Tag: #WWII

Blog Tour/Feature Post and Book Review: The Codebreaker’s Secret by Sara Ackerman

Hi everyone!

Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for THE CODEBREAKER’S SECRET by Sara Ackerman on this HTP Books Summer 2022 Historical Fiction Blog Tour.

Below you will find a book summary, my book review, an excerpt from the book, the author’s bio and social media links. Enjoy!

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Book Summary

Dual-timeline historical fiction for fans of Chanel Cleeton and Beatriz Williams, THE CODEBREAKER’S SECRET is a story of codebreaking, secrets, murder, romance and longing.

1943 HONOLULU

Cryptanalysist Isabel Cooper manuevers herself into a job at Station Hypo after the attack on Pearl Harbor, determined to make a difference in the war effort and defeat the Japanese Army by breaking their coded transmissions. When the only other female codebreaker at the station goes missing, Isabel suspects it has something to do with Operation Vengeance, which took out a major enemy target, but she can’t prove it. And with the pilot she thought she was falling for reassigned to a different front, Isabel walks away from it all.

1965 MAUNA KEA BEACH HOTEL

Rookie journalist Lucy Medeiras has her foot in the door for her dream job when she lands the assignment to cover the grand opening of Rockefeller’s new hotel–the most expensive ever built. The week of celebrations is attended by celebrities and politicians, but Lucy gets off on the wrong foot with a cranky experienced reporter from New York named Matteo Russi. When a high-profile guest goes missing, and the ensuing search uncovers a decades-old skeleton in the lava fields, the story gets interesting, and Lucy teams up with Matteo to look into it. Something in Matteo’s memory leads them on a hunt that involves a senatorial candidate, old codes from WWII, and Matteo’s old flame, a woman named Isabel.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59040904-the-codebreaker-s-secret?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=ZKdjJFJ2u6&rank=1

THE CODEBREAKER’S SECRET

Author: Sara Ackerman

ISBN: 9780778386452

Publication Date: August 2, 2022

Publisher: MIRA Books

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My Book Review

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

THE CODEBREAKER’S SECRET by Sara Ackerman is an engaging historical fiction/mystery story told in the two intertwining timelines of 1943 and 1965 and both beautifully depicted on the lush Hawaiian Islands. This is a standalone story filled with intrigue, murder, and HEA love.

In 1943, Isabel “Izzy” Cooper has finally realized her dream to work as a codebreaker in Hawaii to avenge her brother’s death when Pearl Harbor was attacked. She meets her brother’s best-friend and pilot, Mateo Russi and as the two share their stories of her brother, they begin to get closer, but Russi has secrets of his own.

In 1965, Luana “Lu” Freitas lands her first big assignment covering the grand opening of Louis Roosevelt’s Mauna Kea Beach Hotel. Lu meets the famous Time magazine photographer, Mateo Russi who give her publishing advice as they become friends. When a famous singer goes missing and is believed dead, Lu and Russi begin to uncover secrets which have ties all the way back to Izzy and her codebreaking during WWII.

I enjoyed both timelines in this story and the mystery conclusion which tied them both together. Izzy and Lu are both strong, intelligent female lead characters. Russi is a man who has been shaped by loss and the war and I loved that he ultimately found peace and his HEA. All the characters were fully fleshed and believable. The plot starts a bit slow, but it does pick up and pulls you in so you cannot put the book down. The author does an amazing job of painting word pictures of Hawaii and the culture which makes for another layer to the story. The WWII history and the descriptions of the codebreaking failures and successes were interesting, also.

This is an intriguing historical fiction read with mystery and romance included.

***

Excerpt

2

THE CODEBREAKER

Washington, DC, September 1942

There was perhaps no more tedious work in the world. Sitting at a desk all day staring at numbers or letters and looking for patterns. Taking notes and making charts. Thinking until your brain ached. For days and weeks and years on end. The extreme concentration drove some to the bottle, others to madness, and yet others to a quiet greatness that less than ten people in the world might ever know about. You might work for a year on cracking a particular code, only to have nothing to show for it but a tic in your eye and a boil on the back of your thigh. Failure was a given. Accept that and you’d won half the battle.

