull up. The ranch truck. A couple of the ranch hands poured out, making a beeline to the stables. Mr. Montgomery followed on their heels with a machete in his hand and a gun on his hip. Daisy felt the skin tighten on the back of her neck. His ever-present limp seemed even more pronounced.
When he saw her, he said, “Where’s Silva?”
No mention that they were under attack.
“In town,” she answered.
“What about Walker?”
“Walker just left in a big hurry,” she answered.
One of the guys had his hunting dog with him. It was a big mutt that enjoyed staring down the horses and making them nervous, as if they needed to be any more nervous right now. Daisy wanted to tell him to get the dog out of there, but knew it would be pointless.
“The hosses in the pasture need to be secured,” Mr. M said.
“Do you need my help?” she offered.
“Nah, you should get out of here. Get home. Fuckers blew up all our planes and now paratroopers are coming down in the pineapple fields. Ain’t no place for a woman right now.”
Daisy wanted to stay and help, but also wanted to get the hell away before he noticed that Moon was not here. “Yes, sir.”
He stopped and sized her up for a moment, his thick brows pinched. “You still got that shotgun of your old man’s?”
“I do.”
“Make sure it’s loaded.”
On her way home, Daisy passed through Japanese camp, hoping to get more information from Mr. Sasaki, who always knew the latest happenings. A long row of cottages lined the road, every rock and leaf in its place. The houses were painted barn red with crisp, white trim. On any given Sunday, there would have been gangs of kids roaming the area, but now the place was eerily empty.
“Hello?” she called, letting her bike fall into the naupaka hedge.
When she knocked and no one answered, she started pounding. A curtain pulled aside and a small face peered out at her and waved her away. Mrs. Sasaki. She was torn, but chose to leave them be. With the whispers of paranoia lately, all the local Japanese folks were bound to be nervous. She didn’t blame them.
This time when Daisy ran up to the shack, her mother was sitting on the porch drinking coffee from her chipped mug.
She was still in her nightgown, staring out beyond the ocean. When she was in this state, a person could have walked into their house and made off with all of their belongings and her mother would not even bat an eye.
Daisy sat down next to her. “Mom, the Japanese Army attacked Pearl Harbor and Wheeler and who knows where else.”
Her mother clenched her jaw slightly, took a sip of her coffee, then set it down on the mango stump next to her chair. “They said it would happen,” she said flatly.
“This is serious, mom. People are dead. Civilians, too. I don’t know how many, but the islands are in danger of being invaded and there are Japanese ships and planes all around. They’re telling us to stay inside.”
A look of worry came over her mom’s face. “You should go find a safer place to stay, away from the coast.”
“And leave you here?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Her mom shrugged.
She knew Louise couldn’t help it, but a tiny part of Daisy was waiting for that day her mother would wake up and be the old Louise Wilder. The mother of red lipstick and coconut macaroons, of beach bonfires and salty hugs. The one who rode bikes with her daughter to school every day, singing with the birds along the way. The highs and lows had been there before, but now there were only lows and deeper lows.
After some time, her mother finally spoke. “Men, they do the dumbest things.”
“That may be true, but we’re at war. Does that mean anything to you?” Daisy said, her voice rising in frustration.
“Course it does, but what can we do?”
She had a point. Aside from hiding in the house or running away, what other options were there? Used to doing things, Daisy was desperate to help, but how? Their home was under attack and she felt as useful as a sack of dirt.
Louise leaned back. On days like these, she retreated so far into herself that she was unreachable. You could tell by looking in her eyes. Blank and bottomless. Mr. Silva always said that you could see the spirit in the eyes. Dull eyes, dull spirit. That Louise looked this way always made Daisy feel deeply alone. The onshore winds kicked up a notch and ruffled the surface of the ocean. She knew she should stay with her mom, but more than anything, she wanted to go in search of the horse. Moon meant more to her than just the job. She loved him something fierce.
Only one thing was clear: their lives would never be the same.
USA Today bestselling author Sara Ackerman was born and raised in Hawaii. She studied journalism and earned graduate degrees in psychology and Chinese medicine. She blames Hawaii for her addiction to writing, and sees no end to its untapped stories. When she’s not writing or teaching, you’ll find her in the mountains or in the ocean. She currently lives on the Big Island with her boyfriend and a houseful of bossy animals. Find out more about Sara and her books at www.ackermanbooks.com and follow her on Instagram @saraackermanbooks and on FB @ackermanbooks.
Today is my last blog post on the Harlequin Trade Publishing Summer 2021 Beach Reads Blog Tour. I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for LADY SUNSHINE by Amy Mason Doan.
Below you will find an about the book section, my book review, an excerpt from the book, an about the author section and the author’s social media links. Enjoy!
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About the Book
ONE ICONIC FAMILY. ONE SUMMER OF SECRETS. THE DAZZLING SPIRIT OF 1970S CALIFORNIA.
For Jackie Pierce, everything changed the summer of 1979, when she spent three months of infinite freedom at her bohemian uncle’s sprawling estate on the California coast. As musicians, artists, and free spirits gathered at The Sandcastle for the season in pursuit of inspiration and communal living, Jackie and her cousin Willa fell into a fast friendship, testing their limits along the rocky beach and in the wild woods… until the summer abruptly ended in tragedy, and Willa silently slipped away into the night.
Twenty years later, Jackie unexpectedly inherits The Sandcastle and returns to the iconic estate for a short visit to ready it for sale. But she reluctantly extends her stay when she learns that, before her death, her estranged aunt had promised an up-and-coming producer he could record a tribute album to her late uncle at the property’s studio. As her musical guests bring the place to life again with their sun-drenched beach days and late-night bonfires, Jackie begins to notice startling parallels to that summer long ago. And when a piece of the past resurfaces and sparks new questions about Willa’s disappearance, Jackie must discover if the dark secret she’s kept ever since is even the truth at all.
LADY SUNSHINE by Amy Mason Doan is a new women’s fiction story that has two intertwining timelines, the first is of an idyllic summer in 1979 when two young cousins come together and the second is 1999, as one cousin faces truths and discovers secrets from that free-spirited summer.
This new-to-me author hooked me immediately with vivid characters and nostalgia that takes a very unexpected turn not once, but twice during this captivating story. The Sandcastle is the setting for both timelines on the California coast and is the compound of Jackie Pierce’s uncle. The 1979 timeline brings back memories from that time period and compares the two cousins very different lives which at first are pure and simple, but they have underlying secrets that tear them apart. The 1999 timeline brings Jackie back to the compound that she has inherited and she now has to face truths from the past that she has been hiding away from in her small life in Boston.
This book has so many different layered facets that come together into a compelling story that has friendship, family, secrets, and forgiveness. This new-to-me author had me completely wrapped up in both timelines with surprising plotlines and realistic characters.
I highly recommend this hard to categorize, yet beautifully written story.
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Excerpt
1
A Girl, Her Cousin, and a Waterfall
1999
I rattle the padlock on the gate, strum my fingers along the cold chain-link fence.
