A man forged by war, paramilitary operative Kevin Rhoads is recruited for a solo extraction mission deep inside Siberia. CIA analyst Whitney Skyler’s investigation into a Russian-backed bank on American soil leads to the President of the United States.
Director Cynthia King plays an audacious gambit, leveraging a thirty-year debt of honor to save a captured American agent. But in this world of shifting alliances, even the most careful plans can unravel. Skyler faces an impossible choice: expose her mentor’s dangerous game to protect national security or reveal the truth to Rhoads. Already shattered by loss, Rhoads discovers the devastating betrayal that will transform him into a force of vengeance, leaving death in his wake.
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Elise’s Thoughts
Beyond Honor by K. B. Brodsky (the pen name for the husband-and-wife team of Karen and Bill Brodsky) is a fabulous debut novel. It has everything that a Vince Flynn/Mitch Rapp novel had including action, great character development, and timely geopolitical scenarios with themes of loyalty, duty, sacrifice, and revenge.
There are multiple sub-plots in the book. Readers meet Kevin Rhoads in the first chapter as a 17-year-old Alaskan hunting guide and pilot who takes two US army veterans bear hunting. The veterans were so impressed with Kevin’s skills they told him to call when he finished school. He does just that, fast forwarding, to become a Delta working in the Special Activities Center. He and his team, joined by rising CIA analyst Whitney Skyler, are sent on an operation to accompany US technicians assisting Ukrainian forces. At the last-minute, Rhoads is pulled from the mission so that he can head to his father’s side, who has been hospitalized, and Skyler is called back to Washington. After hearing the team’s transport has been shot down by Russian forces with all dead, they both feel guilty for surviving.
The second plot line has real estate developer, Peter Michaels, being blackmailed by Russian spies who bailed him out of financial trouble. Whitney uncovers a financial trail that leads from Russia back to a Michaels, a close friend of the newly elected US President Kemp.
The third plot line has Skyler also discovering during her investigation that a CIA asset believed dead is alive in a Russian prison. Rhoads is asked to do a solo extraction. Cynthia King, CIA Director of Special Situations, is behind putting Skyler in charge of the investigation and choosing Rhoads for the extraction. Plus, she uncovers a financial trail that leads from Russia and connected to the failed op that killed Rhoads teammates.
The authors have hit the ball out of the park with this debut novel as they pit US and Russian intelligence agencies against each other. Readers will take an emotional journey with the characters as they deal with loss, grief, and complicated relationships. There is a lot of action as the characters are on a quest for vengeance.
Author Interview
Elise Cooper: What’s it like writing together?
K. Brodsky: I think we have a pretty good system where Bill wrote the first draft, and then invited me to join him in the rest of the process. I think we both bring different strengths to it and we have a good system where we write on a Google Doc. All our edits, all our changes, all our thoughts are sort of off to the side in comments and nobody changes anything unless the other person agrees. I think, we got it worked out. What do you think, Bill?
B. Brodsky: I think it’s super fun. You know, putting aside the technicalities of it, we talk about it, and we have a drink over it, and we have a lot of laughs on it.
EC: Idea for the story?
K. B. B: It organically grew, where the components became more complicated, more nuanced as we were going through the story writing process. But we always knew we wanted to make this story about honor and betrayal, and we kind of had the sense that the end of the book will have Kevin and Whitney separated in some way.
EC: What was the purpose of the hunting scene in chapter one?
K. B. B: We wanted to land our character, Kevin Rhodes, in an environment where he can display his talents. We wanted to also show his very deep relationship with his father and the lodge that they work in. The grizzly bears were just a vehicle to show his talents, whether it was the shooting or his resilience when he hurt his ankle, or his confidence in flying a little plane. Once a retired Delta Force and sent to Siberia, readers see a lot of those talents come back, including flying of the plane. So, it was kind of a consistent thing throughout the book. The two hunters he was a guide for were veterans of the army. At the end of the hunt, they were very impressed with him, and they gave him a card and said, ‘When you finish college, call this number, and, there’s a job. We’re in the Delta force.’
EC: How would you describe Kevin, the male lead?
K. B. B: Kevin is determined. A tracker, brave, family minded, calm, laser focused, and went on a mission. He kind of has two sides, one when he’s on a mission, and one when he’s a civilian. We really wanted to show in his character how he is compartmentalized.
EC: Do you think some of the settings was timely?
K. B. B: I think it’s timely, because we tried to paint a geopolitical picture, but we tried to keep it relatively simple and more from the individual’s perspective. In the Ukraine part of the book, while we don’t get into the politics of it, we get into the human cost of it, the people being killed, the toll that it takes on the soldiers, since some of them don’t make it. I think the goal is if you pick up this book 20 years from now, it would still feel relevant, regardless of what was happening in the geopolitical sphere. It would still feel relevant because it’s grounded in characters, versus what was happening in the world at that time. Which is why it wasn’t written to sort of be a rip from the headlines either.
EC: How would you describe Whitney?
K. B. B: She’s is incredibly responsible. I think she carries the weight of what happened to her brother with her, and she doesn’t want to let anybody down. Part of what we really wanted for Whitney was to see growth from her from the beginning to the end. She starts out, not naive, but very earnest, and we wanted her to sort of become more complicated than nuanced as she became more grounded in these situations. But we also made a point to make sure that she didn’t become like a superhero, picking up a gun and turning into a female version of Kevin. We wanted her to have her own skills, which were more of an analyst. She learns from her mentor, Cynthia King.
EC: How would you describe Cynthia King, CIA Director of Special Situations?
K. B. B: She’s willing to do things that go outside of what would be considered good. In all these characters is this concept of being pushed beyond honor. She is pushing people, taking advantage of the debt of honor with Somers, the CIA Director, to get what she believes is necessary.
EC: What role did Daniel Komoroff, CIA asset captured by Russia play in the story?
K. B. B: I think he’s a vehicle to get King really engaged, so that she uses her debt of honor that she feels Somers owes her. So that we really see King manipulating Somers who had no choice but to say yes because of what happened in Berlin 30 or 40 years ago. King pushes Somers beyond her comfort zone. And Komoroff provided a vehicle for King to get passionate, to try to manipulate everybody, because she saw herself in him.
EC: How would you describe President Kemp?
K. B. B: He’s a political animal. I think he’s smart. I think he’s a manipulator and impulsive. He’s a politician, and I think, for better or for worse, whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, he’s supposed to be kind of an amalgamation of lots of different politicians, really the worst of our politics. It’s hard to figure out exactly what they really believe in. They kind of blow with the wind, depending on their polling numbers. They are trying to manipulate people to get votes, to get money, and do not ask the right questions. I think what they believe in is power, period.
EC: What about Anya the Russian Agent?
K. B. B: We kind of set her up to be disillusioned but she does things to help Russia against the US.
EC: Next book?
K. B. B: We explore Anya more deeply in book two. We had a cliffhanger in book one because we are setting readers up for the next phase. Kevin and Whitney will be back. There is no official title yet. The setting is in Venezuela
THANK YOU!!
***
BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.
Buried Lies and Deadly Revenge have a layer of realism that elevates the suspense. Both books are fast-paced mysteries with engaging twists and turns, and are hard to put down.
Book Description
U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officer Maya Thompson and her K-9, Juniper, are both ready for a break. Ever since moving to Colorado, it’s been one investigation after another. Murder, arson, kidnapping…they’ve handled it all. Now that her boyfriend, Undersheriff Josh Colton, is coming home, Maya is looking forward to spending some quality time together.
Until she and Juniper find the body of a woman in a pile of forest debris meant to burn, that is. Then Maya’s just looking forward to having Josh’s help in solving the crime.