Isabel sat at her desk staring at a page full of rows and columns of five-letter groups that made no sense whatsoever on this side of the world. But on the other side, in Tokyo where the messages originated, she knew that Japanese officials were discussing war plans. War plans that were on this paper. As her eyes scanned the page, she felt the familiar scratching at the subconscious that meant she was close to seeing some kind of pattern. A prick of excitement traveled up her spine.

Suddenly, a hand waved up and down in front of her face, rudely pulling her out of her thoughts. “Isabel, you gotta put a lid on that noise. No one else can do their jobs,” said Lieutenant Rawlings, her new boss.

She forced a smile. “Sorry, sir, most of the time I’m not aware that I’m doing it. I’m—”

“That may be the case but try harder. I don’t want to lose you.”

Isabel had a tendency to hum during her moments of deepest focus, which had gotten her in trouble with her supervisors over the past year and a half while at Main Navy. In fact, she’d been transferred on more than one occasion due to the distracting nature of it. She’d worked hard to stop it, but when she went into that otherworldly state of mind, where everything slid away and the images moved around in her head of their own accord, the humming kicked back in. It would be like asking her not to breathe.

Lately, the whole team had reached a level of frustration that had turned the air in the room sour. Though they’d had success with the old Red machine, this complex supercipher seemed impossible to break. Faith was draining fast.

With her dress plastered to her back, and sucking on the second salt tablet of the day, Isabel put her head down, scribbling notes on her giant piece of paper. September in Washington burned hotter than a brick oven. Thoughts of her brother, Walt, kept interfering with her ability to stay on task. He would have turned twenty-five years old today. Would have been flying around somewhere in the Pacific about now, shooting down enemy planes, and hooting and hollering when he landed his plane full of bullet holes on the flattop. Walt loved nothing more than the thrill of the chase. Every time she thought of him, a lump formed in her throat and she had to fight back the tears. No one had ever, or ever would, love her more than Walt had.

More than anything, Isabel wanted to get to Hawai‘i and see the spot where his plane plunged into the ocean. To learn more about his final days and hear the story straight from the mouths of his buddies. As if that would somehow make her feel better. She rubbed her eyes. For now, she was stuck here in this hellhole of a building, either sweltering or shivering, depending on what time of year it was.

At 1130, her friend Nora waltzed in from a break, looking as though she’d swallowed the cat. Nora had a way of knowing things before everyone else, and Isabel was lucky enough to be stationed at the desk next to hers.

“Spill the beans, lady,” Isabel said quietly.

Nora glanced around the room, dramatically. “Later.”

Most of the team was still out to lunch, save for a couple of girls across the room, and Rawlings behind the glass in his office.

“No one’s even here, tell me now.”

Nora came over and sat on Isabel’s desk, legs crossed. She picked up a manila folder and began fanning herself, then leaned in. “I’ve heard from a very good source that the brass are tossing around names for the lucky—or unlucky, depending on how you look at it—crypto being sent to Pearl.”

Station Hypo at Pearl Harbor was one of the two main codebreaking units in the Pacific. Nora knew how badly Isabel wanted to be there.

Isabel perked up. “Whose names are being tossed?”

“That, I don’t know.”

“Should I remind Rawlings to remind Feinstein that I’m interested?”

“Absolutely not.”

“It couldn’t hurt, could it?” Isabel said.

“Sorry, love, but those men would just as soon send a polar bear to Hawai‘i as a woman,” Nora said.

“You seem to forget that one of the best codebreakers around is female. And the only reason most of our bosses know anything is because she taught them,” Isabel said, speaking softly. This was the kind of talk that could get you moved to the basement. And Isabel did not do well in basements.

“Neither of us is Agnes Driscoll, so just get it out of your head. And even Agnes is not in Hawai‘i,” Nora whispered.

“There has to be a way.”

“Maybe if you dug up a cache of Japanese codebooks. Or said yes to Captain Smythe,” Nora said with a wink.

Nora and Isabel were a study in opposites. Her short red bob had been curled under and sprayed into place, her lips painted fire-engine red. She had a new man on her arm every weekend and walked around in a cloud of French lilac perfume that permeated their entire floor.

“I have no interest in Captain Smythe,” Isabel said.

