Today I am posting on the Harlequin Trade Publishing 2020 Fall Reads Blog Tour for Historical Fiction. I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for THE CHANEL SISTERS by Judithe Little. This is an intriguing view of the beginnings of the famous Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel and her brand through the eyes of her younger sister, Antoinette.
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: I didn’t know Coco had a sister. How did you come up with the idea for your novel?
A: When I read in a biography of Coco that she had a sister, I knew right away I wanted to write about her. A lot of books have been written about Coco, but none have been written from the point of view of Antoinette. I thought that the sister of Coco Chanel might have an interesting story to tell, and it turns out that she did.
Q: Explain the staying power and interest in (anything) Chanel?
A: I think that Chanel is the symbol for reinvention and the idea that you can be whoever you want to be and that has a universal appeal.
Q: Do you plan your books in advance or let them develop as you write?
A: They are planned in the sense that they’re based on historical events so there’s already a timeline in place and I know generally what happens. The characters themselves develop as I write.
Q: Have you ever had a character take over a story, and if so, who was it and why?
A: I’ve had minor characters take over small parts of a story such as the baron at Royallieu (I attribute the kite dance idea to him). Arturo also seemed to take over the scenes he was in and tell me what he was going to do instead of vice-versa.
Q: Which one of The Chanel Sisters’s characters was the hardest to write and why?
A: Julia-Berthe was the hardest to write because of the three sisters, she’s the one about whom the least is known.
Q: What does a day in the life of Judithe Little look like?
A: Busy! I’m a lawyer so during the day I take care of my law firm work and in the evenings I typically write or do other book-related activities. Mixed in is typical stuff like grocery shopping, errands, and driving my youngest who is a high school sophomore here and there.
Q: What do you use to inspire you when you get Writer’s Block?
A: This may sound strange but I rearrange furniture or shelves or redecorate in some way. Maybe it’s the new perspective but changing my surroundings seems to get the juices flowing again.
Q: Do you have stories on the back burner that are just waiting to be written?
A: I usually have one or two waiting in the wings.
Q: What advice would you give budding authors about publishing?
A: I think it’s important to have critique partners or a critique group. Mine has been invaluable to me. Persistence and thick skin help too.
Q: What was the last thing you read?
A: Bryn Turnball’s The Woman Before Wallis which I loved.
Q: Book you’ve bought just for the cover?
A: Susan Meissner’s Secrets of a Charmed Life because I loved the color of the green dress and the way the figure of the woman was interposed with the river and London. More recently, Jane Smiley’s Perestroika because it has a horse and the Eiffel Tower on the cover–two of my favorite things.
Q: Tell us about what you’re working on now.
A: I’m working on a new novel that takes place in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s and is told from the perspective once again of someone close to Coco Chanel but who was famous in her own right.
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About the Book
For fans of The Paris Wife, The Only Woman in the Room, and The Woman Before Wallis, a riveting historical novel narrated by Coco Chanel’s younger sister about their struggle to rise up from poverty and orphanhood and establish what will become the world’s most iconic fashion brand in Paris.
A novel of survival, love, loss, triumph—and the sisters who changed fashion forever
Antoinette and Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel know they’re destined for something better. Abandoned by their family at a young age, they’ve grown up under the guidance of nuns preparing them for simple lives as the wives of tradesmen or shopkeepers. At night, their secret stash of romantic novels and magazine cutouts beneath the floorboards are all they have to keep their dreams of the future alive.
The walls of the convent can’t shield them forever, and when they’re finally of age, the Chanel sisters set out together with a fierce determination to prove themselves worthy to a society that has never accepted them. Their journey propels them out of poverty and to the stylish cafés of Moulins, the dazzling performance halls of Vichy—and to a small hat shop on the rue Cambon in Paris, where a boutique business takes hold and expands to the glamorous French resort towns.
But the sisters’ lives are again thrown into turmoil when World War I breaks out, forcing them to make irrevocable choices, and they’ll have to gather the courage to fashion their own places in the world, even if apart from each other.
THE CHANEL SISTERS by Judithe Little is a historical fiction novel featuring the Chanel sisters and is told from the perspective of the youngest sister from the time they are placed in a convent orphanage until her death in 1921. The author gives us a fascinating look at the early establishment of a new fashion style and the birth of a business empire run by women in a society dominated by men.
With the death of their mother and abandonment of their father, the three Chanel sisters, Julia-Berthe, Gabrielle and Antionette are placed in a convent orphanage. As they grow up under the strict rules of the nuns, they always believe they are destined for “something better”.
Antionette is the youngest sister and the story of their early lives is told from her perspective. From the freedom, but poverty of their aging out of the convent to the hard work to learn and establish a business of their own, the author vividly portrays the French society and class system they had to struggle against. The sisters refused to settle for being members of the merchant class but continually strived to be financially independent. With the rise of “Coco” Chanel and the Chanel brand, Antionette is by her sister’s side assisting in the business as it expands and continually fighting against the strictures placed on women in early the 1900’s society.
I found this book difficult to put down. I find the story of any woman who beats the odds to succeed against not only personal, but societal strictures and norms very interesting. Ms. Little did a great job of bringing the sisters and the time period to life even if liberties were taken for the story. Coco’s story goes on for another 50 years, but this book and part of her life ends with the death of the narrator.
I recommend this historical fiction for a unique look at the Chanel rags to riches story.
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Excerpt
IN LATER YEARS, I WOULD THINK BACK TO THAT COLD MARCH day in 1897 at the convent orphanage in Aubazine.
We orphelines sat in a circle practicing our stitches, the hush of the workroom interrupted only by my occasional mindless chatter to the girls nearby. When I felt Sister Xavier’s gaze, I quieted, looking down at my work as if in deep concentration. I expected her to scold me as she usually did: Custody of the tongue, Mademoiselle Chanel. Instead, she drew closer to my place near the stove, moving, as all the nuns did, as if she were floating. The smell of incense and the ages fluttered out from the folds of her black wool skirt. Her starched headdress planed unnaturally toward heaven as if she might be lifted up at any moment. I prayed that she would be, a ray of light breaking through the pitched roof and raising her to the clouds in a shining beam of holy salvation.
But such miracles only happened in paintings of angels and saints. She stopped at my shoulder, dark and looming like a storm cloud over the sloping forests of the Massif Central outside the window. She cleared her throat and, as if she were the Holy Roman Emperor himself, made her grim pronouncement.
“You, Antoinette Chanel, talk too much. Your sewing is slovenly. You are always daydreaming. If you don’t take heed, I fear you will turn out to be just like your mother.”
My stomach twisted like a knot. I had to bite the inside of my mouth to keep from arguing back. I looked over at my sister Gabrielle sitting on the other side of the room with the older girls and rolled my eyes.
“Don’t listen to the nuns, Ninette,” Gabrielle said once we’d been dismissed to the courtyard for recreation.