But when the victim turns out to be Josh’s volatile ex-fiancée, and all signs point to Josh as the main suspect, Maya and Juniper must dig into Josh’s past to uncover the truth…before the killer, fixated on revenge, finds them.
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Elise’s Thoughts
Buried Lies introduces Cook County Prosecutor Elena Perez who discovers that an innocent man was in prison for the murder of a senator’s daughter. When she realized that former Chicago police officer Josh Colton might have evidence relating to that crime, she reached out to Josh’s former fiancée, Amber, to get Josh to turn over the evidence. When Amber called to request his evidence, Josh foolishly agreed to meet with her. Unfortunately, things go drastically wrong and Amber ends up dead, with Josh being framed for her murder. Maya and Juniper must dig into Josh’s past to uncover the truth before the killer, fixated on revenge, finds them.
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Book Description
There’s nothing more terrifying than a trail of smoke over a summer-dry national forest—at least, that’s what Forest Service law enforcement officer Maya Thompson thinks when she and her boyfriend, sheriff’s deputy Josh Colten, spot the first signs of a fire over the Colorado mountains.
But when she learns that a teen girl has been kidnapped and taken deep into the wilderness, a new fear grips her: If she and her K-9 partner, Juniper, can’t reach them fast enough, the fire might not just destroy her beloved forest—it might be the end to an innocent girl’s life.
An innocent girl who is tied to Maya in ways she never could have imagined. And in ways that will upend everything she’s always believed about her family…and the dark past that haunts her.
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Elise’s Thoughts
Deadly Revenge Maya and Josh are informed that there is a kidnapped girl, Hope. As they try to find her, they are hampered by a raving wildfire. Maya, Josh, and their K9s, Juniper and Finn, need to find the teen before something bad happens to her or the fire catches up to them. However, there is an informant in one of the agencies that are searching for Hope. Worse, the mole is feeding the kidnapper intel that helps them keep one step ahead. Plus, the innocent girl is tied to Maya in ways she never could have imagined.
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Author Interview
Elise Cooper: WithBuried Lieshow did you get the idea for the story?
Kathleen Donnelly: It was a mix of several things with just some imagination. And a bunch of what ifs. I knew Josh, the male lead, had a past, and I knew I wanted to have a book that really brought his past into the story. Plus, there was a case here in Colorado with a young man named Timothy Masters who was not only wrongfully convicted, but the prosecution withheld evidence because they felt he was guilty. When evidence came around that proved he wasn’t, they withheld it. He spent 20 years in prison. He’s been in prison a long time. It was another police officer, a detective on his case, who stuck with it and helped overturn the conviction and prove he was innocent of the murder. We always want to think of prosecutors doing the right thing, so just the idea that someone hid evidence was like, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ So, it was a mix of that, and then just a lot of imagination with what ifs.
EC: How would you describe Sydney; the victim Josh is accused of killing?
KD: She was stubborn. She was a drug addict. It was interesting because we want to profile them as coming from various backgrounds, but it can be anyone. Anyone can fall into the lifestyle depending on choices. She was a bit of a wild child. And just kind of didn’t want to have rules, and was still young and free, and didn’t think there would be consequences to her choices.
EC: What role did Amber, Josh’s former fiancé, play in the story?
KD: She’s obsessed with winning him back. She is a manipulator, spoiled, and not a rule follower. She was in Killer Secrets, book 3, so readers can really discover her there. Josh realized his relationship with her was not a healthy one, and he broke it off. But because it wasn’t healthy, Amber wanted to manipulate her way back into his life. Of course, he doesn’t want that.
EC: Do you want readers to feel sorry for her?
KD: I think whenever you have someone who’s been an antagonist, because she certainly was an antagonist in Killer Secrets, it’s more you want readers to understand their motivation and say, ‘I wouldn’t do that, but maybe I understand where this person’s coming from.’ I heard it from Jeffrey Deaver, and I’m sure he heard it from someone else that said, ‘you know, the antagonist is the hero of their own story.’ But, to be that, the goals and motivations must be understandable. Something we might say, ‘I would never do that, but I get where she’s coming from.’ Maybe we’ve had our hearts broken, but would never manipulate the relationship yet, understand a broken heart, and how hard it is to move on from a relationship.
EC: Why have one of the settings in Chicago, because of the violence?
KD: I had Josh come from Chicago. That’s where he grew up. I think with Chicago, I had, my dad grew up in Chicago, and my mom grew up in Illinois, so we have a lot of roots there. When my dad was growing up, it was the mob. But what’s interesting in Chicago is the mob has kind of moved but the gangs have moved in, and have kind of taken over that criminal activity. The other interesting thing, I read in a Chicago magazine about how gang members were looking for political office and getting elected. It was just so fascinating to think that a leader of a gang could become an Alderman. Because the neighborhoods almost feel like they can protect them or understand their interests. It somewhat planted a seed that I went down my own road. I thought, ‘if they’re in politics, what does that mean for all of Chicago politics? How are they influencing things?’ It was just a little seed that turned into a lot worse, and then, I wanted to make it clear, it’s all fiction and all imagination.
EC: How would you describe Elena, the investigative prosecutor?
KD: She survived the killing of her mother. I had her as a cross country runner to be able to escape the bad guys. She is tenacious. I feel like she might come back in future books, but I don’t really know when. We’ll see what happens with her.
EC: You always put in your books tidbits about a law enforcement working dog. In this one you mention a muzzle strike?
KD: This was something I was trying to research, and I have some books on police dog training. A muzzle strike is when the dogs are wearing a muzzle so they can’t bite, but they can hit the person. It’s used in a situation where the handler doesn’t want the dog to maybe apprehend the wrong person, but kind of push them. I did a lot of research and reading, and when I found it, I thought this would work for this scenario.
EC: Idea forDeadly Revenge, book 5?
KD: Where we live, in Colorado, we’ve had nights where we’ve had several fires burning near us, and you can look to the north and see flames. You can look to the south and see flames, which is scary. I thought we need to have a fire in a book to complicate things, and because it’s become such a part of the West, a reality of the West. Tragically, when this book released, we had lost at least four firefighters. So, it’s become a part of our lives, and I just felt the mountains are their own character, and brings with them their own beauty and conflict. The story also had Abigail’s revenge and after she kidnaps someone related to Maya the fire complicated the team looking for her.
EC: What about Abigail?
KD: When I wrote Hunting the Truth, I knew, at the end of that, she’d be back. I didn’t quite know when, and then, as I was writing this, I was like, ‘Oh, it’s time for Abigail to come back.’ I also feel like it was time to start wrapping up some of those storylines. I mean, she killed Maya’s mom, and grandmother. She is a corrupt cop. And obviously we meet her in jail. She met Maya’s mother when Maya’s mother ran away from home, and made some bad choices, which is how she ended up getting pregnant with Maya. So, Abigail was one of the cops that Maya’s mother, Zoe, ran across during that time, and Zoe had evidence on Abigail that made it worth Abigail killing to get it back, Abigail, she always had a plan, an endgame. She knows how to work the system. She’s manipulative, thought she was above the law, persuasive, narcissistic, unhinged, likes to extort people and hires people to do her dirty work.
EC: What was the tidbit in this book about working dog?
KD: Dogs overheating and that sometimes they cannot wear a protective vest because of that. I try to put in the tidbits, but it comes up naturally in the story. As a handler, back when I was working, heat was a huge factor when I was working the dogs. Since we worked at schools in the fall and the spring, I had to really watch the temperature. If the tidbits come up naturally and it’s something I can throw in and something that I find interesting, then I hope the reader finds it interesting. So, I don’t necessarily sit down and think, this is the tidbit I’m going put into this book. It just kind of happens organically.