Hal Smythe was as dull as they came. At least as far as Isabel was concerned. Intelligent and handsome, but sorely lacking any charisma and the ability to make her laugh—one of her main prerequisites in a man. She had no time to waste on uninteresting men. Or men in general, for that matter. There were codes to be cracked and enemies to be defeated.

“Well, then, you’d better pull off something big,” Nora said.

3

THE CELLAR

Indiana, March 1925

Five-year-old Isabel Cooper had just discovered a fuzzy caterpillar in her backyard, and was bent over inspecting its black-and-yellow pattern when a wall of black blotted the sun from the sky. Always a perceptive child, she looked to the source of the darkness. Clouds had bunched and gathered on the far horizon, the color of gunmetal and cinder and ash. Wind swirled her hair in circles. Isabel ran inside as fast as her scrawny legs would carry her.

“Walter, come look! Something weird is happening to the sky,” she yelled, letting the screen door bang behind her.

Walter had just returned home from school, and was standing in the kitchen with two fistfuls of popcorn and more in his mouth. Mom had gone to the grocery store, and Pa worked late every day at the plant, so it was just the two of them home.

Walter wiped his hands on his worn overalls and followed his sister outside. From a young age, Isabel discovered that Walt, three years older, would do just about anything his younger sister asked. By all accounts he was not your average older brother. He never teased, included her on his ramblings in the woods and never shied to put an arm around her when she needed it. Outside, the wind had picked up considerably, bending the old red oak sideways.

Walt stumbled past her and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, gaping. “Jiminy Christmas!”

Daytime had become night.

“What?” Isabel asked.

“Some kind of bad storm a-brewing. Where’s Lady?” Walt asked, looking around.

Their dog, Lady, had been lounging under the tree when Isabel ran inside, but was now nowhere to be seen. “I don’t know.”

“We better get into the shelter. I don’t like the looks of this.”

“I need Lady.”

The air had been as still as a morning lake, but suddenly a distant boom shook the sky. Moisture collected on their skin, dampening Isabel’s shirt.

“Lady!” they cried.

But Lady didn’t appear.

Walt held up his arm. “See this? My hair is standing up darn near straight. We gotta get under.”

Isabel looked at her arms, which felt tingly and strange. Instead of following her brother to the storm cellar, she ran to the other side of the house.

“Lady!” she yelled again, with a kind of wild desperation that tore at the inside of her throat.

A moment later, Walt scooped her up and tucked her under his arm. “Sorry, but we can’t wait anymore. She’ll have to fend for herself.”

Isabel kicked and punched at the air as they moved toward the cellar. “Put me down!”

Walt ignored her and kept running. His skin was sticky, his breath ragged. They had only used the cellar a couple times for storms, but on occasion Isabel helped her mother change out food supplies. The place gave her the creeps.

“What about Mom? We have to wait for her,” she said.

“Mom will know where to find us.”

In the distance, an eerie whistle rose from the earth. Seconds later, the wind picked up again, this time blowing the tree in the other direction. From the clouds, an ink black thing stuck out below. Walt yanked open the door, threw Isabel inside and fumbled around in the dark for a moment before finding the light. Roots crawled through cracks in the brick walls. They went down the steep stairs, Isabel’s face wet with tears and snot.

“Come, sit with me,” Walt said, pulling her against him on the old bench Pa had built.

Warmth flowed out of him like honey, and she instantly felt better. But then she thought about Lady and her mother, who were out there somewhere. Her whole body started shaking. Soon, a rumble sent vibrations through the wall and into Isabel’s teeth. Too scared to cry, she dug her fingers into Walt’s arm and hung on for dear life. Suddenly, a frantic scratching came from above.

Isabel jumped up, but Walt stopped her. “You stay down here.”

Walt climbed to the top and opened the door. The wind took it and slammed it down hard. A loud barking ensued, and Walt fought with the door again, finally managing to get it open and bring Lady inside. The air possessed a ferocity Isabel had never seen before.

Lady immediately ran down the steps and started licking Isabel’s arms and legs, and spinning in circles at her feet. Isabel hugged the big dog with all her might, burying her face in Lady’s long golden fur. When Walt came back down, the three of them huddled together as a roar louder than a barreling freight train filled their ears. Soon, Lady began panting.

Walt squeezed Isabel’s hand. “It’s okay, we’re safe down here.”