I own this place.
Maybe if I repeat it often enough I’ll believe it.
All along the base of the fence are tributes: shells, notes, sketches, bunches of flowers. Some still fresh, some so old the petals are crisp as parchment. I follow the fence uphill, along the coast side, and stop at a wooden, waist-high sign marking the path up to the waterfall. It wasn’t here the summer I visited.
The sign is covered in words and drawings, so tattooed-over by fan messages that you can barely read the official one. I run my fingertips over the engravings: initials, peace symbols, Thank you’s, I Love You’s. Fragments of favorite lyrics. After coming so far to visit the legendary estate, people need to do something, leave their mark, if only with a rock on fog-softened wood.
Song titles from my uncle’s final album, Three, are carved everywhere. “Heart, Home, Hope.”
“Leaf, Shell, Raindrop.”
“Angel, Lion, Willow.” Someone has etched that last one in symbols instead of words. The angel refers to Angela, my aunt. The lion is my uncle Graham.
And the willow tree. Willa, my cousin.
I have a pointy metal travel nail file in my suitcase; I could add my message to the rest, my own tribute to this place, to the Kingstons. To try to explain what happened the summer I spent here. I could tell it like one of the campfire tales I used to spin for Willa.
This is the story of a girl, her cousin, and a waterfall…
But there’s no time for that, not with only seven days to clear the house for sale. Back at the gate, where Toby’s asleep in his cat carrier in the shade, I dig in my overnight bag for the keys. They came in a FedEx with a fat stack of documents I must’ve read on the plane from Boston a dozen times—thousands of words, all dressed up in legal jargon. When it’s so simple, really. Everything inside that fence is mine now, whether I want it or not.
I unlock the gate, lift the metal shackle, and walk uphill to the highest point, where the gravel widens into a parking lot, then fades away into grass. The field opens out below me just like I remember. We called it “the bowl,” because of the way the edges curve up all around it. A golden bowl scooped into the hills, rimmed on three sides by dark green woods. The house, a quarter mile ahead of me at the top of the far slope, is a pale smudge in the fir trees.
I stop to take it in, this piece of land I now own. The Sandcastle, everyone called it.
Without the neighbors’ goats and Graham’s guests to keep the grass down, the field has grown wild, many of the yellow weeds high as my belly button.
Willa stood here with me once and showed me how from this angle the estate resembled a sun. The kind a child would draw, with a happy face inside. Once I saw it, it was impossible to un-see:
The round, straw-colored field, trails squiggling off to the woods in every direction, like rays. The left eye—the campfire circle. The right eye—the blue aboveground pool. The nose was the vertical line of picnic benches in the middle of the circle that served as our communal outdoor dining table. The smile was the curving line of parked cars and motorcycles and campers.
All that’s gone now, save for the pool, which is squinting, collapsed, moldy green instead of its old bright blue.
I should go back for my bag and Toby but I can’t resist—I move on, down to the center of the field. Far to my right in the woods, the brown roofline of the biggest A-frame cabin, Kingfisher, pokes through the firs. But no other cabins are visible, the foliage is so thick now. Good. Each alteration from the place of my memories gives me confidence. I can handle this for a week. One peaceful, private week to box things up and send them away.
“Sure you don’t want me to come help?” Paul had asked when he dropped me at the airport this morning. “We could squeeze in a romantic weekend somewhere. I’ve always wanted to go to San Francisco.”
“You have summer school classes, remember? Anyway, it’ll be totally boring, believe me.”
I’d told him—earnest, sweet Paul, who all the sixth-graders at the elementary school where we work hope they get as their teacher and who wants to marry me—that the trip was no big deal. That I’d be away for a week because my aunt in California passed away. That I barely knew her and just had to help pack up her old place to get it ready for sale.
He believed me.
I didn’t tell him that the “old place” is a stunning, sprawling property perched over the Pacific, studded with cabins and outbuildings and a legendary basement recording studio. That the land bubbles with natural hot springs and creeks and waterfalls.
Or that I’ve inherited it. All of it. The fields, the woods, the house, the studio. And my uncle’s music catalog.
I didn’t tell him that I visited here once as a teenager, or that for a little while, a long time ago, I was sure I’d stay forever.
Excerpted from Lady Sunshine @ 2021 by Amy Mason Doan, used with permission by Graydon House.
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About the Author
AMY MASON DOAN is the author of The Summer List and Summer Hours. She earned a BA in English from UC Berkeley and an MA in journalism from Stanford University, and has written for The Oregonian, San Francisco Chronicle, and Forbes, among other publications. She grew up in Danville, California, and now lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and daughter.
Today I am posting on the Harlequin Trade Publishing Women’s Fiction Summer 2021 Blog Tour. I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for THE SUMMER OF NO ATTACHMENTS by Lori Foster.
Below you will find an about the book section, my book review, an excerpt from the book, an about the author section and the author’s social media links. Enjoy!
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About the Book
From New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Lori Foster comes the heartwarming story of two best friends who cross paths with a pair of new-in-town brothers with one angry little boy in tow. A standalone story of second chances at life and love, with found family and rescued animals, perfect for fans of Jill Shalvis, Sarah Morgan, and Lori Wilde.
Summer flings with no strings mean nobody gets hurt.
At least, that was the plan…
After putting the brakes on her dead-end relationship, local veterinarian Ivey Anders is ready to soak up this summer on her own terms. The way she sees it, no dating means no disappointment. Why complicate life with anything long-term? But when she meets Corbin Meyer—and his troubled young son, Justin—Ivey’s no-strings strategy threatens to unravel before she can put it into practice.
Trust doesn’t come easy for Ivey’s best friend, Hope Mage, a veterinary-clinic assistant who’s affected by an incident that’s colored every relationship she’s had. Though Hope’s happy for Ivey, she can’t quite open her own heart to the possibility of love. Not just yet… Maybe not ever. Soon, however, she’s faced with a dilemma—Corbin’s older brother, Lang. He’s charming, he’s kind…and he may just be the reason Hope needs to finally tear down her walls.
And as the sweet summer months unspool, the two friends discover love won’t give up on them so easily.
THE SUMMER OF NO ATTACHMENTS (The Summer Friends Book #2) by Lori Foster is a heartwarming and heart-wrenching women’s fiction story of friendship with two contemporary romance plots intertwined throughout. These characters pulled me in from page one and I could not put it down. While this is the second book in the series, it is easily read as a standalone.
Ivey Anders is the local veterinarian. She has unruly curly hair, a mouth with no filter and a huge heart filled with love. Ivey has decided to end her two-year-old dead-end relationship and enjoy a summer of no attachments. When she goes with her veterinarian assistant to check out a new rental, she meets the new man in town. Corbin Meyer is hot, sexy and a single dad who has just found out he has a son who is ten years old.