EC: How would you describe the kidnapped victim, Hope?
KD: She’s a loner, doesn’t have a lot of friends, from divorced parents, and her dad is kind of a deadbeat dad. She can be sarcastic, a fighter, survivor, anxious and stubborn. She is close to her uncle. She’s a teenager.
EC: You said that she has some of Maya in her. What part of her personality, do you think, relates to Maya?
KD: I think they both are fighters and survivors. When we meet Maya in Chasing Justice, she’s a little bit of a loner at that time. It’s really, Josh and Pops, who help pull her through that, but, after she’s come back from the war, she’s a little bit of a loner, so I see them kind of similar, like, in those ways.
EC: Next books?
KD: Book 6 is called Blood Tracker, and comes out August of next year. The plot deals with poaching. There’ll be a book seven, and we’ll get more info later.
THANK YOU!!
***
BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.
August 1903. Emma and her husband Derrick are among the men in white tie and tails and the women wearing white gowns from the House of Worth at Tessie Oelrichs’s Bal Blanc, or White Ball, at Rosecliff, her grand cottage on Bellevue Avenue. There to cover the event of the season is young Ethan Merriman, society reporter for the Newport Messenger, the newspaper owned by Emma and Derrick.
It’s an utterly charming affair until a stranger intrudes flaunting a green-striped necktie and matching vest in defiance of their hostess’s theme. But his fashion crime is a mere misdemeanor compared to his intention to blackmail Mrs. Oelrichs by producing a compromising document supposedly signed by Tessie over a decade ago.
Insisting it’s a forgery but terrified of scandal, she agrees to his terms, but the blackmailer will not live to see payday. His body is found face down in a fountain before the party’s end. Beside him stands a very wet Ethan, who was seen being confronted by the man earlier in the evening. Coming to the aid of their luckless cub reporter, Emma and Derrick must sort through the white lies and blackened reputations to discover the identity of the true killer.
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Elise’s Thoughts
Murder At Rosecliff by Alyssa Maxwell does not disappoint per her other novels.
In August 1903, Emma and her husband Derrick are among the men in white tie and tails and the women wearing white gowns from the House of Worth at Tessie Oelrichs’s Bal Blanc, or White Ball, at Rosecliff, her grand cottage on Bellevue Avenue. There to cover the event of the season is young Ethan Merriman, society reporter for the Newport Messenger, the newspaper owned by Emma and Derrick.
It’s an utterly charming affair until a stranger intrudes, flaunting a green-striped necktie and matching vest in defiance of their hostess’s theme. But his fashion crime is a mere misdemeanor compared to his intention to blackmail Mrs. Oelrichs by producing a compromising document supposedly signed by Tessie over a decade ago.
Insisting it’s a forgery, but terrified of scandal, she agrees to his terms, but the blackmailer will not live to see payday. His body is found face down in a fountain before the party’s end. Beside him stands a very wet Ethan, who was seen being confronted by the man earlier in the evening. Coming to the aid of their luckless cub reporter, Emma and Derrick must sort through the white lies and blackened reputations to discover the identity of the true killer.
The story is riveting from beginning to end with plenty of twists, turns, and red herrings. A bonus is the vivid depictions of Newport’s focus on class and gender division with real-life historical figures.
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Author Interview
Elise Cooper: The idea for the story?
AM: As with each book in my “Gilded Newport Mysteries,” to develop story ideas I research the family who owned each house. In this case, Theresa Fair Oelrichs, or Tessie, who owned Rosecliff, was the daughter of one of the wealthiest mine-owners in the country. But before he became a millionaire, the Fairs lived in the mining camps of Virginia City, Nevada—as far away from the elegance and beauty of Newport, RI, as can be imagined. It was in these camps that Tessie spent her earliest years, until James Fair moved the family to one of the most fashionable areas of San Francisco. That meant that when she moved to the east coast, there was a lot people in society who didn’t know about her. In my mind, that meant there could be secrets in her past someone could use to blackmail her. And because mining was a rough industry run by ruthless men, it was easy to envision just the sort of scoundrel who might use her past against her.
EC: Was the White Ball true?
AM: Yes! Tessie Oelrichs’s White Ball, or Bal Blanc, occurred in 1904, but I moved it up a year to fit my series timeline. The details I describe were taken mostly from newspaper articles written at the time—written by people with the same occupation as my main suspect, Ethan Merriman, who writes the society page for the Newport Messenger, owned and operated by Emma and her husband, Derrick. The expense for the multitude of white flowers, the white ships anchored just offshore, the food, the swans, etc. could have fed numerous poor families for a year. The female guests spent thousands on pure white gowns from Houses of Worth, Doucet, Lucille, and other famous designers of the times. It all would have created a breathtaking scene, especially with Rosecliff’s huge, airy ballroom with its cloudy sky mural painted on the ceiling, and the many doors on two sides that, when open, brought both the breezes from the ocean on one side and the floral scents from the Italian garden on the other to sweep through the room.
EC: How would you describe Solomon Wheeler?
AM: He is emboldened, insolvent, boorish, rude, unscrupulous, dangerous, no scruples, ruthless, likes to destroy others by using their secrets against them. He is as low an individual as it’s possible to be. He uses people and throws them away without a second thought. He is also a slacker, looking for the easy way to make a buck, along with having a sense of entitlement to a lifestyle he hasn’t earned. He uses his father’s ousting from the Bonanza Kings (made up of James Fair and his three partners who owned the Comstock Lode, the silver mine that propelled them to unimagined wealth), to justify blackmailing Tessie, without ever admitting his father might have deserved what happened.
EC: How would you describe Tessie?
AM: Tessie Oelrichs was very real. She was a renowned beauty and possessed a confidence that paved her way into New York Society. She was a woman who knew what she wanted and how to get it. Although a good twenty years younger than Alva Vanderbilt Belmont and Mamie Fish, she joined those ladies to form society’s “Triumvirate.” As Caroline Astor aged and became less of a leading force in society, the Triumvirate stepped in to take her place. These ladies changed the rules to make society more inclusive (divorcees and people with New Money were more accepted), while at the same time establishing new rules about who would be included and who would be given the cold shoulder. We see examples of that in Murder at Rosecliff where a woman who tries too hard to be accepted is essentially rebuffed.
EC: What about the mansion, Rosecliff?
AM: Like Alva Belmont did with the building of Marble House, Tessie was involved in the design and construction of Rosecliff from start to finish. She spent many a day at the house supervising the work, often changing her mind and ordering the carpenters to rip out what they’d done and start fresh. On one of those days, a carpenter’s tack went flying and hit Tessie in the eye. As a result, she was blind in that eye for the rest of her life. Despite this, she continued to be involved in the building of her summer cottage and remained a formidable figure among society’s Four Hundred. It’s worth noting that Tessie had married Hermann Oelrichs, a shipping magnate, but after the birth of their only child, a son, they lived basically separate lives. They never divorced, however, remaining married in name only until Hermann died in 1906.
EC: How would you describe Ethan and what was his role?
AM: Unlike Emma, who early in her journalism career chafed at being relegated to the society pages (she wanted to report on hard news), Ethan loves recording the details of Newport’s grand affairs. He is a gentle soul who loves beauty and sees it as being as important to life as the more serious matters covered in newspapers. He attends the White Ball as a reporter. His job is to circulate through the crush, document the details of what people were wearing and such, and interview those guests who wished to be interviewed, describing their latest travels, engagements, and soirees for the reading public. On one hand the Four Hundred wanted their privacy, but on the other they enjoyed displaying their wealth, and society columns were one way to do that. When Ethan is accused of murdering Solomon Wheeler based on rather incriminating but circumstantial evidence, Emma refuses to believe he’s capable of such an act. At times she seems to be the only person whose faith is unwavering, but she remains a fierce friend trying to prove Ethan’s innocence.