He had to yell to be heard. And then the light went out. Darkness filled every crack and crevice. The earth groaned. The door above rattled so fiercely that she was sure it would fly off at any moment. All Isabel could think about was her mother out there somewhere in this tempest. Soon, her lungs were having a hard time taking air in.

“I can’t breathe,” she finally said.

“It’s just nerves. They act up in times like these.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I had it happen before.”

She took his word for it, because it was hard to talk above the noise of the storm, and because Walt always knew what he was talking about. Then, directly overhead, they heard a sky-splitting crack and a thundering boom. The cellar door sounded ready to cave. Isabel and Walt and Lady moved to the crawl space under the steps. The three of them barely fit, even with Lady in her lap. Lady kissed the tears from Isabel’s face.

Finally, the noise began to recede. When there was no longer any storm sounds, Walt went up the steps with Isabel close behind. He pushed but nothing happened. Pushed again. Still nothing.

“Something must have fallen on it,” he said.

“I have to pee.”

“You’re going to have to wait.”

“I can’t wait.”

Walt banged away on the door with no luck. “Then I guess you have to go in your pants. Sorry, sis.”

Isabel began to grow sure that this was where they would live out the rest of their short lives. That no one had survived the apocalypse outside and they would be left to rot with the earthworms, roots growing through their bodies until they’d been reduced to dirt. Her whole body trembled as Walt spoke consoling words and rubbed her back.

“They’ll find us soon, don’t you fret.”

Lady licked her hand, but Isabel was beyond words, shivering and gulping for air. Every now and then Walt went up to try to push the doors again, but each time, nothing happened. She vowed to herself that she would never, ever be trapped underground again. She’d take her chances with a twister over being entombed any day.

It was more than an hour before someone came to get them. An hour of dark thoughts and silence. In the distance they heard voices, and eventually a pounding on the cellar door. “Are you three in there? It’s Pa,” said a voice.

“Pa!” they both cried.

“We got a big tree down on the door up here. Hang tight, I’ll get you out soon.”

When the doors finally opened, a blinding light shone in. Pa reached his hand in and pulled them out, wrapping them in the biggest hug they’d ever had. Never mind that the old truck was upside down and one side of the house missing.

“Where’s your mother?” Pa said.

“She went to the store,” Walt said.

Pa’s face dropped clear to the ground. “Which store did she say she was goin’ to?”

“She didn’t say, but she left just as soon as I got home from school,” Walt said.

Only half listening, Isabel spun around in disbelief at the chaos of branches and splintered wood and car parts and things that didn’t belong in the yard. Sink. Baby carriage. Bookshelf. It appeared as though the edge of the tornado had gone right over their place, leaving half the house intact, and obliterating the rest.

“Son, stay here with your sister. And stay out of the house until I get back. It might be unstable,” Pa said, running off to his car.

“Mom will be okay, won’t she? The store is safe, isn’t it?” Isabel asked.

“Sure she will. Pa will be back with her soon,” Walt said.

They wandered around the yard, dazed. This far out on the country road, the nearest neighbor, old Mr. Owens, was a mile away. Drained, Isabel sat down and pulled Lady in for a hug. Pa didn’t return for a long time, and when he did, they could tell right away that something was wrong. His eyes were rimmed in red, like he had been crying. And Pa never cried.

“Kids, your mom isn’t coming back.”

That was the first time Isabel Cooper lost the most important person in her life.

Excerpted from The Codebreaker’s Secret by Sara Ackerman. Copyright © 2022 by Sara Ackerman. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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Author Bio

Sara Ackerman is a USA TODAY bestselling author who writes books about love and life, and all of their messy and beautiful imperfections. She believes that the light is just as important as the dark, and that the world is in need of uplifting stories. Born and raised in Hawaii, she studied journalism and later earned graduate degrees in psychology and Chinese medicine. She blames Hawaii for her addiction to writing, and sees no end to its untapped stories

Social Media Links

Author Website: https://www.ackermanbooks.com/ 

Facebook: @ackermanbooks

Twitter: @AckermanBooks

Instagram: @saraackermanbooks

Purchase Links

BookShop.org

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Blog Tour/Feature Post and Book Review: The Librarian Spy by Madeline Martin

Hi, everyone!

Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for THE LIBRARIAN SPY: A Novel of World War II by Madeline Martin on this HTP Books Summer 2022 Historical Fiction Blog Tour.

Below you will find a book summary, my book review, an excerpt from the book and the author’s bio and social media links. Enjoy!

***

Book Summary

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Bookshop in London comes a moving new novel inspired by the true history of America’s library spies of World War II.

Ava thought her job as a librarian at the Library of Congress would mean a quiet, routine existence. But an unexpected offer from the US military has brought her to Lisbon with a new mission: posing as a librarian while working undercover as a spy gathering intelligence.

Meanwhile, in occupied France, Elaine has begun an apprenticeship at a printing press run by members of the Resistance. It’s a job usually reserved for men, but in the war, those rules have been forgotten. Yet she knows that the Nazis are searching for the press and its printer in order to silence them.

As the battle in Europe rages, Ava and Elaine find themselves connecting through coded messages and discovering hope in the face of war.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58787295-the-librarian-spy?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=VNeCPKaWp8&rank=1

The Librarian Spy

Author: Madeline Martin

ISBN: 9781335427465

Publication Date: July 26, 2022

Publisher: Hanover Square Press

***

My Book Review

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

THE LIBRARIAN SPY: A Novel of World War II by Madeline Martin is an emotional historical fiction story featuring two young women, one American and one French during WWII who understand the power of the written word during a world gone mad. The author does not shy away from the sacrifice, tragedy, and horror of the war, so keep the tissues close.

Ava loves her job in the Rare Books department in the Library of Congress. Fluent in English, French and German, she is offered a position by the US military in the Lisbon embassy gathering periodicals, copying them to microfilm and sending them back to Washington D.C. to be disseminated. With her brother in the Army, she feels a duty to help in any way she is able.

In Lyon, France, Elaine discovers her husband has been keeping a secret from her. She has fought with him to allow her to help the Resistance. When he is arrested, she learns the truth. Elaine is willing to do anything to help so she is taught how to use the printing presses that put out the truth of their occupation. Rigid curfews, starvation rations and the possibility of arrest, imprisonment, deportation, and death are ever present.

The two cross paths through Elaine’s paper as she asks for help in a coded message to assist a Jewish mother and child escape. Ava feels for the refugees and after not being able to help an older man she becomes fond of; she is determined to assist this mother and child. Amongst all the loss and death, Ava and Elaine’s stories become intertwined.

I loved this book! Both Elaine and Ava understood the importance of what they were doing even with the terrible loss of friends and family during a horrific time in history. All the characters in this story were realistically portrayed and believable. Ms. Martin did an excellent job of integrating true stories of the horrors perpetrated by Klaus Barbie and his atrocities in Lyon against innocents and the Resistance, the Allied and Nazi covert spies in Portugal and America’s shame in ignoring the plight of the Jewish refugees. For all the HEA moments at the end of this story, there are realistic scenes of the horrors of war depicted in this book.

I highly recommend this WWII historical fiction!

***

Excerpt

April 1943

Washington, DC

There was nothing Ava Harper loved more than the smell of old books. The musty scent of aging paper and stale ink took one on a journey through candlelit rooms of manors set amid verdant hills or ancient castles with turrets that stretched up to the vast, unknown heavens. These were tomes once cradled in the spread palms of forefathers, pored over by scholars, devoured by students with a rapacious appetite for learning. In those fragrant, yellowed pages were stories of the past and eternal knowledge.

It was a fortunate thing indeed she was offered a job in the Rare Book Room at the Library of Congress where the archaic aroma of history was forever present.

She strode through the middle of three arches to where the neat rows of tables ran parallel to one another and carefully gathered a stack of rare books in her arms. They were different sizes and weights, their covers worn and pages uneven at the edges, and yet somehow the pile seemed to fit together like the perfect puzzle. Regardless of the patron who left them after having requested far more than was necessary for an afternoon’s perusal.

Their eyes were bigger than their brains. It was what her brother, Daniel, had once proclaimed after Ava groused about the common phenomena—one she herself had been guilty of—when he was home on leave.

Ever since, the phrase ran through her thoughts on each encounter of an abandoned collection. Not that it was the fault of the patron. The philosophical greats of old wouldn’t be able to glean that much information in an afternoon. But she liked the expression regardless and how it always made her recall Daniel’s laughing gaze as he said it.