Hope Mage is Ivey’s best friend and her veterinarian assistant. Ivey has taken her under her wing since the incident that estranged her from her own family four years ago. Solitary and skittish around men and social situations, Hope is happy for her friend’s new relationship, but cannot see it happening in her own future until Corbin’s older brother, Lang comes for a visit. He is funny, sexy and kind and Hope realizes that she is attracted to a man for the first time in several years.
This is a perfect summer read! I love all the characters in this story, but especially Ivey. She made me laugh and cry with her big heart. Ivey and Hope’s friendship is the backbone of the story and then they each find what they need in the Meyer brothers. Corbin’s son, Justin broke my heart and yet also made me laugh. I loved his ability to love even with all the trauma in his young life before he was delivered to Corbin. The book has plenty of animals to fall in love with as well. This story had the perfect balance of love, friendship, family and emotional up and downs.
I highly recommend this wonderful women’s fiction/contemporary romance!
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Excerpt
Chapter One
Ivey Anders shoved back a wayward curl and gently secured the dog against her body so it couldn’t move while her tech, Hope Mage, carefully clipped away the twisted wire. The poor thing, a stray by the looks of it, had gotten itself tangled pretty tightly and one hind leg was in bad shape. Ivey wanted to get it to the clinic where she could properly assess the damage.
Mud caked the fur, making it difficult to find any other injuries just yet, but there was one astounding fact Ivey couldn’t ignore.
Behind her, the homeowner groused that the dog had likely been stealing eggs from his chicken coop.
Voice calm, temper mostly in check, Ivey said, “You didn’t hesitate to call me, did you, Marty?” It was well-known that Marty was not a fan of dogs, or cats for that matter, and mostly considered them a nuisance. However, they’d come to an agreement some time ago. Marty, who owned a fair amount of wooded acreage, was supposed to call her if a stray showed up, and she, as the local vet, would take care of the “problem” for him.
Laura, his wife, was quick to say, “I called.” Defiant to Marty, she added, “Soon as I heard the poor thing, in fact.”
Which didn’t mean much. The animal might have been there for hours. Possibly more than a day, though Ivey couldn’t bear the thought of that.
“She’s pregnant, you know.” Refusing to take her eyes off the dog and unwilling to raise her voice since it might frighten the animal more, Ivey said, “If she took an egg, it would have been from starvation—and you already know I would have compensated you for it.”
Affronted, Marty grumbled, “I wasn’t worried about one egg, just don’t want to lose my chickens.” He cleared his throat. “If it helps any, I was out here this morning and she wasn’t caught then. Afternoon I watered my garden, and that’s why there’s so much mud. So I doubt she was hung up there more than a few hours.”
The fist around Ivey’s heart loosened just a little. “That helps tremendously, Marty. Thank you.”
More times than she could count, Ivey had taken on problems with stray animals who needed special love and care. It didn’t matter that she’d been working as a veterinarian for years now, seeing all manner of hurt, neglected or just plain ill animals. She still loved them all, and when one hurt, she hurt with it.
“No thanks necessary,” Marty complained, his tone gruff with insult. “Not like I’d let an animal suffer.”
Ivey had a feeling their definitions of suffer varied a bit, but she realized this mattered to him, and she was too grateful to quibble so she just nodded.
Almost got it,” Hope murmured, and with one last clip, the wire loosened. “There.” Fingers gentle, she disentangled the dog’s leg, exposing a painful wound.
Ivey murmured to the small animal all the while, cooing softly, petting and holding her secure. The second she was able to sit back on the muddy ground, she pulled the dog into her lap. With her face close to the top of the dog’s head, she whispered, “There now, that’s better, isn’t it? We’ll get you all fixed up, I promise.”
“Here.” Slipping off her zip-up hoodie, Hope offered it to Ivey to wrap around the dog. “Do you want me to get the carrier?”
Busy swaddling the dog, careful not to jar her, Ivey shook her head. “She doesn’t weigh more than ten or eleven pounds. I’ll carry her to the truck and we’ll see how it goes.” Feeling mud seep into the seat of her pants, she realized she couldn’t get up without letting go of the dog. Lifting a brow at Hope, she said, “A little help?”
“Oh sure.” Hope caught her under one elbow, and Laura hurried forward to take the other, giving her the leverage she needed.
Marty stepped back to avoid getting muddy.
Carefully, the two women got Ivey on her feet. The thick mud was heavy on the seat of her pants, dragging on her stretch jeans that had loosened throughout the day. At least her rubber boots wouldn’t be ruined. Since they treated all sorts of animals, including those on farms, she and Hope each kept a pair at the clinic.
“Let’s go.” Plodding forward, Ivey led the way to the truck. Halfway there, the dog started panting. Concerned, she hastened her step, not at all worried about getting mud on the truck seats. “No need for the crate. Just get us back to the clinic.”
Picking up on her angst, Hope ran around to the driver’s side and got the truck on the road in record time. “Everything okay?”
“Not really, no. Something’s wrong.”
“What should I do?”
Poor Hope. A sick cat had kept them an hour past closing, and then Marty had called… “I’m sorry.” Ivey barely took her gaze off the stressed dog. “Do you think you could assist me at the clinic?”
“Of course I will! You don’t even have to ask.” Frowning, Hope muttered, “Did you think I’d drop you off with a dog in distress? Tell you good luck?” She snorted. “Have I ever done that?”
She and Hope were close enough that Ivey knew she’d inadvertently insulted her. “No, you haven’t. But it’s Friday night after a very long day.”
“It’s Friday night for you, too, you know.”
“What a sad situation for us both.” Despite her worries, Ivey chuckled. “Most women would have plans, and yet we never do.”
“You have Geoff.”
Ivey made a face. “Lot of good that does me.” Likely Geoff was settled on the couch already, watching sports or playing a video game. The excitement had left their relationship a long time ago, so she doubted he’d even notice her absence.
For her part, Hope never dated. That bothered Ivey a lot, but she loved Hope enough that she would never pry.
Smiling at her friend, Ivey said, “I’m glad I won’t have to do this alone.”
“Not ever,” Hope vowed. “Even if by some miracle I ever do have something worthwhile lined up for the weekend, I’d still be here for you, okay?”
Her friendship with Hope meant so much more than any other relationship Ivey had, including her lackluster romance with Geoff. “Smartest thing I ever did was hire you.”
“I’m so glad you did,” Hope whispered. “Otherwise we might not have become friends, then where would I be?”
“Let’s just agree that we’re better off together.” Though Ivey was ten years older than Hope, they’d still hit it off from the start, meshing together as if they’d been lifelong friends. Where Ivey was take-charge and sometimes a little too outspoken, Hope was an intent listener with an enormous heart.
Ivey often wanted to challenge the world, and Hope, sadly, wanted to hide from it.
Or more accurate, she wanted to hide from any interested men.
Hope had an affinity with animals, plus a gentle but sure touch. She was never squeamish, but she exuded sympathy. Ivey valued her. The clients loved her. And the animals trusted her.
Unfortunately, they were still five minutes away from the clinic when the dog went into labor. “This is definitely happening,” Ivey said, doing what she could to make the animal comfortable.