EC: Once again, this book goes into societal roles: how does it fit with Detective Myers appearing to have a chip on his shoulder towards the wealthy?
AM: Like many year-round Newporters, Detective Myers sees the wealthy summer set as frivolous and wasteful. As I mentioned, the amount of money spent on the White Ball could have fed entire families over an extended period. Of course, the wealthy did support many charities and were involved in philanthropic projects to better the lives of the poor, but they also created impoverished populations due to how they treated their workers. The Four Hundred controlled all major industry in America at that time, and by general agreement chose to pay their workers poverty-level wages with none of the benefits we enjoy today. This unfairness was seen as the right of business owners, and employees who if they didn’t like it could work elsewhere. The problem was, the situation would be similar wherever they tried to find employment.
EC: What about Detective Myers?
AM: I portray Detective Myers as grouchy, arrogant, condescending, and downright mean at times, but part of his attitude is somewhat justifiable. After all, the wealthy came to Newport each summer to party and have fun, and treated Newport as a kind of private country club, expecting the ordinary Newporters to either serve them or stay out of the way. And they weren’t always held accountable for their actions. In this, some things haven’t changed. Newport is like a small town during the winter months, but come summer there is a population explosion of tourists and summer residents who come purely to enjoy – often without much thought for the people who live there year-round.
EC: Did you also want to point out that the Upper Class appears arrogant to those that have a lower-class status, and deems them unfit, not rich enough, not fashionable, and not clever?
AM: It was easy to fall short of the expectations of others—as it still is today. Let’s face it, people constantly judge each other, finding in others the shortcomings they themselves don’t want to admit to having. It creates an “us and them” mentality in which a group will allow itself to feel superior to others. Especially among the women of the Four Hundred, creating social boundaries was like structuring a business, with upper management lording it over everyone else – much like how their husbands ran their businesses. In a world where women didn’t hold positions of power in the business or political spheres, these social structures allowed them to feel empowered and in control of their lives. Unfortunately, as certain individuals rose to positions of social prominence, those lower down on the ladder were made to feel not as good, second best, and of little importance. It wasn’t until the Suffrage movement truly got going during the second decade of the twentieth century that women managed to see past class boundaries and work for a common cause.
EC: Why were people against Emma building a school for girls?
AM: Schools for girls were not uncommon, but most of them were finishing schools where young ladies were taught deportment and etiquette along with “feminine” subjects such as language, art, and music. Such schools were generally approved of. What Emma has in mind is a high school where all subjects are taught, including higher mathematics and the sciences, where a girl can get the same education as a boy. Coed public high schools did exist, and Newport’s Rogers High School was coed at the time (and integrated), but Emma believes the coed environment puts pressure on girls to take home economics classes while the boys take chemistry. Unfortunately, many people take issue with the idea of a completely non-gender-biased curriculum. They don’t see the sense in educating a girl to such standards when she’ll only marry and have children. They don’t appreciate that the young ladies at Emma’s school will have choices in life that don’t necessarily lead to being wives and mothers.
EC: Is Elizabeth Carter Brooks a real person?
AM: Yes, Elizabeth Carter Brooks was a real person. She was born in New Bedford, MA (not far from Newport) in 1867 to former slaves, and attained degrees in architecture and teaching. She became the first African American woman to teach at a public school in New Bedford, and was involved in local and national organizations to better the lives of African American women and girls, including helping to found the local chapter of the NAACP in New Bedford. In 1897 she helped establish the New Bedford Home for the Aged, the first of its kind in the city, and in 1908 designed its permanent building.
EC:What role does Elizabeth Carter Brooks play in the story?
AM: As Emma became caught up in the dilemma of male architects being unwilling to work with her, I decided to search for whether there were any female architects at that time. I was delighted to discover Elizabeth Carter Brooks and couldn’t imagine a better architect for Emma to work with on the design for her unconventional school.
EC: Next book?
AM: The next “Gilded Newport Mystery” will be Murder at Malbone, a July 2027 release. Although the present house dates to 1848, the property goes back to the mid-1700s, to an original house that burned down. It was owned by a Colonel Godfrey Malbone, a wealthy shipping merchant and slave trader. Because of this history, I explore themes of slavery and its consequences, as well as the notion that unsettled spirits might be haunting Malbone, perhaps even responsible for the death of a young man. The back cover blurb:
A fatal Fourth of July fireworks mishap in Newport, Rhode Island, proves to be no accident, and newspaper editor Emma Cross Andrews must sort out who turned a celebration into an incendiary act of cold-blooded murder.
THANK YOU!!
***
BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.
Hell has frozen over! Because Viktor Lagransky, the son of a former mafia assassin, is the only person who believes officer Sheila Carlson’s ambush was orchestrated by one of her police colleagues. Viktor is trying to be the best bodyguard the Payne Protection Agency has ever seen—even if the stubborn cop doubts his true motives. But when her questions about her dad’s unsolved murder lead to a new string of attacks against her, she has no choice but to trust the former bad boy she’s always been attracted to. If only her attacker—and Viktor’s own family secrets—didn’t threaten their unexpected partnership.
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Elise’s Thoughts
Covert Security has Viktor Lagransky, the son of a former mafia assassin, as the only person who believes officer Sheila Carlson’s ambush was orchestrated by one of her police colleagues. Viktor is trying to be the best bodyguard the Payne Protection Agency has ever seen—even if the stubborn cop doubts his true motives. But when her questions about her dad’s unsolved murder leads to a new string of attacks against her, she has no choice but to trust the former bad boy she’s always been attracted to.
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Book Description – Colton’s Private Security
He let her go once.
He won’t lose her now.
Since he left the military, Mark Colton’s work as a bodyguard has satisfied his need for travel and adventure. He’s on a rare visit back home when a dangerous criminal takes a nurse hostage. That nurse is Cassidy Garner, his high school sweetheart, and seeing her in the grasp of an armed villain makes his well-honed instincts kick in. After this close call, he’s determined to keep her safe—even if that means ignoring the once-in-a-lifetime attraction they both still feel. But what if it’s his past that’s putting her in danger?
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Elise’s Thoughts
Colton’s Private Security has military veteran Mark Colton working as a body guard, which has satisfied his need for travel and adventure. He’s on a rare visit back home when a dangerous criminal takes a nurse hostage. That nurse is Cassidy Garner, his high school sweetheart, and seeing her in the grasp of an armed villain makes his well-honed instincts kick in. After this close call, he’s determined to keep her safe—even if that means ignoring the once-in-a-lifetime attraction they both still feel. But what if it’s his past that’s putting her in danger?
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Book Description – Twins for the Cowboy Dad
Cowboy bachelor today…
Father of two tomorrow?
Pregnant with twins, newly single Trish Dempsey hopes for a fresh start at her late father’s ranch. Trish wants to turn Four Corners into a home for her and her children, as well as a new business. There’s just one catch—Brett Lemmon and his brothers already live there, and she’ll have to convince them to go along with her plan. Rugged and hardworking, Brett is the most stubborn—and the most attractive. He put everything he had into making Four Corners a working ranch. Now he must compromise with the frustrating and beautiful Trish. The more time they spend together, the more he realizes that the real threat she poses is to his bachelor status!
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Elise’s Thoughts
Twins For the Cowboy Dad has Trish coming back to the ranch after her father’s passing, having just gone through a messy divorce. Not only did Trish come back to the ranch, she came back pregnant with twins. She had a lot of ideas on how things should be done at the ranch. Brett Lemmon and his brothers already live there, and she’ll have to convince them to go along with her plan. This was not only a romance, but there’s a mystery involved.