They’d both inherited their mother’s moss green eyes, though Ava’s never managed to achieve that same sparkle of mirth so characteristic of her older brother.

A glance at her watch confirmed it was almost noon. A knot tightened in her stomach as she recalled her brief chat with Mr. MacLeish earlier that day. A meeting with the Librarian of Congress was no regular occurrence, especially when it was followed by the scrawl of an address on a slip of paper and the promise of a new opportunity that would suit her.

Whatever it was, she doubted it would fit her better than her position in the Rare Book Room. She absorbed lessons from these ancient texts, which she squeezed out at whim to aid patrons unearth sought-after information. What could possibly appeal to her more?

Ava approached the last table at the right and gently closed La Maison Reglée, the worn leather cover smooth as butter beneath her fingertips. The seventeenth century book was one of the many gastronomic texts donated from the Katherine Golden Bitting collection. She had been a marvel of a woman who utilized her knowledge in her roles at the Department of Agriculture and the American Canners Association.

Every book had a story and Ava was their keeper. To leave her place there would be like abandoning children.

Robert floated in on his pretentious cloud and surveyed the room with a critical eye. She clicked off the light lest she be subjected to the sardonic flattening of her coworker’s lips.

He held out his hand for La Maison Reglée, a look of irritation flickering over his face.

“I’ll put it away.” Ava hugged it to her chest. After all, he didn’t even read French. He couldn’t appreciate it as she did.

She returned the tome to its collection, the family reunited once more, and left the opulence of the library. The crisp spring DC air embraced her as she caught the streetcar toward the address printed in the Librarian of Congress’s own hand.

Ava arrived at 2430 E Street, NW ten minutes before her appointment, which turned out to be beneficial considering the hoops she had to jump through to enter. A stern man, whose expression did not alter through their exchange, confronted her at a guardhouse upon entry. Apparently, he had no more understanding of the meeting than she.

Once finally allowed in, she followed a path toward a large white-columned building.

Ava snapped the lid on her overactive imagination lest it get the better of her—which it often did—and forced herself onward. After being led through an open entryway and down a hall, she was left to sit in an office possessing no more than a desk and two hardbacked wooden chairs. They made the seats in the Rare Book Room seem comfortable by comparison. Clearly it was a place made only for interviews.

But for what?

Ava glanced at her watch. Whoever she was supposed to meet was ten minutes late. A pang of regret resonated through her at having left her book sitting on her dresser at home.

She had only recently started Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and was immediately drawn in to the thrill of a young woman swept into an unexpected romance. Ava’s bookmark rested temptingly upon the newly married couple’s entrance to Manderley, the estate in Cornwall.

The door to the office flew open and a man whisked in wearing a gray, efficient Victory suit—single breasted with narrow lapels and absent any cuffs or pocket flaps—fashioned with as little fabric as was possible. He settled behind the desk. “I’m Charles Edmunds, secretary to General William Donovan. You’re Ava Harper?”

The only name familiar of the three was her own. “I am.”

He opened a file, sifted through a few papers, and handed her a stack. “Sign these.”

“What are they?” She skimmed over them and was met with legal jargon.

“Confidentiality agreements.”

“I won’t sign anything I don’t read fully.” She lifted the pile.

The text was drier than the content of some of the more lackluster rare books at the Library of Congress. Regardless, she scoured every word while Mr. Edmunds glared irritably at her, as if he could will her to sign with his eyes. He couldn’t, of course. She waited ten minutes for his arrival; he could wait while she saw what she was getting herself into.

Everything indicated she would not share what was discussed in the room about her potential job opportunity. It was nothing all too damning and so she signed, much to the great, exhaling impatience of Mr. Edmunds.

“You speak German and French.” He peered at her over a pair of black-rimmed glasses, his brown eyes probing.

“My father was something of a linguist. I couldn’t help but pick them up.” A visceral ache stabbed at her chest as a memory flitted through her mind from years ago—her father switching to German in his excitement for an upcoming trip with her mother for their twenty-year anniversary. That trip. The one from which her parents had never returned.

“And you’ve worked with photographing microfilm.” Mr. Edmunds lifted his brows.