Leaning closer to the steering wheel, Hope drove a little faster. “Be there soon.”
They’d barely gotten in the door when her water broke. Hope ran ahead to prepare an area, moving with practiced ease as she opened an already cleaned kennel and set up a whelping box, then filled it with bedding material. The box had three tall sides to contain the coming puppies, and one low side for the mother to step out for food and water.
Knowing Hope had it in hand, Ivey began cleaning the dog as quickly and efficiently as possible. She managed a cursory job, removing the worst of the mud, when Hope rejoined her. “We’re all set.”
“With luck we’ll have enough time to clean and wrap her leg before she gives birth.” Usually that happened within two hours after the animal’s water breaking, so they didn’t have a minute to spare.
A day that had already been long just turned entirely endless.
Since first publishing in January 1996, Lori Foster has become a New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher’s Weekly bestselling author. She lives in Central Ohio where coffee helps her keep up with her cats and grandkids between writing books. For more about Lori, visit her website at www.lorifoster.com, like her on Facebook or find her on Twitter, @lorilfoster.
Today I am posting on the Harlequin Trade Publishing Summer 2021 Historical Fiction Blog Tour. I am excited to be sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for THE WARSAW ORPHAN by Kelly Rimmer.
Below you will find an author Q&A, an about the book section, my book review, an excerpt from the book, an about the author section and the author’s social media links. Enjoy!
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Author Q&A
Q: Tell us about The Warsaw Orphan in your own words.
A: The Warsaw Orphan is a novel about two teenagers living in Warsaw during the occupation. Elzbieta Rabinek lives a sheltered life with her adoptive parents in an apartment a few blocks from the Warsaw Ghetto. After she stumbles upon her neighbor’s resistance activities, Elzbieta becomes involved in a scheme to smuggle children out of the Ghetto to be placed with Catholic foster families on the other side of the wall. Through this work, she meets a young Jewish boy, Roman Gorka, who is trapped in the Ghetto with his family.
Q: What do you think drives authors to continue to find stories to tell set around WWII?
A: Authors keep returning to the era for the same reason readers do — these periods where the whole world was in chaos have so much to teach us about human nature. I feel like I could research and write a thousand books set during this period and still be shocked by the depths humanity sank to during that time, and amazed by the stories of resistance and courage.
Q: How are you hoping readers will relate to this story?
A: For me, the wonder of historical fiction is that it gives us the chance to experience history ourselves as we journey through a story. I hope the readers find Elzbieta and Roman relatable characters, even if the circumstances they live through are very different to ours.
Q: What’s something that you connected with personally as you researched and wrote this story?
A: I was particularly inspired by the story of the city of Warsaw as I researched and wrote this book. Warsaw was left in ruins by the end of the war, with 85-90% of the city reduced to rubble. Today, Warsaw is a vibrant, thriving metropolis. The Polish people rallied and rebuilt the city, just as they rebuilt their lives, and ultimately their nation. This is a story of resilience that I found particularly inspiring, and a timely reminder of the strength of the human spirit, as we live through chaotic times ourselves.
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About the Book
With the thrilling pace and historical drama of Pam Jenoff and Kristin Hannah, New York Times bestselling author Kelly Rimmer’s newest novel is an epic WWII saga and love story, based on the real-life efforts of two young people taking extraordinary risks to save their countrymen, as they try to find their way back to each other and the life they once knew.
Following on the success of The Things We Cannot Say, this is Kelly Rimmer’s return to the WWII category with a brand new novel inspired by Irena Sendler, the real-life Polish nurse who used her access to the Warsaw ghetto to smuggle Jewish children and babies to safety.
Spanning the tumultuous years between 1942 and 1945 in Poland, The Warsaw Orphan follows Emilia over the course of the war, her involvement with the Resistance, and her love for Sergiusz, a young man imprisoned in the Jewish ghetto who’s passion leads him to fight in the Warsaw Uprising. From the Warsaw ghetto to the Ravensbruck concentration camp, through Nazi occupation to the threat of a communist regime, Kelly Rimmer has penned her most meticulously researched and emotionally compelling novel to date.
THE WARSAW ORPHAN by Kelly Rimmer is an emotional historical fiction story featuring a young Polish girl and her family and friend’s struggles to survive set in occupied Warsaw during WWII.
Elizbieta Rabinek is living with her mother and father just outside the ghetto walls in Warsaw, Poland. She has a secret. Her mother and father have adopted her and are keeping her safe after the murder of her father and brother by the German’s for helping Jews. She befriends a nurse named Sara who lives in the apartment across the hall and discovers that Sara is doing more than just public health rounds in the ghetto.
Sara and fellow public health workers are smuggling children out of the ghetto and Elizbieta is determined to help. Sara is trying to help the Gorka family and this is when Elizbieta meets their son, Roman. Roman is at the youth center when his family is rounded up and sent on the train to the camp. All Roman feels is hate and he is set on the path of revenge.
From the German occupation through the Russian invasion Elizbieta and Roman fight to survive and reclaim the life they once knew.
This is a well written story of family, survival, hope and love in a time of atrocities, starvation and war. Elizabieta has such courage throughout this story to face what she sees and experiences during the several years covered in this book. All of the characters in this book are diverse, fully developed and believable. The author’s research is evident in the plot and storyline.
I recommend this historical fiction novel and the author.
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Excerpt
1
Roman
28 March, 1942
The human spirit is a miraculous thing. It is the strongest part of us—crushed under pressure, but rarely broken. Trapped within our weak and fallible bodies, but never contained. I pondered this as my brother and I walked to a street vendor on Zamenhofa Street in the Warsaw Ghetto, late in the afternoon on a blessedly warm spring day.
“There was one right there,” he said, pointing to a rare gap in the crowd on the sidewalk. I nodded but did not reply. Dawidek sometimes needed to talk me through his workday but he did not need me to comment, which was fortunate, because even after months of this ritual, I still had no idea what to say.
“Down that alleyway, there was one on the steps of a building. Not even on the sidewalk, just right there on the steps.”
I fumbled in my pocket, making sure I still had the sliver of soap my stepfather had given me. Soap was in desperate demand
in the ghetto, a place where overcrowding and lack of running water had created a perfect storm for illness. My stepfather ran a tiny dentistry practice in the front room of our apartment and needed the soap as much as anyone—maybe even more so. But as desperate as Samuel’s need for soap was, my mother’s need for food eclipsed it, and so there Dawidek and I were. It was generally considered a woman’s job to go to the market, but Mother needed to conserve every bit of strength she could, and the street vendor Samuel wanted me to speak to was blocks away from our home.
“…and Roman, one was behind a big dumpster,” he hesitated, then grimaced. “Except I think we missed that one yesterday.”