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Author Interview
Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea for the book,Covert Security?
Lisa Childs: I loved writing the main characters banter. I thought of the movie “Moonlighting” with Bruce Willis and Sybil Shepherd, where they had that kind of quick, quick, witty banter. I loved that dynamic which was from the other books, and it was just like they needed their own story. The male lead, Viktor, whose dad was a hit man. He was just this terrible person. So, yeah, I wanted Viktor to get his happily ever after, for sure.
EC: How would you describe Sheila?
LC: Ambitious, tough, vulnerable, intimidating, fearless, snarky, funny, sexy, and stubborn. She has a rap as being ambitious, but she’s also on a mission to find out what happened to her dad, with people saying he was corrupt. She isn’t necessarily on a mission to prove his innocence, but to find out who killed him and the truth about his career. This has been what’s driving her more than any advancement of her career.
EC: How would you describe Viktor?
LC: Protective, charming, and funny.
EC: What about their relationship?
LC: There’s just that attraction between them. They’re the misfit toys, and so, they just have that cute attraction yet, he’s everything she doesn’t trust. He comes from this horrible upbringing. She’s accepted that these people have had these horrible upbringings, and wonders if they want to change, or are they capable of change. They’re very good people but just had horrible circumstances.
EC: Colton’s Private Security, how did you get the idea for this book?
LC: There are a bunch of authors who write stories. We’re given what’s called the Bible, we’re getting called the Bible, which is a plot outline. I was given to write about a bodyguard, because I’ve written a few of them. You have points in the story that you must know about the other stories that you have to put in there.
EC: How would you describe Mark?
LC: He’s former military, so, he’s got that rigid military upbringing. He’s always kind of had the wanderlust. That’s why he didn’t want to stay in the hometown. He wanted to travel. He likes traveling and wanderers. To a certain extent he has PTSD but I think he’s aware of it, and he’s found ways to cope.
EC: How would you describe Cassidy?
LC: Very nurturing, very solid, and dependable, but unyielding and stubborn. She just wants to help her sister and raise her nephews and take care of her patients. Just a very good person.
EC: What about their relationship?
LC: We know that he broke her heart in high school, and she’s resentful of that. I don’t think she trusts him with her heart. And she doesn’t want to wind up like her sister, who lost her husband and has been struggling.
EC: How did you get the idea forTwins for the Cowboy Dad?
LC: I loved that Brett was as the oldest brother, one of my favorite characters, because he always took on so much responsibility, even when he didn’t want to. I loved that about him. I loved his personality from the other stories. Regarding Trish, I always had an idea in my head of who she was and how much family meant to her. My dad’s a twin, so that’s why I do twins so often in my stories.
EC: How would you describe Trish?
LC: She’s just a very sweet person. She kind of reminds me of my mom’s personality where family meant everything to her. She had that nurturing personality, and she wanted the family she never really got to have.
EC: How would you describe Brett?
LC: He was also a nurturer like Trish and family meant everything to him.
EC: What about the relationship?
LC: He was very forgiving when she wasn’t there. He was best friends with her dad. So, losing her dad was hard for him. Once he met her and understood her reasons, they were able to overcome that conflict. And suddenly, she’s got twins on the way. So that was quite a leap for him to be able to take on that responsibility, but he fell for her, and he fell for them.
EC: Next books?
LC: Next April, my first cozy mystery comes out. I used to have rental properties that we rented out in Michigan. The female lead has a bookstore in this big building, and she has rental units in it, and one of her guests is found dead. So that’s the whole setup of that book. Its titled Lake Michigan Murder Mystery. I have done thrillers and intrigues, but this is the first cozy, so I’m super excited about it.
In “The Covert Security series,” the next book will be Sylvie’s story and comes out in February. It is titled, Her Secret Security.
THANK YOU!!
***
BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.
She finds sisterhood in the Amish Widows Club–but will she risk loving again?
Leanna Mast never imagined she’d be a widow at forty-one, but it seems God had other plans. After mourning her husband for a year, she realizes it’s time to start living again. But her community expects her to remarry, and after living on her own, she’s not eager to start cooking and cleaning in another man’s home.
When she’s invited to join the Amish Widows Club, she discovers a place of belonging she didn’t even know she needed. In this group of women who support one another through sharing books, stories, and companionship, Leanna immediately feels welcome. She’s sure her life as a widow will bring her the fulfillment she craves . . . until handsome, kind Evan Keim comes calling. As their relationship deepens, her heart becomes involved. But how could she possibly leave the widows club for a dream that might be too good to be true?
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Elise’s Thoughts
The Unexpected Caller by Shelley Shepard Gray is like all the other books she writes; they never disappoint. The story is filled with patience, loneliness, heartbreak, and love.
Leanna Mast never imagined she’d be a widow at forty-one, but it seems God had other plans. After mourning her husband for a year, she realizes it’s time to start living again. But her community expects her to remarry, and after living on her own, she’s not eager to start cooking and cleaning in another man’s home.
When she’s invited to join the Amish Widows Club, she discovers a place of belonging she didn’t even know she needed. In this group of women who support one another through sharing books, stories, and companionship, Leanna immediately feels welcome. She’s sure her life as a widow will bring her the fulfillment she craves until handsome, kind Evan Keim comes calling. As their relationship deepens, her heart becomes involved. She is conflicted about leaving the club or getting into a relationship with Evan.
The story is engaging and readers will have a hard time putting this book down. It is a story that will make readers forget their troubles as they take a journey with the characters.
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Author Interview
Elise Cooper: Idea for the series?
Shelley Shepard Gray: I wrote all three books back-to-back to back with the three finished. I was in the whole world for about a year, and then, it was done. I am friends with a lady, who became a widow, maybe five years ago, and her husband had been in hospice for a long time. After he passed away, she felt like she had her life back, because she had been nursing him, and always needed to put his needs first, which is, of course, what you do with someone you love. After a year or so, it was a delight to see her, be excited to go out to eat, or to go with her girlfriends, or someone would say, ‘Well, let’s go do this little tour for the weekend.’ She could do things, and she had said something to me once about, ‘I think I almost took my friends for granted. I just really appreciate what I have with these other ladies that have been in the same position I’ve been in.’ So that just always kind of stuck with me. People think the Amish rules are, if you’re a widow, you must remarry right away, or you’re going to be mourning and sitting alone and wearing black nonstop. I have a feeling, if I was an Amish widow, and under the right circumstances, maybe I would want to go do stuff too. I thought it would be kind of a fun thing just to focus on friendships as much as a romance.
EC: What do you want to say about the Amish Widows Club?
SSG: Just because someone is driving a buggy and doesn’t have electricity, they don’t want the same thing that every other woman does, which is camaraderie, friendship, sisterhood. To have people that have your back. That is why I made up this lady, Doreen, who appears at the people’s houses at the beginning of every novel. At first, I wanted it to be completely secret. Like, nobody knew about it unless you’re a widow, and my editors didn’t like it being completely secret. And they are of different ages and are from different classes. These widows have a lot in common. They’ve gone through either a husband’s sudden death, or a long illness, or they’re suddenly alone. They don’t know how to go through life just by themselves.
EC: It was tough for the main character, Leanna, who had to choose between Evan or the club?
SSG: If you are married, or in a serious relationship, then maybe you don’t have that need as much as these widows do. And so, I like that idea, too, that it’s kind of you’re invited in, and if you decide to leave, or if you decide to get married, then you’re invited to leave. Leanna had a tough time deciding between the comradery of Evan or the one with this group.
EC: What do you want to say about her late husband, Willis?