A frown of uncertainty tugged at her lips. When she first started at the Library of Congress, her duties had been more in the area of archival than a typical librarian role as she microfilmed a series of old newspapers that time was slowly eroding. “I have, yes.”

“Your government needs you,” he stated in a matter-of-fact manner that broached no argument. “You are invited to join the Office of Strategic Services—the OSS—under the information gathering program called the Interdepartmental Committee for the Acquisition of Foreign Publications.”

Her mind spun around to make sense of what he’d just said, but her mouth flew open to offer its own knee-jerk opinion. “That’s quite the mouthful.”

“IDC for short,” he replied without hesitation or humor. “It’s a covert operation obtaining information from newspapers and texts in neutral territories to help us gather intel on the Nazis.”

“Would I require training?” she asked, unsure how knowing German equipped her to spy on them.

“You have all the training you need as I understand it.”

He began to reassemble the file in front of him. “You would go to Lisbon.”

“In Portugal?”

He paused. “It is the only Lisbon of which I am aware, yes.”

No doubt she would have to get there by plane. A shiver threatened to squeeze down her spine, but she repressed it. “Why am I being recommended for this?”

“Your ability to speak French and German.” Mr. Edmunds held up his forefinger. “You know how to use microfilm.” He ticked off another finger. “Fred Kilgour recommends your keen intellect.” There went another finger.

That was a name she recognized.

She aided Fred the prior year when he was microfilming foreign publications for the Harvard University Library. After the months she’d spent doing as much for the Library of Congress, the process had been easy to share, and he had been a quick learner.

“And you’re pretty.” Mr. Edmunds sat back in his chair, the final point made.

The compliment was as unwarranted in such a setting as it was unwelcome. “What does my appearance have to do with any of this?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Beauties like yourself can get what they want when they want it. Except when you scowl like that.” He nodded his chin up. “You should smile more, Dollface.”

That was about enough.

“I did not graduate top of my class from Pratt and obtain a much sought-after position at the Library of Congress to be called ‘Dollface.’” She pushed up to standing.

“And you’ve got steel in that spine, Miss Harper.” Mr. Edmunds ticked the last finger.

She opened her mouth to retort, but he continued. “We need this information so we best know how to fight the  Krauts. The sooner we have these details, the sooner this war can be over.”

She remained where she stood to listen a little longer. No doubt he knew she would.

“You have a brother,” he went on. “Daniel Harper, staff sergeant of C Company in Second Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, in the 101st Airborne Division.”

The Airborne Division. Her brother had run toward the fear of airplanes despite her swearing off them.

“That’s correct,” she said tightly. Daniel would never have been in the Army were it not for her. He would be an engineer, the way he’d always wanted.

Mr. Edmunds took off his glasses and met her gaze with his small, naked eyes. “Don’t you want him to come home sooner?”

It was a dirty question meant to slice deep.

And it worked.

The longer the war continued, the greater Daniel’s risk of being killed or wounded. 

She’d done everything she could to offer aid. When the ration was only voluntary, she had complied long before it became law. She gave blood every few months, as soon as she was cleared to do so again. Rather than dance and drink at the Elk Club like her roommates, Ava spent all her spare time in the Production Corps with the Red Cross, repairing uniforms, rolling bandages, and doing whatever was asked of her to help their men abroad.

She even wore red lipstick on a regular basis, springing for the costly tube of Elizabeth Arden’s Victory Red, the civilian counterpart to the Montezuma Red servicewomen were issued. Ruby lips were a derisive biting of the thumb at Hitler’s war on made-up women. And she would do anything to bite her thumb at that tyrant. 

Likely Mr. Edmunds was aware of all this.

“You will be doing genuine work in Lisbon that can help bring your brother and all our boys home.” Mr. Edmunds got to his feet and held out his hand, a salesman with a silver tongue, ready to seal the deal. “Are you in?”

Ava looked at his hand. His fingers were stubby and thick, his nails short and well-manicured.

“I would have to go on an airplane, I’m assuming.”

“You wouldn’t have to jump out.” He winked.

Her greatest fear realized.

But Daniel had done far more for her.

It was a single plane ride to get to Lisbon. One measly takeoff and landing with a lot of airtime in between. The bottoms of her feet tingled, and a nauseous swirl dipped in her belly.