I didn’t ask how he’d come to that conclusion. I knew that the answer was liable to make my heart race and my vision darken, the way it did sometimes. Sometimes, it felt as if my anger was simmering just below the surface: at my nine-year-old brother and the rest of my family. Although, none of this was their fault. At Sala, my boss at the factory on Nowolipki Street, even though he was a good man and he’d gone out of his way to help me and my family more than once. At every damned German I laid eyes on. Always them. Especially them. A sharp, uncompromising anger tinged every interaction those days, and although that anger started and ended with the Germans who had changed our world, it cycled through everyone else I knew before it made its way back where it belonged.
“There was one here yesterday. In the middle of the road at the entrance to the market.”
Dawidek had already told me all about that one, but I let him talk anyway. I hoped this running commentary would spare him from the noxious interior that I was currently grappling with. I envied the ease with which he could talk about his day, even if hearing the details filled me with guilt. Guilt I could handle, I probably deserved it. It was the anger that scared me. I felt like my grip on control was caught between my sweaty hands and, at any given moment, all it would take was for someone to startle me, and I’d lose control.
The street stall came into view through the crowd. There was always a crush of people on the street until the last second before seven o’clock curfew. This was especially the case in summer, when the oppressive heat inside the ghetto apartments could bring people to faint, besides which, the overcrowding inside was no better than the overcrowding outside. I had no idea how many people were inside those ghetto walls—Samuel guessed a million, Mrs. Kuklin´ski in the bedroom beside ours said it was much more, Mother was quite confident that it was maybe only a hundred thousand. All I knew was that ours was not the only apartment in the ghetto designed for one family that was currently housing four—in fact, there were many living in even worse conditions. While the population was a hot topic of conversation on a regular basis, it didn’t actually matter all that much to me. I could see with my own eyes and smell with my own nose that however many people were trapped within the ghetto walls, it was far, far too many.
When the vendor’s table came into view, my heart sank: she was already packing up for the day and there was no produce left. I was disappointed but not surprised: there had been no chance of us finding food so late in the day, let alone food that someone would barter for a simple slip of soap. Dawidek and I had passed a store that was selling eggs, but they’d want zloty for the eggs, not a tiny scrap of soap.
“Wait here a minute,” I murmured to my brother, who shrugged as he sank to sit on an apartment stoop. I might have let him follow me, but even after the depths our family had sunk to over the years of occupation, I still hated for him to see me beg. I glanced at him, recording his location to memory, and then pushed through the last few feet of people mingling on the sidewalk until I reached the street vendor. She shook her head before I’d spoken a word.
“I am sorry young man; I have nothing to offer you.”
“I am Samuel Gorka’s son,” I told her. It was an oversimplification of a complicated truth, but it was the best way I could help her place me. “He fixed your tooth for you, remember? A few months ago? His practice is on Miła Street.”
Recognition dawned in her gaze, but she still regarded me warily.
“I remember Samuel and I’m grateful to him, but that doesn’t change anything. I have no food left today.”
“My brother and I…we work during the day. And Samuel too. You know how busy he is, helping people like yourself. But the thing is, we have a sick family member who hasn’t—”
“Kid, I respect your father. He’s a good man, and a good dentist. I wish I could help, but I have nothing to give you.” She waved to the table, to the empty wooden box she had packed up behind her, and then opened her palms towards me as if to prove the truth of her words.
“There is nowhere else for me to go. I can’t take no for an answer. I’m going to bed hungry tonight, but I can’t let…” I trailed off, the hopelessness hitting me right in the chest. I knew I would be going home without food for my mother that night, and the implications made me want to curl up in a ball, right there in the gutter. But hopelessness was dangerous, at least in part because it was always followed by an evil cousin. Hopelessness was a passive emotion, but its natural successor drove action, and that action rarely resulted in anything positive. I clenched my fists, and my fingers curled around the soap. I pulled it from my pocket and extended it towards the vendor. She looked from my palm to my face, then sighed impatiently and leaned close to me to hiss,
“I told you. I have nothing left to trade today. If you want food, you need to come earlier in the day.”
“That’s impossible for us. Don’t you understand?”
To get to the market early in the day one of us would have to miss work. Samuel couldn’t miss work; he could barely keep up as it was—he performed extractions from sunup to curfew most days. Rarely was this work paid now that money was in such short supply among ordinary families like his patients, but the work was important—not just because it afforded some small measure of comfort for a people group who were, in every other way, suffering immensely. But every now and again Samuel did a favor for one of the Jewish police officers or even a passing German soldier. He had a theory that one day soon, those favors were going to come in handy. I was less optimistic, but I understood that he couldn’t just close his practice. The moment Samuel stopped working would be the moment he had to perform an honest reckoning with our situation, and if he did that, he would come closer to the despair I felt every waking moment of every day.
“Do you have anything else? Or is it just the soap?” the woman asked me suddenly.
“That’s all.”
“Tomorrow. Come back this time tomorrow. I’ll keep something for you, but for that much soap?” She shook her head then pursed her lips. “It’s not going to be much. See if you can find something else to barter.”
“There is nothing else,” I said, my throat tight. But the woman’s gaze was at least sympathetic, and so I nodded at her. “I’ll do my best. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
As I turned away, I wondered if it was worth calling into that store to ask about the eggs, even though I knew that the soap wasn’t nearly enough for a whole egg. It wasn’t enough for even half an egg here on the market, and the stores were always more expensive than the street vendors. Maybe they would give me a shell? We could grind it up and Mother could drink it in a little water. We’d done that once before for her. It wasn’t as good as real food, but it might help a little overnight. It surely couldn’t hurt.
As I spun back towards our apartment, a burst of adrenaline nearly knocked me sideways. Dawidek hadn’t moved, but two Jewish police officers were now standing in front of him. Like me, my brother was tall for his age—an inheritance from our maternal grandfather that made us look bizarre when we stood with Samuel and Mother, who were both more diminutive. Even so, he looked far too small to be crowded into the doorway of an apartment by two Jewish Police officers. That situation could turn to bloodshed in a heartbeat. The Kapo operated on a spectrum from well-meaning and kindly to murderously violent, and I had no way of knowing what kind of Kapo were currently accosting Dawidek. My heart thundered against the wall of my chest as I pushed my way back to them, knowing even as I approached that intervening could well get me shot.
For everything I had been through and for everything I had seen, the only thing that kept me going was my family, especially Dawidek. He was my favorite person in the world, a burst of purity in an environment of pure evil. Some days, the only time I felt still inside was when he and I were playing or talking in the evenings—and that stillness was the only rest I got. I could not live without him, in fact—I had already decided that if it came to that, I wouldn’t even try.
“Dawidek?” I called as I neared. Both Kapo turned toward me. The one on the left, the taller one, sized me up as if an emaciated, unarmed 16-year-old was any kind of threat. I knew from bitter experience that the smart thing to do would have been to let Dawidek try to talk his own way out of this. He was nine years old but used to defending himself in the bizarrely toxic environment of the Ghetto. All day long, he was at his job alone, and I was at mine. He needed his wits about him to survive even an hour of that, and I needed to trust that he could handle himself.