We sat on a bench, surrounded by bare-limbed trees that appeared as frozen as we felt. Why did they lose their leaves in the season they needed them most? Beside us, our oldest sister, Julia-Berthe, tossed bread crumbs from her pockets to a flock of crows that squawked and fought for position.
I pulled my hands into my sleeves, trying to warm them. “I’m not going to be like our mother. I’m not going to be anything the nuns say I’m going to be. I’m not even going to be what they say I can’t be.”
We laughed at this, a bitter laugh. As the temporary keepers of our souls, the nuns thought constantly about the day we would be ready to go out and live in the world. What would become of us? What was to be our place?
We’d been at the convent for two years and by now were used to the nuns’ declarations in the middle of choir practice or as we worked on our handwriting or recited the kings of France.
You, Ondine, with your penmanship, will never be the wife of a tradesman.
You, Pierrette, with your clumsy hands, will never find work with a farm woman.
You, Hélène, with your weak stomach, will never be the wife of a butcher.
You, Gabrielle, must hope to make an adequate living as a seamstress.
You, Julia-Berthe, must pray for a calling. Girls with figures like yours should keep to a nunnery.
I was told that if I was lucky, I could convince a plowman to marry me.
I pushed my hands back out of my sleeves and blew on them. “I’m not going to marry a plowman,” I said.
“I’m not going to be a seamstress,” Gabrielle said. “I hate sewing.”
“Then what will you be?” Julia-Berthe gazed at us with wide, questioning eyes. She was considered slow, “touched,” people said. To her everything was simple, black and white like the tunics and veils of the nuns’ habits. If the nuns said it, we would be it.
“Something better,” I said.
“What’s something better?” Julia-Berthe said.
“It’s…” Gabrielle started but didn’t finish.
She didn’t know what Something Better was any more than I did, but I knew she felt it just the same, a tingling in her bones. Restlessness was in our blood.
The nuns said we should be content with our station in life, that it was God-pleasing. But we could never be content where we were, with what we had. We came from a long line of peddlers, of dreamers traveling down winding roads, sure that Something Better was just ahead.
JUDITHE LITTLE is the award-winning author of Wickwythe Hall. She earned a BA in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia and a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law. She grew up in Virginia and now lives with her husband, three teenagers, and three dogs in Houston, Texas. Find her on Instagram, @judithelittle, and on Facebook, facebook.com/judithelittle.
THE MYSTERY OF MRS. CHRISTIE by Marie Benedict is a historical fiction book based around the famous author’s eleven day disappearance in December of 1926. I have loved Agatha Christie mysteries since I was first introduced to and read about the brilliant Hercule Poirot when I was just thirteen years old. There was not a doubt after reading and watching anything related to Agatha Christie that I would be reading this book and I can say I was not disappointed.
The puzzle of Mrs. Christie’s missing eleven days has persisted to this day. Mrs. Christie herself even skips that period in her life in her autobiography. Ms. Benedict has taken on the task of imagining what happened to Agatha at this time in her life and failing marriage. The story is written intertwining two timelines; one immediately following Agatha’s disappearance and the investigation that follows told by Archie Christie and the other starting as the young Agatha falls in love with the dashing Colonel Archibald Christie before WWI and takes the couple up to the disappearance told by Agatha Christie.
I enjoyed this story immensely! I have never personally believed in the amnesia story or the story that the disappearance was for publicity for her new book. Mrs. Christie was a woman with a brilliant mind and Ms. Benedict’s historical fiction rendition makes so much more sense to me. In the 1920’s, women had so little power and I love to think of Agatha getting her due before her divorce. (PLEASE NOTE: if you have not read “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” this book does give away the ending.)
I highly recommend this compelling historical fiction featuring Agatha Christie!
Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years’ experience as a commercial litigator at two of the country’s premier law firms. While practicing as a NYC lawyer, Marie dreamed of a fantastical job unearthing the hidden historical stories of women — and finally found it when she tried her hand at writing. She embarked on a new, thematically connected series of historical fiction excavating the stories of important, complex and fascinating women from the past with THE OTHER EINSTEIN, which tells the tale of Albert Einstein’s first wife, a physicist herself, and the role she might have played in his theories. She then released CARNEGIE’S MAID, the story of a brilliant woman who may have spurred Andrew Carnegie toward philanthropy, followed by the NYTimes bestseller THE ONLY WOMAN IN THE ROOM, the tale of the Golden Age of Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr who made a world-changing invention, and LADY CLEMENTINE about Winston Churchill’s wife. Her latest book — THE MYSTERY OF MRS. CHRISTIE — focuses on the real-life disappearance of Agatha Christie and the role it played in shaping her into the world’s most successful novelist
THE FUHRER’S ORPHANS: A Moving and Powerful Novel Based on True Events by David Laws is set around the year 1940 at the beginning of WWII and is the type of historical fiction I love to read.
The two main characters had been on opposite ends of the Kindertransport which transported refugee children from Prague to England before the Nazis shut down all escape of refugees from the Third Reich. Unknown to each other, they are about to come together in a critically important secret mission in Munich.
Claudia Kellner is an elementary teach in Munich who is living with several secrets. She is approached by Erika Schmidt, a mother of a student in her class, to see if she would be willing to help with children who are hiding in “The Maze”, a deserted and overgrown portion of the railroad yard in Munich. Erika does not know of Claudia’s past and that Claudia will do anything to save children.
Lieutenant Peter Chesham comes from a well-to-do family and has lived a flamboyant and adventurous life. Having been trained as a railroad engineer and having family in Switzerland, he is picked to covertly enter the Third Reich to destroy a new railroad engine designed by an American defector that could change the balance of the war in Hitler’s favor.
Peter and Claudia cross paths when Peter is told by his underground connections that the destruction of the engine could also destroy the abandoned railyard and kill the children in hiding. A plan is devised to get the children out of Munich while also still accomplishing the destruction of the new engine.
Will Peter, Claudia and their underground connections be able to pull off the ultimate escape to save the children, while still accomplishing their mission to destroy the engine that could change history?
I really enjoyed this story and the growing suspense surrounding the ultimate fate of the children juxtaposed against the intrigue surrounding the destruction of the engine all while Peter and Claudia grew to trust each other and reveal their personal secrets. For me, there was a slight lag in the beginning of the story as all of the information about the Breitspurbahn rail was explained, but it quickly took off after all the characters where put into place.
An entertaining and compelling read for all of us who crave stories set in this time-period with a different twist than what we have read before. I am looking forward to checking out other books by this author, also.
Thanks very much to Bloodhound Books for allowing me to read this ebook prepublication.
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Author Bio
I’ve been a national newspaper journalist for many years but have always nursed the ambition to write novels about my favourite historical period – before, during and after the two world wars. And now with Exit Day I’m right up to date.
Everyone has to start somewhere – and my first “journalistic” job was operating an old-fashioned plug-in telephone switchboard for a City of London financial weekly. When I’d cut off too many calls and they’d sent me on my way, I managed to secure reporting stints around the London suburbs of Wembley, Southall, Hayes and Harrow. I followed this by switching to sub-editing at an evening paper in Shropshire and then joining the Daily Express in Manchester and London.