SSG: He made her feel isolated, empty, depressed, and vulnerable. And she felt helpless, overwhelmed, and dejected around him. She felt like she had to get married and thought it was going to be better than it was. She had no choice, and she kind of was like, ‘This is my bed, and I’m resigned.’
EC: How would you describe Leanna?
SSG:The Unexpected Caller, has one of my favorite lines I’ve ever written to start a book, and I thought it summed it up, because the first line is, ‘she was so tired of being nice.’ And I really liked that about her. I thought she had a secret spunk, with a backbone in there somewhere. She just had to find it. And as she found her strength, she had to come to terms with it. I found a lot of value in her growth.
EC: What role did Doreen, the head of the Widows Club, play?
SSG: She was a force of nature. She was just a woman with a goal. She decided this is something that’s needed, and I’m going to form it. I liked that about her. And I saw, in a way, a little bit of me, and because I love books. Well, I’m kind of timid by nature, but I was a teacher for a long time, and I love a good schedule, and I love rules. I’m the best rule follower I know. I guess I channeled a little bit of her, a little bit of me into her, that, you know, she wanted to do this club, and she was going do this club her way. And she was the captain of it who handpicked people that she thought would be good in it. She didn’t ask every woman who was widowed to be part of it. I liked how spunky she was. And opinionated, and she didn’t really apologize. I even have her living so far out. She is not in a church district, so she goes to all different kinds of church districts. I mean, there’s just nothing about her in the norm. But she got along with everyone.
EC: What about the male lead, Evan?
SSG: He was kind, suave, debonair, and attentive. I loved all the scenes with his boys. I love the interaction with them. I liked how all the boys were so different, and he accepted who they were.
EC: What about the relationship between Evan and Leanna?
SSG: The main issue was she wanted to have a child, and he felt like, ‘no, I’ve been there, done that.’ I tried to have multiple conflicts. After his wife passed away, he’s kind of lonely. As for her, once she started falling in love with him and his family, she started learning more about herself, that it was okay to want things, ‘Well, I’m young enough to still have a baby. What if I have a baby? I would like this to happen one day.’ Then I wanted her to be able to voice that, and I didn’t want her to be afraid to say, ‘Oh, well, you don’t want this. Well, okay,’ because that would be right back where she was before, where she didn’t feel like she had a voice in the marriage. They both were smitten with each other, but there was this tension, and problems that they didn’t want to overlook for a while. I thought it was partly because of their ages, too.
EC: Do you think Jeremy helped to influence that relationship?
SSG: Jeremy helped his father see the light, in a sense, out of all the brothers. I like that the youngest son was blunt, and he wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t afraid to just say, ‘Dad, you’re being ridiculous, or what are you thinking?’ Evan seemed almost too nice, so I kind of wanted to have Jeremy realize that Evan’s got some flaws, too.
EC: What about the role of the relationship between Jeremy, Evan’s son, and Becca, the English woman?
SSG: I liked Jeremy and his dad a lot together. Jeremy kind of cracked me up, and I thought, ‘Well, Jeremy isn’t sure what he wants to be.’ It was fun just having him interested in this girl. She had her own needs, and I thought they were just a good foil, because he really liked her. She liked him. She had a difficult family life. There was also, she was English. He isn’t sure what he wants to do. And so, there was a nice little conflict, I hadn’t planned on. I wanted Jeremy’s point of view, just so we had an observer. The reader had an observer.
EC: Next book?
SSG: I say this series is a little dipping into women’s fiction and maybe just thinking about some other things that women must deal with besides just falling in love and being in a romantic relationship. I like that some of these books has some things for a reader to think about besides just the main romance going on.
In the next book, The Forbidden Caller, the widow, is only 24. It comes out next month. She wasn’t too keen on joining the Widow’s Club, because she thought, ‘I don’t really want to be with a bunch of old ladies.’ The third book is called The Persistent Caller. There is a prologue; the next widow was in an awful marriage, and she’s been in the widow’s club a long time. Somebody comes along, and changes her mind, where it becomes a tough decision for her, and she questions, does she want to leave? I believe it comes out in March
I also have coming out in November, E is for Englisher. It’s a Christmas book, which is my favorite type to write, with baby doll sheep. So, very cute. They’re all named after states. The heroine happens to be a widow, having a hard time of trying to move on. She meets this guy and they kind of bond over the six sheep on Christmas Eve.
THANK YOU!!
***
BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.
Ana Kaminski is pushed through the iron gates of Auschwitz beside her frightened young friend Ester Pasternak. As they reach the front of the line, Ana steps forward and quietly declares herself a midwife – and Ester her assistant. Their arms are tattooed and they’re ordered to the maternity hut. Holding an innocent new-born baby, Ana knows the fate of so many are in her hands, and vows to do everything she can to save them.
When two guards in their chilling SS uniforms march in and snatch a blond-haired baby from its mother it’s almost too much for Ana to bear. Consoling the distraught woman, Ana realises amidst the terrible heartache there is a glimmer of hope. The guards are taking the healthiest babies and placing them with German families, so they will survive. And there are whispers the war is nearly over… Ana and Ester begin to secretly tattoo little ones with their mother’s numbers, praying one day they might be reunited.
Then, early one morning, Ana notices the small bump under Ester’s thin striped clothing.
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Elise’s Thoughts
The Midwife of Auschwitz by Anna Stuart is a compelling read. Ana Kaminski and her frightened young friend Ester Pasternak were sent to Auschwitz. Ana quietly steps forward and states she’s a midwife–and Ester is her assistant. The story follows their time there but also how innocent babies born in that horrific place were snatched from their mothers if they had blonde hair. The guards are taking the healthiest babies and placing them with German families, so they will survive. But before they are taken, Ana and Ester begin to secretly tattoo little ones with their mother’s concentration camp identification numbers, praying one day they might be reunited.
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Book Description – The Midwife of Berlin
1945, Berlin: Ester Pasternak walked out of the gates of Auschwitz barely alive. She survived against devastating odds, but her heartbreaking journey is only just beginning. In the camp, Ester gave birth to a tiny fair-haired infant, only for her precious baby to be snatched from her and taken to a German family. Now the war is over, Ester is desperate to find her little girl.
But Europe is in chaos, Jewish families have been torn apart and everyone is urgently looking for their loved ones. In every orphanage and hospital she visits, Ester searches the faces of tear-stained toddlers; each mop of blonde hair and pair of blue eyes she sees sets her heart racing.
Will Ester ever be able to find the child whose tattoo matches her own? Or is she already too late.
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Elise’s Thoughts
The Midwife of Berlin, a continuation of Ester’s story is also riveting. Ester Pasternak walked out of the gates of Auschwitz barely alive. She survived against devastating odds, but her heartbreaking journey is only just beginning. In the camp, Ester gave birth to a tiny fair-haired infant, only for her precious baby to be snatched from her and taken to a German family. Now the war is over, Ester longs to find her little girl. But in doing so she is connected to a little girl, Olivia, an orphan, who Ester adopts. This story takes readers on a journey reuniting the family.
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Book Description – The Children on the Train
Grete always longed to be a mother, but it never happened for her so, as the clouds of war gather over Europe, she’s devoting her time to helping Jewish children escape the Nazis. She remembers the face of every single child she’s taken on trains to freedom in the Netherlands. The danger increases with each trip, but, today, she has to get her best friend’s children to safety, because they are closest thing she has to family.
But at the border, the train screeches to a halt and she hears the shout of a Nazi guard. Then the sound of boots coming towards their carriage. When the door bursts open, she draws herself up tall, and prepares to face the interrogation she knows will come. With shaking hands, she passes over Rosa and Adele’s tattered papers and hopes they aren’t scrutinized too closely.