But I couldn’t convince myself to be smart, even when I knew that what I was about to do was likely to earn me, at best, a severe beating. I couldn’t even stop myself when the Kapo gave me a second chance to walk away. They ignored me and kept their attention on my brother. “Hey!” I shouted, loud enough that my voice echoed up and down the street, and dozens of people turned to stare. “He’s just a kid. He hasn’t done anything wrong!”
I was mentally planning my next move. I’d make a scene, maybe push one of the Kapo, and when they turned to beat me, Dawidek could run. Pain was never pleasant, but physical pain could also be an effective distraction from mental anguish, which was the worst kind. Maybe I could even land a punch, and that might feel good. But my brother stepped forward, held his hands up to me and said fiercely, “These are my supervisors, Roman. Just supervisors on the crew. We were just talking.”
My stomach dropped. My heartbeat pounded in my ears and my hands were hot.—I knew my face was flushed raspberry, both with embarrassment and from the adrenaline. After a terse pause that seemed to stretch forever, the Kapo exchanged an amused glance, one patted Dawidek on the back, and they continued down the street, both laughing at me. Dawidek shook his head in frustration.
“Why did you do that? What would you do, even if I was in trouble?”
“I’m sorry,” I admitted, scraping my hand through my hair. “I lost my head.”
“You’re always losing your head,” Dawidek muttered, falling into step beside me, as we began to follow the Kapo back towards our own apartment. “You need to listen to Father. Keep your head down, work hard and hope for the best. You are too smart to keep making such dumb decisions.”
Hearing my little brother echoing his father’s wisdom in the same tone and with the same impatience was always jarring, but in this case, I was dizzy with relief, and so I messed up his hair, and let out a weak laugh.
“For a nine-year-old, you are awfully wise.”
“Wise enough to know that you didn’t get any food for mother.”
“We were too late,” I said, and then I swallowed the lump in my throat. “But she said that we should come back tomorrow. She will set something aside for us.”
“Let’s walk the long way home. The trashcans on Smocza Street are sometimes good.”
We were far from the only family in the ghetto who had run out of resources. We were all starving and any morsel of food was quickly found, even if it was from a trashcan. Still, I was not at all keen to return to our crowded apartment, to face the disappointment in my stepfather’s gaze or to see the starvation in my mother’s. I let Dawidek lead the way, and we walked in silence, broken by his periodic bursts of commentary.
“We picked one up here… Another over there… Mordechai helped me with one there.”
As we turned down a quiet street, I realized that Dawidek’s Kapo supervisors were right in front of us, walking a few dozen feet ahead.
“We should turn around, I don’t want any trouble with those guys,” I muttered. Dawidek shook his head.
“They like me. I work hard and don’t give them any trouble. Now that you have stopped trying to get yourself killed, they won’t bother us, even if they do notice us.”
Just then, the shorter policeman glanced towards the sidewalk on his right, and then he paused. He waved his companion ahead, then withdrew something from his pocket as he crouched low to the ground. —I was far too far away to hear the words he spoke, but I saw the sadness in his gaze. The Kapo then rose and jogged ahead to catch up with his partner. Dawidek and I continued along the street, but only when we drew near where he had stopped did I realize why.
We had been in the ghetto for almost two years. Conditions were bad to begin with, and every new day seemed to bring new trials. I learned to wear blinders—to block out the public pain and suffering of my fellow prisoners. I had walked every block of the ghetto, both the Little Ghetto with its nicer apartments where the elite and artists appeared to live in relative comport, and through the Big Ghetto, where poor families like my own were crammed in, trying to survive at a much higher density. The footbridge on Chłodna Street connected the two and elevated the Ghetto residents above the “Aryan” Poles, and even the Germans, who passed beneath it. The irony of this never failed to amuse me when I crossed. Sometimes, I crossed it just to cheer myself up.
I knew the Ghetto inside and out, and I noticed every detail, even if I had taught myself to ignore what I saw as much as I could. I learned not to react when an elderly man or woman caught my hand as I passed, clawing in the hopes that I could spare them a morsel of food. I learned not to so much as startle if someone was shot in front of my eyes. And most of all, I learned to never look at the face of any unfortunate soul who was prone on the sidewalk. The only way to survive was to remain alert so I had to see it all, but I also had to learn to look right through it. The only way to manage my own broiling fury was to bury it.
But the policeman had drawn my attention to a scene of utter carnage outside of what used to be a clothing store. The store had long ago run out of stock and had been re-purposed as accommodation for several families. The wide front window was now taped over with Hessian sacks for privacy; outside of that window, on the paved sidewalk, a child was lying on her stomach. Alive, but barely.
The Ghetto was teeming with street children. The orphanages were full to bursting which meant that those who weren’t under the care of relatives or kindly strangers were left to their own devices. I saw abandoned children, but I didn’t see them.
I’d have passed right by this child on any other day. I couldn’t even manage to keep my own family safe and well, so it was better to keep walking and spare myself the pain of powerlessness. But I was curious about what the policeman had given the child, and so even as we approached her, I was scanning—looking to see what had caught his attention and to try to figure out what he’d put down on the ground.
Starvation confused the normal growth and development of children, but even so, I guessed she was two or three. She wore the same vacant expression I saw in most children by that stage. Patches of her hair had fallen out, and her naked stomach and legs were swollen. Someone had taken her clothing except for a tattered pair of underwear, and I understood why.
This child would not be alive by morning. Once they became too weak to beg for help, it didn’t take long, and this child was long past that point. Her dull brown eyes were liquid pools of defeat and agony.
My eyes drifted to her hands. One was lying open and empty on the sidewalk beside her, her palm facing upward, as if opening her hands to God. The other was also open, slumped against the sidewalk on the other side of her, but this palm was not empty. Bread. The policeman had pressed a chunk of bread beneath the child’s hand. I stared at the food and even though it was never going to find its way to my lips, my mouth began to water. I was torturing myself, but it was much easier to look at the bread than at the girl’s dull eyes.
Dawidek stood silently beside me. I thought of my mother, and then crouched beside the little girl.
“Hello,” I said, stiff and awkward. The child did not react. I cast my gaze all over her face, taking it in. The sharp cheekbones. The way her eyes seemed too big for her face. The matted hair. Someone had once brushed this little girl’s hair, and probably pulled it into pretty braids. Someone had once bathed this child, and tucked her into bed at night, bending down to whisper in her ear that she was loved and special and wanted.
Now, her lips were dry and cracked, and blood dried into a dirty black scab in the corner of her mouth. My eyes burned, and it took me a moment to realize that I was struggling to hold back tears.
“You should eat the bread,” I urged softly. Her eyes moved, and then she blinked, but then her eyelids fluttered and fell closed. She drew in a breath, but her whole chest rattled, the sound I knew people made just before they died—when they were far too ill to even cough. A tear rolled down my cheek. I closed my eyes, but now, instead of blackness, I saw the little girl’s face.
This was why I learned to wear blinders, because if you got too close to the suffering, it would burn itself into your soul. This little girl was now a part of me, and her pain was part of mine.