I guess it really all began as a young teenager when I published my own magazine called Opinion, printed illicitly by a cousin on her firm’s Gestetner duplicator. It sold to school chums and I remember getting told off for writing critical pieces on the Korean War, not quite the done thing at the time.
I’ve also written for and edited magazines dealing with film, medicine, travel and finance. Highlights were interviews with Jack Higgins, Marti Caine and Robert Ludlum.
To help put my children through fee-paying schools I did a part-time bulk trucking job for a local bakery, much to the amusement of my colleagues. The bumps and mishaps along the way were many. Like the 8,000 apple tarts which hit the road – literally.
All worth the effort! I’m now the proud father of a judge and a headmaster.
My leisure pursuits have included driving for a village bus group in Suffolk, crewing and driving a steam locomotive hauling The Blues Express in Poland, rambling in Canada, the UK and Majorca (don’t try the last one, far too hot!), some gliding and a scary lesson at the controls of a helicopter – a birthday present from my son.
Plus a life-long interest in modern history, the Second World War in particular, and why we had to fight it. Hence the novel MUNICH, a key step on the run-up to that catastrophic conflict.
MISS ETTA: A NOVEL by Deanna Lynn Sletten is a captivating historical fiction book which imagines the life of Etta Place who was the partner of the Sundance Kid. Etta disappeared from history, but Ms. Sletten has done an epic job of reconstructing facts when known and extrapolating when not known. When reading or watching the movie about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, I have always wanted to know what happened to Etta and this book is a rendering of the story that I could not put down and happily satisfied my curiosity.
In 1895, Ethel Emily Pleasants is about to start her first teaching position when she meets Harry Longabaugh, also known as the Sundance Kid. Emily is beautiful and very ladylike, but she grew up on a ranch and is able to ride and shoot as well as any man. She knows Harry and his best friend Butch are outlaws, but she loves the Kid so much she is willing to give up everything to follow them. Harry uses the alias Place while on the run and so Emily becomes Etta Place.
In 1911, Emily Pleasants arrives in Pine Creek, Minnesota with her three years old son, Harry to accept a teaching position in their small-town school. Edward Sheridan meets the widow with her son at the train depot and quickly falls in love. Emily hopes that this will be the place where she can finally quit running and looking over her shoulder as the Pinkerton men have never stopped looking for her, Harry and Butch. She wants a safe place to raise her son.
Etta travelled the world with the outlaw men she loved until they were separated and she disappeared from history. What happened to Etta Place?
I loved this story! Ms. Sletten brought Emily “Etta” to life for me and whether the facts and imaginings are true or not, I hope her life was just like this story. Ms. Sletten’s characters are all fully fleshed and you just fall into the story and do not want to leave. It is a grand adventure with plenty of romance, action and history.
I highly recommend this story and author!
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About theAuthor
Deanna Lynn Sletten is the author of MISS ETTA, THE WOMEN OF GREAT HERON LAKE, MAGGIE’S TURN, THE LAKE HARRIET SERIES, and several other titles. She writes heartwarming women’s fiction and romance novels with unforgettable characters. She has also written one middle-grade novel that takes you on the adventure of a lifetime. Deanna believes in fate, destiny, love at first sight, soul mates, second chances, and happily ever after, and her novels reflect that.
Deanna is married and has two grown children. When not writing, she enjoys walking the wooded trails around her home with her beautiful Australian Shepherd or relaxing on the lake in the summer.
Deanna loves hearing from her readers. Connect with her at:
Today is my turn to share on the Harlequin Historical Fiction 2020 Summer Reads Blog Tour once again. I am excited to share my Feature Post and Book Review for THE WOMAN BEFORE WALLIS: A Novel of Windsors, Vanderbilts and Royal Scandal by Bryn Turnbull.
Below you will find an author Q&A, a book description, my book review, an excerpt from the book and the author’s bio and social media links. Enjoy!
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Author Q&A
Q&A with Bryn Turnbull
Everyone knows the story of Edward and Wallis. What drew you to Thelma’s story instead?
Thelma’s affair with Edward is only aspect of her story: she was on the periphery not only of the abdication crisis, but also the biggest custody battle in US history to date. She was something of a Kardashian in her day – famous for being famous – but she was also strong-willed, and willing to stand up for those she loved. Other people have written beautifully about Wallis and Edward, but Thelma’s story deserved to be told on its own merits.
This novel contains the real-life stories of real life people – some of whom have living descendants. How did you balance the drive to tell a good story against the historical record in terms of character development?
It’s a tricky balance to strike, but at the end of the day my job is to tell a good story, taking as much historical fact into consideration as I can without sacrificing the plot. I spent a lot of time researching the people who make up my book: luckily, Thelma and Gloria wrote a memoir, and we have plenty of letters, biographies, and recordings of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, so by the time I started actually writing, I had a very good sense of who they were. Wallis in particular leapt out of the pen, and I think that’s because she’s left such a legacy behind. I certainly hope that they would see themselves in the characters I’ve created, but at the end of the day these are fictional representations.
How did you find Thelma’s story?
I’d long been interested in the abdication crisis, and had read biographies of Wallis Simpson before, but I’d never really picked up on Thelma’s story until I watched W.E., a movie directed by Madonna about Wallis and Edward’s relationship. In the film, we see Wallis and Thelma have that conversation where Thelma asks Wallis to “take care” of Edward for her while she’s travelling, and I remember thinking it was such a strange request to make of a friend – even one as close as Wallis was to Thelma. After the movie ended I found myself down a bit of a Wikipedia rabbit hole, where I discovered her connection to the Gloria Vanderbilt trial, and recognized that this was a story that ought to be told.
One of the major relationships in this novel is between Gloria and Nada. Why was it important to you to show a relationship between two women in the 1930s?
Their relationship is historical fact: it would have been disingenuous to omit it from the book. I truly believe that Gloria loved Nada, and had they lived in a different time period their story would have ended quite differently. What’s more interesting to me is the fact that their relationship was permitted because of social privilege – and when Gloria lost that privilege, their relationship fell apart.
How does Gloria’s experience as a queer woman shape Thelma’s actions?
To me, THE WOMAN BEFORE WALLIS is a love story – but it’s not a royal romance. While the abdication crisis looms large over Thelma’s life, this is a book about the love between sisters: Thelma supported her sister in a day and age when being gay was seen as unacceptable – except, as Gloria points out, in the highest echelons of society. In the history books, Thelma has often been dismissed as a lesser socialite, but when it comes down to it, she was a deeply principled woman, and her experience as an ally spoke to me.
After spending so long with his character, how do you feel about Edward VIII and his decision to abdicate?