Grete is ready to do whatever it takes to keep her small charges safe.
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Elise’s Thoughts
The Children on the Train is not connected to the Midwife novels, but it’s a story of courage. Grete always longed to be a mother, but it never happened for her so, as the clouds of war gather over Europe, she’s devoting her time to helping Jewish children escape the Nazis. She remembers the face of every single child she’s taken on trains to freedom in the Netherlands, and then to England. The danger of the Kindertransport increases with each trip.
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The following is an interview with Anna Stuart about three of her books which can only be described as amazing.
Questions for the Midwife of Auschwitz
Elise Cooper: Idea for the story?
Anna Stuart: I must give the credit for the idea to my editor. She suggested that I might want to explore stories in Auschwitz. I wasn’t at all keen at the time, as it’s such a horrific subject, but I had a look on the internet to please her, and discovered the true story of Stanisława Leszczyńska, who was the original inspiration for Ana. I was hooked immediately and couldn’t believe no one had written about her already. Her life felt like something that just had to be shared with the world and I was honoured to be the writer that, via a fictional interpretation of her life and that of those around her, got to do that.
EC: How would you describe Ana?
AS: I think she was a genuinely good woman. She was a committed catholic who believed it was her God-sent duty to help others. She did that via her career as a midwife, but when things got tougher and the Jews in her hometown of Lodz were shut into a ghetto, in appalling conditions, she stepped up to help them, even when it put her in great danger.
She stood up for what she thought was right, even in Auschwitz, confronting the cruelty of the kapos (block heads) and even evil men like Josef Mengele. Maybe something in her certainty and conviction got through, because she often won those battles, even if they were within a terrible framework. Somehow, despite being in her fifties in Auschwitz, she survived it for almost three years and got home after the war, where she continued to help others throughout her life. I admire her more than I can ever express and always love it when readers get in touch to tell me how much my version of her story moved them.
EC: How would you describe Ester?
AS: The inspiration for Ester was Stanislawa’s daughter, Sylwia. Ester is just a normal young woman, caught up in horribly abnormal affairs. Like Ana, she is inherently good, having been brought up to help others and stand up for what’s right. Ester’s ‘superpower’ in Auschwitz, alongside her friendship with Ana and Naomi, is her love for Filip, who she married at the start of the war. This gives her something to hold onto – something to believe it’s worth staying alive for, especially once she realizes that she’s pregnant with their child. The only thing I can think of that would be worse than being in a death camp, is giving birth in a death camp and Ester embodies that nightmare.
EC: Is it true that babies and their mothers had the same tattoos?
AS: In her brief testimony of her time in Auschwitz, given much later in life when urged to it by her son, Stanisława Leszczyńska stated that she tattooed the babies with their mother’s numbers in ‘a secret place’ in the hope of them being reunited after the war. Other witness testimonies suggested that this place was in the armpit, so that’s what I went with.
EC: Please discuss the Lebensborn program and why would Germans accept Jewish babies?
AS: Hitler – and many, many others – believed that the ‘Aryan’ race was superior to all others and that it was therefore their duty to suppress the supposedly inferior races around them and take over their land to allow the Aryans more room to breathe and grow the crops to sustain themselves. His plan was twofold: to get rid of those people he believed to be worthless, and to ensure that as many Aryans as possible were born.
We know a lot about Hitler’s vicious policies to exterminate the Jews, the Romanies, disabled people, homosexuals, and perhaps, had he been given his way, eventually all ‘Slavs’. What we know less about is how he pushed the German people to produce more children. There was a relentless pressure in the media for women to stay at home and have children ‘for the Fuhrer’. Mothers who had more than four children were given medals and there was also a push to be sure that any Aryan women who got themselves pregnant out of wedlock were offered places in discreet ‘Lebensborn’ (‘found of life’) homes to have their babies. It was all about populating the world with their own kind.
As the war went on and many German soldiers were killed fighting, especially in the bitter Russian campaign, this need for more babies became desperate and increasingly evil. Under the innocuous sounding ‘Lebensborn’ banner, German soldiers kidnapped thousands of blonde children from families in the occupied lands, especially Poland, Norway and, later, Hungary, to either put into homes in Germany or adopt out to German families. Many of these families did not know where their new babies had come from – often believing them to have been orphaned by warfare – but the truth was that they had been stolen from out of the arms of their mothers. Towards the end of the war, the same was done for any babies born in Auschwitz who looked even vaguely blonde. The irony of the Nazis taking in babies born to Jewish women is dark indeed, but it really did happen.
EC: How cruel was Klara and what did you want her to represent?
AS: Klara was the block ‘kapo’ – head – and, from all I read, is typical of the women who made it to the top of the prisoner tree in Auschwitz. Most of them were the original prisoners, sent there when it first opened in 1942 from prisons around Germany. They were often hardened criminals before they went in, even though some of them may not have done what we would see as terrible crimes. Klara for example (as she is inspired by a real woman) seems to have been imprisoned for offering abortions, which were illegal in Germany that was keen on bringing Aryan lives into the world. In Auschwitz, given a small amount of petty power, these women (and their male equivalents) became very cruel, ruling their block with an iron hand to curry favour with the Nazi authorities to get themselves privileges and safety. Not all kapos were so brutal – there are a few stories of some who did their best to keep their charges as safe as was ever possible in that terrible place – but many were, and Klara exemplifies them.
Questions for The Midwife of Berlin
EC: Idea for the story?
AS: I never intended to write a sequel to The Midwife of Auschwitz but when readers kept writing to me asking what happened to Pippa, the idea for the story was seeded. When I realized that Pippa and Oliva would have turned 18 in 1961 – the year the Berlin wall went up – the two events came together in my mind and I was ready to get researching. I knew a bit about the wall coming down, having watched it on television as a child, but nothing about it going up and I found it utterly fascinating. It was a horrific time in history, especially for people who had just been through all the horrors of war, and I was very glad to follow my fictional characters’ stories into that year and intertwine them with the shocking events of history.
EC:Do you think there was not much difference between the Stasi and Gestapo, Russians and Nazis? Please comment
AS: This is a tricky area to get into and not really the place of a fiction writer. My job is to put my characters into a true world and follow their personal stories, but inevitably I came up against many stark historical truths in doing so. Certainly, the Stasi was born from the same place as the Gestapo, and, indeed, the KGB, and became, if possible, even worse. The culture of fear created by everyone informing on each other was one of the most terrible features of life behind the Iron Curtain and it seems to me a bitter truth that, in this period at least, the so-called left was just as bad as the so-called right. If you ask me, any regime that can only operate by controlling its citizens, depriving them of outside news, censoring all they say and do, and keeping them trapped within its borders with guns is inevitably doomed to failure. It’s truly terrible that they ruin so many lives in the process.
EC: Describe Kristen and her predicament.
AS: Kirsten and her brother Uli have been brought up by their mother Lotti, in a small flat in Berlin. Their father, Jan, disappeared after the war and their mother never wanted to speak about him, so the children assume he must have been a Nazi. They’ve got on fine without him. They don’t have much money but they do have each other and are happy. The novel opens, however, when Jan comes home and everything is blown apart.
First, they find out that Uli is not Jan’s son, but the product of a Russian rape of their poor mother when they took Berlin. Then bitter, drunken Jan tells Kirsten that she is not his or Lotti’s daughter, but that he ‘found her’ and gave her to Lotti as a ‘present’. When her mother tearfully admits to this, she also tells Kirsten that she had a tattoo in her armpit – 41400. This most likely means she was born in Auschwitz to a mother who may, possibly, still be alive and out there looking for her.
EC: Describe Olivia and her predicament?