Even so, I knew that she could not eat the bread. The policeman’s gesture had been well-meaning, but it had come far too late. If I didn’t take the bread, the next person who passed would. If my time in the ghetto had taught me anything, it was that life might deliver blessings, but each one would have a sting in its tail. God might deliver us fortune, but never without a cost. I would take the bread, and the child would die overnight. But that wouldn’t be the end of the tragedy. In some ways, it was only the beginning.
I wiped my cheeks roughly with the back of my hand, and then before I could allow my conscience to stop me, I reached down and plucked the bread from under the child’s hand, to swiftly hide it my pocket. Then I stood, and forced myself to not look at her again. Dawidek and I began to walk.
“The little ones should be easier. I don’t have to ask the big kids for help lifting them, and they don’t weigh anything at all. They should be easier, shouldn’t they?” Dawidek said, almost philosophically. He sighed heavily, and then added in a voice thick with confusion and pain. “I’ll be able to lift her by myself tomorrow morning, but that won’t make it easier.”
Fortune gave me a job with one of the few factories in the ghetto that was owned by a kindly Jew, rather than some German businessman only wanting to take advantage of slave labor. But this meant that when the Kapo came looking for me at home, to help collect the bodies from the streets before sunrise each day, the only other viable person in our household was my brother.
When Dawidek was first recruited to this hideous role, I wanted to quit my job so that I could relieve him of it. But corpse-collection was unpaid work and my factory job paid me in food—every single day, I sat down to a hot lunch, which meant other members of my family could share my portion of rations. This girl would die overnight, and by dawn, my little brother would have lifted her into the back of a wagon. He and a team of children and teenagers, under the supervision of the Kapo, would drag the wagon to the cemetery, where they would tip the corpses into a pit with dozens of others.
Rage, black and red and violent in its intensity, clouded the edges of my vision and I felt the thunder of the injustice in my blood. But then Dawidek drew a deep breath, and he leaned forward to catch my gaze. He gave me a smile, a brave smile, one that tilted the axis of my world until I felt it chase the rage away.
I had to maintain control. I couldn’t allow my fury to destroy me, because my family was relying on me. Dawidek was relying on me.
“Mother is going to be so excited to have bread,” he said, his big brown eyes lighting up at the thought of pleasing her. “And that means Eleonora will get better milk tomorrow, won’t she?”
“Yes,” I said, my tone as empty as the words themselves. “This bread is a real blessing.”
Kelly Rimmer is the worldwide, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Before I Let You Go, The Things We Cannot Say, and Truths I Never Told You. She lives in rural Australia with her husband, two children and fantastically naughty dogs, Sully and Basil. Her novels have been translated into more than twenty languages. Please visit her at https://www.kellyrimmer.com/
Today I am once again posting on the Harlequin Trade Publishing Mystery/Thriller Summer 2021 Blog Tour. I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for LOCAL WOMAN MISSING by Mary Kubica.
Below you will find an about the book section, my book review, an excerpt from the book, an about the author section and the author’s social media links. Enjoy!
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About the Book
People don’t just disappear without a trace…
Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold.
Now, eleven years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they’ll find… In this smart and chilling thriller, master of suspense and New York Times bestselling author Mary Kubica takes domestic secrets to a whole new level, showing that some people will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried.
LOCAL WOMAN MISSING by Mary Kubica is a standalone domestic thriller/mystery that for me read more as a mystery than domestic thriller. The story is told by various characters in two interwoven timelines which are eleven years apart.
Eleven years ago a new mother, Shelby Tebow disappears while on a night time jog. Soon after a mother, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah also disappear without a trace.
Now, eleven years later, Delilah returns with everyone trying to find out what happened to her. What is discovered will have repercussions in families throughout the neighborhood.
This story ends up for me being a satisfying mystery story, but I never felt it was what I would call a domestic thriller. The beginning, while intriguing also became more confusing as characters were added and I had to keep checking which timeline I was in until about a third of the way into the book. I liked the mystery and would have liked a few red herrings or clues throughout instead of the sudden resolution out of the blue. Delilah’s story I assume was added for the thriller quality, but it just never was believable to me.
I am in the minority with my opinion and others have loved this book. Ms. Kubica has several other books, but this one was just an OK read for me.
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Excerpt
MEREDITH
11 YEARS BEFORE
March
The text comes from a number I don’t know. It’s a 630 area code. Local. I’m in the bathroom with Leo as he soaks in the tub. He has his bath toys lined up on the edge of it and they’re taking turns swan diving into the now-lukewarm water. It used to be hot, too hot for Leo to get into. But he’s been in there for thirty minutes now playing with his octopus, his whale, his fish. He’s having a ball.
Meanwhile I’ve lost track of time. I have a client in the early stages of labor. We’re texting. Her husband wants to take her to the hospital. She thinks it’s too soon. Her contractions are six and a half minutes apart. She’s absolutely correct. It’s too soon. The hospital would just send her home, which is frustrating, not to mention a huge inconvenience for women in labor. And anyway, why labor at the hospital when you can labor in the comfort of your own home? First-time fathers always get skittish. It does their wives no good. By the time I get to them, more times than not, the woman in labor is the more calm of the two. I have to focus my attention on pacifying a nervous husband. It’s not what they’re paying me for.
I tell Leo one more minute until I shampoo his hair, and then fire off a quick text, suggesting my client have a snack to keep her energy up, herself nourished. I recommend a nap, if her body will let her. The night ahead will be long for all of us. Childbirth, especially when it comes to first-time moms, is a marathon, not a sprint.
Josh is home. He’s in the kitchen cleaning up from dinner while Delilah plays. Delilah’s due up next in the tub. By the time I leave, the bedtime ritual will be done or nearly done. I feel good about that, hating the times I leave Josh alone with so much to do.
I draw up my text and then hit Send. The reply is immediate, that all too familiar ping that comes to me at all hours of the day or night.
I glance down at the phone in my hand, expecting it’s my client with some conditioned reply. Thx.
Instead: I know what you did. I hope you die.
Beside the text is a picture of a grayish skull with large, black eye sockets and teeth. The symbol of death.
My muscles tense. My heart quickens. I feel thrown off. The small bathroom feels suddenly, overwhelmingly, oppressive. It’s steamy, moist, hot. I drop down to the toilet and have a seat on the lid. My pulse is loud, audible in my own ears. I stare at the words before me, wondering if I’ve misread. Certainly I’ve misread. Leo is asking, “Is it a minute, Mommy?” I hear his little voice, muff led by the ringing in my ears. But I’m so thrown by the cutthroat text that I can’t speak.
I glance at the phone again. I haven’t misread.
The text is not from my client in labor. It’s not from any client of mine whose name and number is stored in my phone. As far as I can tell, it’s not from anyone I know.
A wrong number, then, I think. Someone sent this to me by accident. It has to be. My first thought is to delete it, to pretend this never happened. To make it disappear. Out of sight, out of mind.
But then I think of whoever sent it just sending it again or sending something worse. I can’t imagine anything worse.