I think Edward VIII would have found an excuse to abdicate, regardless of whether Wallis Simpson had come into his life or not. He was a fundamentally weak man, and would have made a fundamentally weak king – and while in my novel I have him talk to Thelma about the sort of king he wants to be, I don’t think he ever intended on taking up his crown. If it hadn’t been Wallis, he would have found another excuse to abdicate.
That said, Thelma was genuinely in love with him. It was important for me to find a way into that love, and to be able to portray him with some compassion.
Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson are known to have been Nazi sympathizers. Why don’t you address this in your book?
I don’t address it for three reasons. First, Thelma and Edward’s relationship ended in 1934. Hitler only became chancellor in 1933, so while he would have been a topic of conversation around the dinner table, he wouldn’t have been the main topic of conversation. Second, Thelma was not a political person. One of the biggest complaints the government levied against Wallis Simpson was her political activism – in fact, when it became clear Edward wouldn’t give Wallis up, there was a movement within government to invite Thelma back to England because she wasn’t seen as someone who would interfere in politics the way Wallis did. Finally, the sad fact is that many members of Britain’s upper crust had extreme right-wing leanings in the 1930s, and many were generally supportive of Hitler’s policies. At the time, socialism was seen as a far greater threat than fascism, particularly because the General Strike of 1926 had been so successful in disrupting industrial production. Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists had 50,000 members at the height of its popularity in the 1930s.
In the end, I find it incredibly interesting that history shook out in such a way that Britain had the king it needed during the war. Could you imagine what would have happened if George VI hadn’t been on the throne during the Blitz?
Do you think Wallis intended to replace Thelma?
I don’t think she did. Whatever else has been written about her – and there has been a lot written about her – Wallis was an extremely ambitious social climber. I believe that Wallis was genuinely trying to keep Edward’s eye from straying, for Thelma’s sake, but when it became clear that his affection had transferred to her, she didn’t feel too much guilt in taking advantage of the situation.
She certainly didn’t intend to marry Edward – that much is clear. In 2011, Anne Sebba published a biography of Wallis Simpson which contains previously unpublished letters between Wallis and Ernest Simpson – she wrote to him until the end of her life, and expressed regret at having ended their marriage. I believe that Wallis had hoped to take advantage of Edward’s attraction to make new friends and move in the highest social circle in Britain. She genuinely believed that Edward would tire of her before too long – when he didn’t, I think she was as surprised as anyone else.
What did you enjoy most about researching this book?
I wasn’t on any fixed timeline to complete this book, so I was able to spend two full years researching – just researching! – the time period. I particularly enjoyed researching the fashion of the 1930s– the attention to detail is incredible, especially for someone who had Thelma’s budget. I was able to access a lot of newspaper articles about the Vanderbilt trial at the New York Public Library, which really helped me understand the frenzy that the trial had created. A photographer actually did try to rappel down the side of the courthouse to get a picture of the proceedings! The trial reached newspapers in Pakistan! I went to London and walked Thelma’s neighbourhood – while Duke’s Arlington townhouse is no longer there, I visited her home in Mayfair and had drinks in the Ritz.
My favourite research moment, though, was finding Edward’s plane, and while I wish I’d had the right place to put it in the manuscript, it did help me come to an understanding of who he was as a person. One of his planes is at the Vintage Wings museum in Gatineau, Quebec, and I was able to visit it: it’s a beautiful little biplane with an open cockpit and a closed cabin for passengers. The plane itself looks like a Rolls Royce, with beautiful a chrome and indigo body and burgundy leather interior: but the best part of it is that Edward had a small generator installed on one of the wings so that he could power a wireless radio. While that sounds like a good idea, Vintage Wings was kind enough to take me up in a plane of a similar vintage, and I was struck by how unbelievably loud it was up in the air. Even with headphones on, it would have been extremely difficult to hear anything on a wireless.
I think this really sums up who Edward was. He was so concerned with his image – with looking and feeling like a modern royal – that he forgot to take into account the practicalities of the situation.
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Book Summary
An irresistible historical debut, THE WOMAN BEFORE WALLIS (MIRA Trade Paperback; July 21, 2020) is set in the glamorous world of British and American royalty in the 1920s, based on the true story of the woman who owned Prince Edward’s heart before introducing him to her dear friend Wallis. Perfect for fans of Netflix’s The Crown and Jennifer Robson’s The Gown.
Before Edward, Prince of Wales famously abdicated his throne for American divorcee Wallis Simpson, he loved another American woman: Thelma Morgan Furness, sister to the first Gloria Vanderbilt. This is her story.
The daughters of an American diplomat, Thelma and Gloria Morgan were stars of New York social scene in the early 1920s, dubbed “the magnificent Morgans.” Both would marry into wealth and privilege beyond their imaginations, Gloria to Reggie Vanderbilt, and Thelma to a viscount. Thelma begins an affair with Edward, the dashing Prince of Wales, that will last nearly five years.
Then, in 1934, Thelma’s life is upended by her sister Gloria’s custody trial — a headline-grabbing drama known as The Matter of Vanderbilt, which dominates global news for months and raises the bar for tabloid sensationalism. Back in New York, sued by members of her late husband’s family on charges of negligence, unfit parenting and homosexuality, Gloria needs her twin’s support more than ever. But as her sister gains international notoriety, Thelma fears that her own fall from grace might not be far behind.
THE WOMAN BEFORE WALLIS: A Novel of Windsors, Vanderbilts and Royal Scandal by Bryn Turnbull is a historical fiction book that I have been waiting anxiously to read and it did not disappoint. This is the story of the American divorcee who captured Prince Edward’s heart before Wallis Simpson.
Thelma Morgan is divorced and has no prospects until her identical twin sister Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt and her husband, Reggie introduce her to Viscount Duke Furness. After a whirlwind romance, she is married, becomes the Viscountess Furness and is immersed into the decadent and wealthy life of the British aristocracy.
When Thelma learns Duke is having an affair, she is devastated, but her friends counsel her to live her own life and ignore it. At a party she is introduced to Edward, Prince of Wales. She finds him charming and soon the two are embroiled in a love affair.
Gloria Vanderbilt is fighting a terrible custody battle against her own mother and Gertrude Vanderbuilt in New York. The scandal sheets are posting terrible stories, so Thelma decides she must sail to American to stand by her sister and niece. As Thelma leaves England, she asks her trusted friend to watch over Edward. Wallis Simpson.
I love all the characters in this story. I believe that the author did a wonderful job of bringing them all to life; foibles and all. It is always interesting to read about the rich and famous and realize the social, political and/or personal pressures they live with and their money does not really make them happy. Even though I knew what would happen with both Gloria and Thelma, and this is not a history book, but historical fiction, I could not put the book down. It pulled me into the intrigue and scandal of their lives.
This is perfect for all the Anglophiles out there that can never get enough!