AS: Oliva knows that she was born in Auschwitz to a mother who died and that she was adopted by Ester and Filip. She has two brothers who are Ester and Filip’s full children and has always felt loved and part of the family. But the novel opens with her finding out that she also has an adoptive sister – another baby, born to Ester (and Filip) in Auschwitz and never found after the war. A baby who might be out there, still bearing the tattoo 41400, waiting to be found.
EC: Similarities and differences between both sisters?
AS: Kirsten prefers dancing and fashion, where Olivia is more into sport, but they are both hardworking, honest and loyal to those they love. They are also both curious – especially once they learn of the existence of a mystery sister. And they both have the drive to try and find each other.
EC: Lotti versus Ester as mothers?
AS: Ester is a kind, gentle, loving mother and an excellent midwife. But Lotti, despite taking in a child handed to her by the SS, is also a great mother. The Lebensborn programme was deeply flawed, and run by evil men, but not everyone caught up in it was equally evil. Lotti is a relatively simple woman, who took the child she was handed when she couldn’t conceive herself and worked hard to love and care for her. It was important to me to show Lotti as a good mother and explore the greys of the whole situation. She adopted Kirsten for genuine reasons but was, perhaps, wilfully blind to the wider world around her. In the novel she must face up to her own culpability in Kirsten’s story. This she does bravely. Motherhood has many facets I hope the novel explores that via Ester and Lotti.
Questions for The Children on the Train
EC: Idea for the story?
AS: As with many of my novels, the inspiration for this story came from a real woman – Truus Wijsmuller, a key figure in the Kindertransport. She was an astonishing person, bold, organised and very brave, and she put herself in danger time and again to make the Kindertransport work. In Britain we know a lot about Nicholas Winton, who brought nearly 700 children to safety from Prague in the same period, also under the umbrella of the Kindertransport. His work was wonderful, but Truus did far more than him with no real acknowledgement. I have a personal suspicion that this is because Winton was a man, so history feels the need to commend him for rescuing children, compared to women who we simply expect to do so. The facts are, however, that Truus was out there, on the frontline, facing down Adolf Eichmann, and riding the trains between Germany and the Netherlands time and time again to get the terrified children over the border to safety. That, to me, is astonishing, and I hope this novel brings her story to more people as it really deserves to be known.
EC:Are there any real characters or characters based on real characters?
AS: As stated above, Grete is inspired by the amazing Truus Wijsmuller, and her husband Aart by the real life Joop Wijsmuller. Several of the key workers of the Kindertransport, such as Lola Hahn-Warburg and Norman Bentwich also feature in the book in a minor way, as does the horrific Nazi Adolf Eichmann in an interview that is inspired by Truus’ real-life testimony, plus several of the guards who she dealt with regularly in her work.
The tale of Grete/Truus fighting her way back to the Netherlands from Paris as the German armies swept towards her is inspired by real testimony (and, incredibly, I had to dial back what actually happened as there wasn’t enough room for every crazy event), as is her getting eighty orphans out of the Netherlands on the very last boat before the country had to surrender. Various accounts of encounters with border guards are, sadly, based on real tales, as is the fact that Truus took her sightings of German tanks at the border just days before the invasion to the Dutch authorities and they would not believe her…
EC: How would you describe Grete?
AS: Astonishing! My Grete, inspired by Truus, is a sturdy, no-nonsense, middle-aged woman, who is prepared to cut through every scrap of red-tape to get to the heart of rescuing children from the Nazi’s clutches. She’s incredibly brave, hugely determined and one of those people who are prepared, when the rest of us are cowering, to stand up and be counted. She’s also, of course, a woman with her own fears and insecurities and I hope the novel explores what a toll public work can take on a private person.
EC:How would you describe Helena?
AS: Helena, a bit like Ester in The Midwife of Auschwitz, is a normal woman – a wife, a mother, and a daughter, trying to keep her family safe against terrible odds. I hope that readers can, perhaps, look at what happens to her and imagine themselves in her position, simply trying to live an honest, kind life, but thrown into terrible danger through no fault of her own.
EC: What is the Kindertransport?
AS: The Kindertransport wasn’t a set organisation, but rather a loose coming together of several different charitable groups who were keen to rescue children in danger in Hitler’s increasingly censorious regime. A variety of kind, brave people came together after Kristallnacht (The night of the broken glass when Nazi gangs rioted through the cities of Germany attacking Jewish people and their homes and businesses) to take a proposal to the Prime Minister to scrap visa requirements for unaccompanied minors. With tenacity and courage, and the backing of the Quaker Home Secretary, they succeeded in getting parliament to pass a law permitting this. They then all worked, in an ad hoc way, to organise transports to bring as many children as possible out of Europe under these new entry conditions. There was no limit on how many could come and they managed to free just under 10,000 before war broke out and made further operations impossible.
EC: Why do you think the parents were willing to give up their children and send them to an unknown foreign country?
AS: This is very hard for us to understand today, and even then, clearly, it was impossibly hard for people to put their beloved children on trains to a foreign country without them, but times were desperate. The Jewish people had seen their rights continually eroded each year. They had been declared ‘untermenschen’ – non-people – and had no protection from the law. As an example of the rampant prejudice and unfairness they were up against, after Kristallnacht, when their properties were trashed and many of them were beaten up and imprisoned in mass rioting, the Reich imposed a fine upon them to pay for the damages!
Jews in Germany were living in constant fear of attack. Many of the men had been taken away to brutal labour camps (the precursors to the eventual concentration camps). They weren’t allowed to work as teachers, doctors or civil servants of any kind. Notices were going up everywhere banning them from cinemas, swimming pools and parks. Many of their businesses were being taken from them with no remuneration whatsoever. It was desperate. That had been going on ever since Hitler took power in 1933, getting worse with every year, and they were under no illusions that he intended their destruction. In those circumstances, getting their children away must have seemed like the one tiny shred of hope, and if it meant parting from them, that’s what they had to do.
EC: Do you think that it was hard for the children to go to a foreign land and live with strangers?
AS: I think it must have been incredibly hard and there are very varying stories about how it went for them. Many were lucky and got kind foster parents, who did their best to look after them – though even then, of course, they would desperately miss their own families. Others were treated roughly, even made into servants for the families, or passed around homes like unwanted baggage. After the war, there is no doubt that almost all of them were desperate to find their own families – and that very few of them ever did, as they’d been killed in the concentration camps. The Kindertransport was an operation borne from wonderful charity and kindness and it did save lives, but it was inherently sad, being only a last-ditch rescue possibility and never something that anyone would truly wish for a child.
EC: Would you have given up your children?
AS: I honestly don’t know. How can any of us say what we would have done without living in those times? My instinct is to say that I would rather they’d died with me than gone away to strangers but that, in truth, is a selfish stance. Most of the Kindertransportees, interviewed in later life, appreciated how much love it must have taken from their parents to send them away to survive. Would I have been brave enough? I have no idea.
EC: What happened to the children after the war?
AS: Many different things. Some were adopted by their foster families; some went on to homes or hostels. Many went to America, or stayed in Great Britain. In essence, they grew up. They got jobs, met people, and started families of their own. I read many testimonies from Kindertransport children and rebuilding was very important to them – finding love, having children, continuing the line that Hitler tried so hard to destroy. I think it’s wonderful that, in that way, they fought hatred with love, but it cannot have been easy for any of them. They were very brave young people.
EC: Next book?
AS: My next book will be The Berlin Bookshop, also a story about Nazi victims escaping Germany in the hideous build-up to the war in that country, though more adults than children. One strand of the story is inspired by the amazing real women, Ida and Louise Cook, who helped many families to escape. It will come out in Spring 2027.
THANK YOU!!
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BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.