I decide to reply. I’m careful to keep it to the point, to not sound too judgy or fault-finding because maybe the intended recipient really did do something awful—stole money from a children’s cancer charity—and the text isn’t as egregious as it looks at first glance.
I text: You have the wrong number.
The response is quick.
I hope you rot in hell, Meredith.
The phone slips from my hand. I yelp. The phone lands on the navy blue bath mat, which absorbs the sound of its fall.
Meredith.
Whoever is sending these texts knows my name. The texts are meant for me.
A second later Josh knocks on the bathroom door. I spring from the toilet seat, and stretch down for the phone. The phone has fallen facedown. I turn it over. The text is still there on the screen, staring back at me.
Josh doesn’t wait to be let in. He opens the door and steps right inside. I slide the phone into the back pocket of my jeans before Josh has a chance to see.
“Hey,” he says, “how about you save some water for the fish.”
Leo complains to Josh that he is cold. “Well, let’s get you out of the bath,” Josh says, stretching down to help him out of the water.
“I need to wash him still,” I admit. Before me, Leo’s teeth chatter. There are goose bumps on his arm that I hadn’t noticed before. He is cold, and I feel suddenly guilty, though it’s mired in confusion and fear. I hadn’t been paying any attention to Leo. There is bathwater spilled all over the floor, but his hair is still bone-dry.
“You haven’t washed him?” Josh asks, and I know what he’s thinking: that in the time it took him to clear the kitchen table, wash pots and pans and wipe down the sinks, I did nothing. He isn’t angry or accusatory about it. Josh isn’t the type to get angry.
“I have a client in labor,” I say by means of explanation. “She keeps texting,” I say, telling Josh that I was just about to wash Leo. I drop to my knees beside the tub. I reach for the shampoo. In the back pocket of my jeans, the phone again pings. This time, I ignore it. I don’t want Josh to know what’s happening, not until I get a handle on it for myself.
Josh asks, “Aren’t you going to get that?” I say that it can wait. I focus on Leo, on scrubbing the shampoo onto his hair, but I’m anxious. I move too fast so that the shampoo suds get in his eye. I see it happening, but all I can think to do is wipe it from his forehead with my own soapy hands. It doesn’t help. It makes it worse.
Leo complains. Leo isn’t much of a complainer. He’s an easygoing kid. “Ow,” is all that he says, his tiny wet hands going to his eyes, though shampoo in the eye burns like hell.
“Does that sting, baby?” I ask, feeling contrite. But I’m bursting with nervous energy. There’s only one thought racing through my mind. I hope you rot in hell, Meredith.
Who would have sent that, and why? Whoever it is knows me. They know my name. They’re mad at me for something I’ve done. Mad enough to wish me dead. I don’t know anyone like that. I can’t think of anything I’ve done to upset someone enough that they’d want me dead.
I grab the wet washcloth draped over the edge of the tub. I try handing it to Leo, so that he can press it to his own eyes. But my hands shake as I do. I wind up dropping the washcloth into the bath. The tepid water rises up and splashes him in the eyes. This time he cries.
“Oh, buddy,” I say, “I’m so sorry, it slipped.”
But as I try again to grab it from the water and hand it to him, I drop the washcloth for a second time. I leave it where it is, letting Leo fish it out of the water and wipe his eyes for himself. Meanwhile Josh stands two feet behind, watching.
My phone pings again. Josh says, “Someone is really dying to talk to you.”
Dying. It’s all that I hear.
My back is to Josh, thank God. He can’t see the look on my face when he says it.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Your client,” Josh says. I turn to him. He motions to my phone jutting out of my back pocket. “She really needs you. You should take it, Mer,” he says softly, accommodatingly, and only then do I think about my client in labor and feel guilty. What if it is her? What if her contractions are coming more quickly now and she does need me?
Josh says, “I can finish up with Leo while you get ready to go,” and I acquiesce, because I need to get out of here. I need to know if the texts coming to my phone are from my client or if they’re coming from someone else.
I rise up from the floor. I scoot past Josh in the door, brushing against him. His hand closes around my upper arm as I do, and he draws me in for a hug. “Everything okay?” he asks, and I say yes, fine, sounding too chipper even to my own ears. Everything is not okay.
“I’m just thinking about my client,” I say. “She’s had a stillbirth before, at thirty-two weeks. She never thought she’d get this far. Can you imagine that? Losing a baby at thirty-two weeks?”
Josh says no. His eyes move to Leo and he looks saddened by it. I feel guilty for the lie. It’s not this client but another who lost a baby at thirty-two weeks. When she told me about it, I was completely torn up. It took everything in me not to cry as she described for me the moment the doctor told her her baby didn’t have a heartbeat. Labor was later induced, and she had to push her dead baby out with only her mother by her side. Her husband was deployed at the time. After, she was snowed under by guilt. Was it her fault the baby died? A thousand times I held her hand and told her no. I’m not sure she ever believed me.
My lie has the desired effect. Josh stands down, and asks if I need help with anything before I leave. I say no, that I’m just going to change my clothes and go.
I step out of the bathroom. In the bedroom, I close the door. I grab my scrub bottoms and a long-sleeved T-shirt from my drawer. I lay them on the bed, but before I get dressed, I pull my phone out of my pocket. I take a deep breath and hold it in, summoning the courage to look. I wonder what waits there. More nasty threats? My heart hammers inside me. My knees shake.
I take a look. There are two messages waiting for me.
The first: Water broke. Contractions 5 min apart.
And then: Heading to hospital.—M.
I release my pent-up breath. The texts are from my client’s husband, sent from her phone. My legs nearly give in relief, and I drop down to the edge of the bed, forcing myself to breathe. I inhale long and deep. I hold it in until my lungs become uncomfortable. When I breathe out, I try and force away the tension.
But I can’t sit long because my client is advancing quickly. I need to go.
Excerpted from Local Woman Missing @ 2021 by Mary Kyrychenko, used with permission by Park Row Books.
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About the Author
Mary Kubica is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of six novels, including THE GOOD GIRL, PRETTY BABY, DON’T YOU CRY, EVERY LAST LIE, WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT, and THE OTHER MRS. A former high school history teacher, Mary holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in History and American Literature. She lives outside of Chicago with her husband and two children. Her last novel THE OTHER MRS. was an instant New York Times bestseller; is coming soon to Netflix; was a LibraryReads pick for February 2020; praised by the New York Times; and highly recommended by Entertainment Weekly, People, The Week,Marie Claire, Bustle, HelloGiggles,Goodreads, PopSugar, BookRiot, HuffingtonPost, First for Women, Woman’s World, and more.Mary’s novels have been translated into over thirty languages and have sold over two million copies worldwide. She’s been described as “a helluva storyteller,” (Kirkus Reviews) and “a writer of vice-like control,” (Chicago Tribune), and her novels have been praised as “hypnotic” (People) and “thrilling and illuminating” (Los Angeles Times). LOCAL WOMAN MISSING is her seventh novel.