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Excerpt
ONE
October 9, 1934
RMS Empress of Britain
THELMA CONSIDERED MANHATTAN HER HOME, though she hadn’t lived there for over ten years. To her, it was a city of firsts: she had smoked her first cigarette there, a Lucky Strike stolen from a nun’s desk drawer at the convent and passed around the dormitory after bedtime. She and her twin sister, Gloria, had rented their first apartment on Fifth Avenue: an attic brownstone, which, at sixteen years old, they were far too young to live in unchaperoned but did so anyways, stuffing the living room with flowers and leaving the icebox empty. Her first encounter with the society pages had been at New York Harbor: she was eight at the time, mobbed by reporters at the behest of their diplomat father in an attempt to turn the tone of a negative press scrum. The next day’s papers would run pictures not of Harry Morgan on his recall to Washington but of his twin daughters, Thelma and Gloria, walking down the gangplank in matching pinafores.
First marriage, thought Thelma, gripping the sable collar of her coat more tightly around her neck. First divorce. She stayed on deck long enough to watch the ship slip past the redbrick buildings of Southampton before seeking refuge from the chill air.
Though Thelma felt uneasy at the prospect of being away from David for nearly six weeks, she knew that she had little choice: Gloria’s trial had become a media sensation, chewing up columns on front pages across America and Europe. The custody battle, dubbed the “Trial of the Century” by reporters who squeezed onto the courthouse steps each day, was a nightmare for her sister, forced to defend not only her right to raise her own daughter but also to preserve her own good name. Thelma still rankled at the letter Gloria had sent her: For Reggie’s sister to believe what’s being said about me is bad enough, but to know that the rumors came from our own mother is too much to bear…
Thelma knew that the stories would continue long after the trial concluded—it was inevitable, given that it revolved around a Vanderbilt daughter with a Vanderbilt fortune. She had received the letter five days ago and booked passage on the earliest steamer bound for New York. If it had been either of her other siblings—Consuelo or Harry Junior—in this situation, Thelma would have offered what help she could, but as her twin, Gloria held Thelma’s allegiance the strongest. It was how it had always been: one supporting the other.
There was only one consideration weighing on Thelma’s mind which made it difficult for her to focus on what she would find in America.
“Shall I come, too?” David had asked days ago at Fort Belvedere. Dismal weather had driven Thelma, David and their guests indoors, an afternoon of weeding David’s gardens mercifully replaced by card games and needlepoint round the drawing room fire. David laid his embroidery hoop to one side, the half-finished rose pointing sightlessly at the ceiling.
Across the room, Wallis Simpson, perusing the contents of the bar cart, turned.
“Don’t be silly,” she said. From a club chair in the corner, Wallis’s husband, Ernest, folded down the corner of a newspaper. There was a momentary silence as Wallis’s long fingers trailed delicately along the crystal tops of several heavy decanters before she selected one.
“You can’t possibly think it’s a good idea for him to get caught up in this mess,” she said, glancing at Thelma as she poured a neat scotch. “You’ve seen the papers. Can you imagine the sort of froth they’d work themselves into if the Prince of Wales stuck his oar in? I don’t mean to offend you, Thelma,” she said, “but it’s just not seemly for him to get involved, don’t you agree?”
David’s brows knitted together as Wallis handed him the whiskey. “I feel so terrible about it all,” he said. “Gloria’s a decent sort. She doesn’t deserve all this…surely there’s something I can do?” He looked up at Thelma, his spaniel eyes imploring.
Wallis sat down. “You can let Thelma go to support her sister,” she said. “Gloria needs her family, sir, not the distraction of a royal sideshow.”
“Wally’s quite right, sir,” said Ernest, resting his newspaper on his lap. “You’d be hindering more than you’d help. Couldn’t fix me up one of those as well, could you, darling?”
David exhaled, but didn’t look convinced. “Perhaps,” he said, as Wallis returned to the cart. “I wouldn’t want to add any more controversy to this ghastly business, but I hate the thought of you going on your own.”
Thelma sat beside him, smiling at the thought of what David’s advisors would say if he so much as commented on the Vanderbilt trial, let alone sailed to America.
“They have a point,” she said, taking his hand in hers. “I don’t think there’s much for you to do. But thank you for wanting to help.”
He smiled, worry carved into the lines of his face. “Of course,” he said, and kissed Thelma on the cheek. He picked up his needlepoint, lifting the embroidery hoop to inspect the stitching more closely. “Just don’t stay away from me too long. I don’t think I could stand it.”
Perching herself on the armrest of Ernest’s chair, Wallis caught Thelma’s eye. She smiled, red lips curling in a wide, reassuring grin.
Bryn Turnbull is a writer of historical fiction with a penchant for fountain pens and antique furniture. Equipped with a Master of Letters in Creative Writing from the University of St. Andrews, a Master of Professional Communication from Ryerson University, and a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from McGill University, Bryn focuses on finding the stories of women found within the cracks of the historical record. When she’s not writing, Bryn can be found exploring new coffee shops, spending time with her family in cottage country, or traveling. She lives in Toronto, and can generally be found with a book in hand.
Today I am once again posting on the Harlequin Trade Publishing 2020 Summer Reads Historical Fiction Blog Tour. I am very excited to be sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for THE BLACK SWAN OF PARIS by Karen Robards.
Below you will find a book summary, 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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Book Summary
For fans of The Alice Network and The Lost Girls of Paris comes a thrilling standalone by New York Times bestselling author Karen Robards about a celebrated singer in WWII occupied France who joins the Resistance to save her estranged family from being killed in a German prison.
In Occupied France, the Resistance trembles on the brink of destruction. Its operatives, its secrets, its plans, all will be revealed. One of its leaders, wealthy aristocrat Baron Paul de Rocheford, has been killed in a raid and the surviving members of his cell, including his wife the elegant Baronness Lillian de Rocheford, have been arrested and transported to Germany for interrogation and, inevitably, execution.
Captain Max Ryan, British SOE, is given the job of penetrating the impregnable German prison where the Baroness and the remnants of the cell are being held and tortured. If they can’t be rescued he must kill them before they can give up their secrets.
Max is in Paris, currently living under a cover identity as a show business impresario whose star attraction is Genevieve Dumont. Young, beautiful Genevieve is the toast of Europe, an icon of the glittering entertainment world that the Nazis celebrate so that the arts can be seen to be thriving in the occupied territories under their rule.
What no one knows about Genevieve is that she is Lillian and Paul de Rocheford’s younger daughter. Her feelings toward her family are bitter since they were estranged twelve years ago. But when she finds out from Max just what his new assignment entails, old, long-buried feelings are rekindled and she knows that no matter what she can’t allow her mother to be killed, not by the Nazis and not by Max. She secretly establishes contact with those in the Resistance who can help her. Through them she is able to contact her sister Emmy, and the sisters put aside their estrangement to work together to rescue their mother.
It all hinges on a command performance that Genevieve is to give for a Gestapo General in the Bavarian town where her mother and the others are imprisoned. While Genevieve sings and the show goes on, a daring rescue is underway that involves terrible danger, heartbreaking choices, and the realization that some ties, like the love between a mother and her daughters and between sisters, are forever.
THE BLACK SWAN OF PARIS by Karen Robards is this bestselling author’s first historical fiction book and it pulls you in with a story of estranged family dynamics, loyalty, partisans, spies, intrigue and action. It is a story that features a young internationally acclaimed singer and her perilous life during WWII in Nazi occupied Europe.
Genevieve Dumont is a celebrated cabaret star with a voice and beauty that captivates. In 1944 Paris, Nazis, partisans and spies are everywhere as the Germans prepare for the invasion they know is coming. Genevieve has been both a star and a smokescreen for her manager, Max Bonet. She knows and at times resents how she is being used and she wants to know as little as possible about Max’s secret life, until she overhears about the capture and arrest of Lillian, Baroness de Rocheford.
Genevieve has kept secrets from Max, but now she needs his help to save the baroness, who is her mother. Reunited with her sister, who is working with the SOE, a daring plan is set into motion. Will the little group be able to rescue the baroness directly from the home of the sadistic SS General Claus von Wagner?
I loved this story, but it was a little confusing in the very beginning as all the characters are introduced because the connections and histories are reveled throughout the entire book in flashbacks. Once it started to flow, I was transported back to 1944 occupied Paris. The description of the Nazi opulence contrasted with the deprivation of the Parisians, the sparkle of the cabaret, the partisan spy networks helping to prepare for the invasion, the mistrust and secrets all engage the reader and I was completely engrossed. Genevieve’s story was as tragic as it was triumphant and her entire family’s history kept me turning the pages. Ms. Robards has written historical characters that could walk off the page with a plot that builds to an action filled climax.
I highly recommend this dynamic historical fiction book with a touch of romance!
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Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
May 15, 1944
When the worst thing that could ever happen to you had already happened, nothing that came after really mattered. The resultant state of apathy was almost pleasant, as long as she didn’t allow herself to think about it—any of it—too much.
She was Genevieve Dumont, a singer, a star. Her latest sold-out performance at one of Paris’s great theaters had ended in a five-minute standing ovation less than an hour before. She was acclaimed, admired, celebrated wherever she went. The Nazis loved her.
She was not quite twenty-five years old. Beautiful when, like now, she was dolled up in all her after-show finery. Not in want, not unhappy.
In this time of fear and mass starvation, of worldwide deaths on a scale never seen before in the whole course of human history, that made her lucky. She knew it.
Whom she had been before, what had almost destroyed her—that life belonged to someone else. Most of the time, she didn’t even remember it herself.
She refused to remember it.
A siren screamed to life just meters behind the car she was traveling in. Startled, she sat upright in the back seat, heart lurching as she looked around.
Do they know? Are they after us?
A small knot of fans had been waiting outside the stage door as she’d left. One of them had thrust a program at her, requesting an autograph for Francoise. She’d signed—May your heart always sing, Genevieve Dumont—as previously instructed. What it meant she didn’t know. What she did know was that it meant something: it was a prearranged encounter, and the coded message she’d scribbled down was intended for the Resistance.
And now, mere minutes later, here were the Milice, the despised French police who had long since thrown in their lot with the Nazis, on their tail.
Even as icy jets of fear spurted through her, a pair of police cars followed by a military truck flew by. Running without lights, they appeared as no more than hulking black shapes whose passage rattled the big Citroën that up until then had been alone on the road. A split second later, her driver—his name was Otto Cordier; he worked for Max, her manager—slammed on the brakes. The car jerked to a stop.
“Sacre bleu!” Flying forward, she barely stopped herself from smacking into the back of the front seat by throwing her arms out in front of her. “What’s happening?”
“A raid, I think.” Peering out through the windshield, Otto clutched the steering wheel with both hands. He was an old man, short and wiry with white hair. She could read tension in every line of his body. In front of the car, washed by the pale moonlight that painted the scene in ghostly shades of gray, the cavalcade that had passed them was now blocking the road. A screech of brakes and the throwing of a shadow across the nearest building had her casting a quick look over her shoulder. Another military truck shuddered to a halt, filling the road behind them, stopping it up like a cork in a bottle. Men—German soldiers along with officers of the Milice—spilled out of the stopped vehicles. The ones behind swarmed past the Citroën, and all rushed toward what Genevieve tentatively identified as an apartment building. Six stories tall, it squatted, dark and silent, in its own walled garden.
“Oh, no,” she said. Her fear for herself and Otto subsided, but sympathy for the targets of the raid made her chest feel tight. People who were taken away by the Nazis in the middle of the night seldom came back.
The officers banged on the front door. “Open up! Police!”
It was just after 10:00 p.m. Until the siren had ripped it apart, the silence blanketing the city had been close to absolute. Thanks to the strictly enforced blackout, the streets were as dark and mysterious as the nearby Seine. It had rained earlier in the day, and before the siren the big Citroën had been the noisiest thing around, splashing through puddles as they headed back to the Ritz, where she was staying for the duration of her Paris run.
“If they keep arresting people, soon there will be no one left.” Genevieve’s gaze locked on a contingent of soldiers spreading out around the building, apparently looking for another way in—or for exits they could block. One rattled a gate of tall iron spikes that led into the brick-walled garden. It didn’t open, and he moved on, disappearing around the side of the building. She was able to follow the soldiers’ movements by the torches they carried. Fitted with slotted covers intended to direct their light downward so as to make them invisible to the Allied air-raid pilots whose increasingly frequent forays over Paris aroused both joy and dread in the city’s war-weary citizens, the torches’ bobbing looked like the erratic flitting of fireflies in the dark.
“They’re afraid, and that makes them all the more dangerous.” Otto rolled down his window a crack, the better to hear what was happening as they followed the soldiers’ movements. The earthy scent of the rain mixed with the faint smell of cigarette smoke, which, thanks to Max’s never-ending Gauloises, was a permanent feature of the car. The yellow card that was the pass they needed to be on the streets after curfew, prominently displayed on the windshield, blocked her view of the far side of the building, but she thought soldiers were running that way, too. “They know the Allies are coming. The bombings of the Luftwaffe installations right here in France, the Allied victories on the eastern front—they’re being backed into a corner. They’ll do whatever they must to survive.”
“Open the door, or we will break it down!”
The policeman hammered on the door with his nightstick. The staccato beat echoed through the night. Genevieve shivered, imagining the terror of the people inside.
Thin lines of light appeared in the cracks around some of the thick curtains covering the windows up and down the building as, at a guess, tenants dared to peek out. A woman, old and stooped—there was enough light in the hall behind her to allow Genevieve to see that much—opened the front door.
“Out of the way!”
She was shoved roughly back inside the building as the police and the soldiers stormed in. Her frightened cry changed to a shrill scream that was quickly cut off.
Genevieve’s mouth went dry. She clasped her suddenly cold hands in her lap.
There’s nothing to be done. It was the mantra of her life.
“Can we drive on?” She had learned in a hard school that there was no point in agonizing over what couldn’t be cured. To stay and watch what she knew was coming—the arrest of partisans, who would face immediate execution upon arrival at wherever they would be taken, or, perhaps and arguably worse, civilians, in some combination of women, children, old people, clutching what few belongings they’d managed to grab, marched at gunpoint out of the building and loaded into the trucks for deportation—would tear at her heart for days without helping them at all.
“We’re blocked in.” Otto looked around at her. She didn’t know what he saw in her face, but whatever it was made him grimace and reach for the door handle. “I’ll go see if I can get one of them to move.”
When he exited the car, she let her head drop back to rest against the rolled top of the Citroën’s leather seat, stared at the ceiling and tried not to think about what might be happening to the people in the building. Taking deep breaths, she did her best to block out the muffled shouts and thuds that reached her ears and focused on the physical, which, as a performer, she had experience doing. She was so tired she was limp with it. Her temples throbbed. Her legs ached. Her feet hurt. Her throat—that golden throat that had allowed her to survive—felt tight. Deliberately she relaxed her muscles and tugged the scarf tucked into the neckline of her coat higher to warm herself.
A flash of light in the darkness caught her eye. Her head turned as she sought the source. Looking through the iron bars of the garden gate, she discovered a side door in the building that was slowly, stealthily opening.
“Is anyone else in there? Come out or I’ll shoot.” The volume of the soldiers’ shouts increased exponentially with this new gap in the walls. That guttural threat rang out above others less distinct, and she gathered from what she heard that they were searching the building.
The side door opened wider. Light from inside spilled past a figure slipping out: a girl, tall and thin with dark curly hair, wearing what appeared to be an unbuttoned coat thrown on over nightclothes. In her arms she carried a small child with the same dark, curly hair.
The light went out. The door had closed. Genevieve discovered that she was sitting with her nose all but pressed against the window as she tried to find the girl in the darkness. It took her a second, but then she spotted the now shadowy figure as it fled through the garden toward the gate, trying to escape.
They’ll shoot her if they catch her. The child, too.
The Germans had no mercy for those for whom they came.
The girl reached the gate, paused. A pale hand grabbed a bar. From the metallic rattle that reached her ears, Genevieve thought she must be shoving at the gate, shaking it. She assumed it was locked. In any event, it didn’t open. Then that same hand reached through the bars, along with a too-thin arm, stretching and straining.
Toward what? It was too dark to tell.
With the Citroën stopped in the middle of the narrow street and the garden set back only a meter or so from the front facade of the building, the girl was close enough so that Genevieve could read the desperation in her body language, see the way she kept looking back at the now closed door. The child, who appeared to be around ten months old, seemed to be asleep. The small curly head rested trustingly on the girl’s shoulder.
It wasn’t a conscious decision to leave the car. Genevieve just did it, then realized the risk she was taking when her pumps clickety-clacked on the cobblestones. The sound seemed to tear through the night and sent a lightning bolt of panic through her.
Get back in the car. Her sense of self-preservation screamed it at her, but she didn’t. Shivering at the latent menace of the big military trucks looming so close on either side of the Citroën, the police car parked askew in the street, the light spilling from the still open front door and the sounds of the raid going on inside the building, she kept going, taking care to be quiet now as she darted toward the trapped girl.
You’re putting yourself in danger. You’re putting Otto, Max, everyone in danger. The whole network—
Heart thudding, she reached the gate. Even as she and the girl locked eyes through it, the girl jerked her arm back inside and drew herself up.
The sweet scent of flowers from the garden felt obscene in contrast with the fear and despair she sensed in the girl.
“It’s all right. I’m here to help,” Genevieve whispered. She grasped the gate, pulling, pushing as she spoke. The iron bars were solid and cold and slippery with the moisture that still hung in the air. The gate didn’t budge for her, either. The clanking sound it made as she joggled it against its moorings made her break out in a cold sweat. Darkness enfolded her, but it was leavened by moonlight and she didn’t trust it to keep her safe. After all, she’d seen the girl from the car. All it would take was one sharp-eyed soldier, one policeman to come around a corner, or step out of the building and look her way—and she could be seen, too. Caught. Helping a fugitive escape.
The consequences would be dire. Imprisonment, deportation, even death.
Her pulse raced.
She thought of Max, what he would say.
On the other side of the gate, moonlight touched on wide dark eyes set in a face so thin the bones seemed about to push through the skin. The girl appeared to be about her own age, and she thought she must be the child’s mother. The sleeping child—Genevieve couldn’t tell if it was a girl or a boy—was wearing footed pajamas.
Her heart turned over.
“Oh, thank God. Thank you.” Whispering, too, the girl reached through the bars to touch Genevieve’s arm in gratitude. “There’s a key. In the fountainhead. In the mouth. It unlocks the gate.” She cast another of those lightning glances over her shoulder. Shifting from foot to foot, she could hardly stand still in her agitation. Fear rolled off her in waves. “Hurry. Please.”
Genevieve looked in the direction the girl had been reaching, saw the oval stone of the fountainhead set into the brick near the gate, saw the carved lion’s head in its center with its open mouth from which, presumably, water was meant to pour out. Reaching inside, she probed the cavity, ran her fingers over the worn-smooth stone, then did it again.
“There’s no key,” she said. “It’s not here.”
“It has to be. It has to be!” The girl’s voice rose, trembled. The child’s head moved. The girl made a soothing sound, rocked back and forth, patted the small back, and the child settled down again with a sigh. Watching, a pit yawned in Genevieve’s stomach. Glancing hastily down, she crouched to check the ground beneath the fountainhead, in case the key might have fallen out. It was too dark; she couldn’t see. She ran her hand over the cobblestones. Nothing.
“It’s not—” she began, standing up, only to break off with a swiftly indrawn breath as the door through which the girl had exited flew open. This time, in the rectangle of light, a soldier stood.
“My God.” The girl’s whisper as she turned her head to look was scarcely louder than a breath, but it was so loaded with terror that it made the hair stand up on the back of Genevieve’s neck. “What do I do?”
“Who is out there?” the soldier roared. Pistol ready in his hand, he pointed his torch toward the garden. The light played over a tattered cluster of pink peonies, over overgrown green shrubs, over red tulips thrusting their heads through weeds, as it came their way. “Don’t think to hide from me.”
“Take the baby. Please.” Voice hoarse with dread, the girl thrust the child toward her. Genevieve felt a flutter of panic: if this girl only knew, she would be the last person she would ever trust with her child. But there was no one else, and thus no choice to be made. As a little leg and arm came through the gate, Genevieve reached out to help, taking part and then all of the baby’s weight as between them she and the girl maneuvered the little one through the bars. As their hands touched, she could feel the cold clamminess of the girl’s skin, feel her trembling. With the child no longer clutched in her arms, the dark shape of a six-pointed yellow star on her coat became visible. The true horror of what was happening struck Genevieve like a blow.
The girl whispered, “Her name’s Anna. Anna Katz. Leave word of where I’m to come for her in the fountainhead—”
The light flashed toward them.
“You there, by the gate,” the soldier shouted.
With a gasp, the girl whirled away.
“Halt! Stay where you are!”
Heart in her throat, blood turning to ice, Genevieve whirled away, too, in the opposite direction. Cloaked by night, she ran as lightly as she could for the car, careful to keep her heels from striking the cobblestones, holding the child close to her chest, one hand splayed against short, silky curls. The soft baby smell, the feel of the firm little body against her, triggered such an explosion of emotion that she went briefly light-headed. The panicky flutter in her stomach solidified into a knot—and then the child’s wriggling and soft sounds of discontent brought the present sharply back into focus.
If she cried…
Terror tasted sharp and bitter in Genevieve’s mouth.
“Shh. Shh, Anna,” she crooned desperately. “Shh.”
“I said halt!” The soldier’s roar came as Genevieve reached the car, grabbed the door handle, wrenched the door open—
Bang. The bark of a pistol.
A woman’s piercing cry. The girl’s piercing cry.
No. Genevieve screamed it, but only in her mind. The guilt of running away, of leaving the girl behind, crashed into her like a speeding car.
Blowing his whistle furiously, the soldier ran down the steps. More soldiers burst through the door, following the first one down the steps and out of sight.
Had the girl been shot? Was she dead?
My God, my God. Genevieve’s heart slammed in her chest.
She threw herself and the child into the back seat and—softly, carefully—closed the door. Because she didn’t dare do anything else.
Coward.
The baby started to cry.
Staring out the window in petrified expectation of seeing the soldiers come charging after her at any second, she found herself panting with fear even as she did her best to quiet the now wailing child.
Could anyone hear? Did the soldiers know the girl had been carrying a baby?
If she was caught with the child…
What else could I have done?
Max would say she should have stayed out of it, stayed in the car. That the common good was more important than the plight of any single individual.
Even a terrified girl. Even a baby.
“It’s all right, Anna. I’ve got you safe. Shh.” Settling back in the seat to position the child more comfortably in her arms, she murmured and patted and rocked. Instinctive actions, long forgotten, reemerged in this moment of crisis.
Through the gate she could see the soldiers clustering around something on the ground. The girl, she had little doubt, although the darkness and the garden’s riotous blooms blocked her view. With Anna, quiet now, sprawled against her chest, a delayed reaction set in and she started to shake.
Otto got back into the car.
“They’re going to be moving the truck in front as soon as it’s loaded up.” His voice was gritty with emotion. Anger? Bitterness? “Someone tipped them off that Jews were hiding in the building, and they’re arresting everybody. Once they’re—”
Otto broke off as the child made a sound.
“Shh.” Genevieve patted, rocked. “Shh, shh.”
His face a study in incredulity, Otto leaned around in the seat to look. “Holy hell, is that a baby?”
“Her mother was trapped in the garden. She couldn’t get out.”
Otto shot an alarmed look at the building, where soldiers now marched a line of people, young and old, including a couple of small children clutching adults’ hands, out the front door.
“My God,” he said, sounding appalled. “We’ve got to get—”
Appearing out of seemingly nowhere, a soldier rapped on the driver’s window. With his knuckles, hard.
Oh, no. Please no.
Genevieve’s heart pounded. Her stomach dropped like a rock as she stared at the shadowy figure on the other side of the glass.
We’re going to be arrested. Or shot.
Whipping the scarf out of her neckline, she draped the brightly printed square across her shoulder and over the child.
Otto cranked the window down.
“Papers,” the soldier barked.
Fear formed a hard knot under Genevieve’s breastbone. Despite the night’s chilly temperature, she could feel sweat popping out on her forehead and upper lip. On penalty of arrest, everyone in Occupied France, from the oldest to the youngest, was required to have identity documents readily available at all times. Hers were in her handbag, beside her on the seat.
But Anna had none.
Otto passed his cards to the soldier, who turned his torch on them.
As she picked up her handbag, Genevieve felt Anna stir.
Please, God, don’t let her cry.
“Here.” Quickly she thrust her handbag over the top of the seat to Otto. Anna was squirming now. Genevieve had to grab and secure the scarf from underneath to make sure the baby’s movements didn’t knock it askew.
If the soldier saw her…
Anna whimpered. Muffled by the scarf, the sound wasn’t loud, but its effect on Genevieve was electric. She caught her breath as her heart shot into her throat—and reacted instinctively, as, once upon a time, it had been second nature to do.
She slid the tip of her little finger between Anna’s lips.
The baby responded as babies typically did: she latched on and sucked.
Genevieve felt the world start to slide out of focus. The familiarity of it, the bittersweet memories it evoked, made her dizzy. She had to force herself to stay in the present, to concentrate on this child and this moment to the exclusion of all else.
Otto had handed her identity cards over. The soldier examined them with his torch, then bent closer to the window and looked into the back seat.
She almost expired on the spot.
“Mademoiselle Dumont. It is a pleasure. I have enjoyed your singing very much.”
Anna’s hungry little mouth tugged vigorously at her finger.
“Thank you,” Genevieve said, and smiled.
The soldier smiled back. Then he straightened, handed the papers back and, with a thump on the roof, stepped away from the car. Otto cranked the window up.
The tension inside the car was so thick she could almost physically feel the weight of it.
“Let them through,” the soldier called to someone near the first truck. Now loaded with the unfortunate new prisoners, it was just starting to pull out.
With a wave for the soldier, Otto followed, although far too slowly for Genevieve’s peace of mind. As the car crawled after the truck, she cast a last, quick glance at the garden: she could see nothing, not even soldiers.
Was the girl—Anna’s mother—still there on the ground? Or had she already been taken away?
Was she dead?
Genevieve felt sick to her stomach. But once again, there was nothing to be done.
Acutely aware of the truck’s large side and rear mirrors and what might be able to be seen through them, Genevieve managed to stay upright and keep the baby hidden until the Citroën turned a corner and went its own way.
Then, feeling as though her bones had turned to jelly, she slumped against the door.
Anna gave up on the finger and started to cry, shrill, distressed wails that filled the car. With what felt like the last bit of her strength, Genevieve pushed the scarf away and gathered her up and rocked and patted and crooned to her. Just like she had long ago done with—
Do not think about it.
“Shh, Anna. Shh.”
“That was almost a disaster.” Otto’s voice, tight with reaction, was nonetheless soft for fear of disturbing the quieting child. “What do we do now? You can’t take a baby back to the hotel. Think questions won’t be asked? What do you bet that soldier won’t talk about having met Genevieve Dumont? All it takes is one person to make the connection between the raid and you showing up with a baby and it will ruin us all. It will ruin everything.”
“I know.” Genevieve was limp. “Find Max. He’ll know what to do.”
Karen Robards is the New York Times, USA TODAY and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of more than fifty novels and one novella. She is the winner of six Silver Pen awards and numerous other awards.