This was by far the least she could do to help him as well as every other US service member. Not just the men, but also the women whose roles were often equally as dangerous.

She lifted her chin, leveling her own stare right back. “Don’t ever call me ‘Dollface’ again.”

“You got it, Miss Harper,” he replied.

She extended her hand toward him and clasped his with a firm grip, the way her father had taught  her. “I’m in.”

He grinned. “Welcome aboard.”

***

Author Bio

Madeline Martin is a New York Times and international bestselling author of historical fiction novels and historical romance. She lives in sunny Florida with her two daughters, two incredibly spoiled cats and a husband so wonderful he’s been dubbed Mr. Awesome. She is a die-hard history lover who will happily lose herself in research any day. When she’s not writing, researching or ‘moming’, you can find her spending time with her family at Disney or sneaking a couple spoonfuls of Nutella while laughing over cat videos. She also loves travel, attributing her fascination with history to having spent most of her childhood as an Army brat in Germany.

Social Media Links

Author Website

Twitter: @MadelineMMartin 

Facebook: @MadelineMartinAuthor

 Instagram: @madelinemmartin

Goodreads

Purchase Links

San Marco Books, Signed Copies for Preorders!

Story & Song Books, Signed Copies for Preorders!

BookShop.org

Harlequin 

Barnes & Noble

Amazon

Books-A-Million

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: The Invisible Woman and Sisters of Night and Fog by Erika Robuck

Elise’s Thoughts

The Invisible Woman (Female Spy Heroines of WWII Book 1)

Sisters of Night and Fog (Female Spy Heroines of WWII Book 2)

Erika Robuck

Berkley Publisher

The Invisible Woman and Sisters of Night and Fog by Erika Robuck are very riveting historical novels. Based very closely on true stories, Robuck skillfully brings to life these heroic women, Virginia Hall, Virginia d’Albert-Lake, and Violette Szabo. Both these novels highlight the duty, sacrifice, and determination of these historic women who helped the Resistance in WWII.

The SOE, known as The Special Operations Executive, was a British WWII organization formed in 1940.  They aided the Resistance with espionage and sabotage against the Nazis. They worked hand-in-hand with the US OSS, later to become the CIA. Both Winston Churchill, William J. Donovan, and Vera Atkins, who recruited, trained, and planned secret missions in France, aided the Resistance.

The Invisible Woman shows why Virginia Hall should be honored with the US Medal of Honor. She was a vigilant spy, a fearless soldier, and an unflinching commander.Sent to occupied France to organize spy networks, gather intelligence, and run safehouses in 1942, she had to escape the Nazis after her network was betrayed.  But not to be deterred, she came back in 1944 to organize the resistance before the Allied invasion. The Gestapo had wanted posters of “The Limping Lady”, because she had a prosthetic leg who she named “Cuthbert.” She was influential in helping the allies to defeat the Nazis and liberate the French.

Sisters of Night and Fog has two women, Violette Szabo and Virginia d’Albert-Lake connected by fate and chance. Virginia is an American to a Frenchman who becomes a leader in helping Allied airmen escape from Occupied France. Violette, a British citizen who is half French, joins the SOE, leaving behind her small daughter, and parachutes into France with money to pay the resistance. Both women helped the resistance, but unfortunately their clandestine deeds come to a staggering halt after they are captured by the Germans and brought together at the Ravensbrück concentration camp.  They bond through having to endure the torture and horrific conditions. Virginia admires and respects Violette for her inspiration and determination to keep as many women as possible in the camp alive.  Robuck’s portraits of these three unforgettable heroines is captivating. A bonus in both novels is the author’s notes about the characters and history. Readers will feel the tension and take the journey with these inspiring women through their sacrifices, courage, and endurance.

***

Author Interview

Elise Cooper:  The series idea?

Erika Robuck: Both these books are related.  They are about women of WWII who fought with the resistance and participated in espionage in different capacities. As I was researching The Invisible Woman it led to the second book, Sisters of Night and Fog. I had been writing about women in the shadows of male authors for a long time.  An editor said, why not write about a woman remarkable on her own. I discovered a Smithsonian article about a woman who spied for the allies and helped the foundation for modern intelligence. The main character of the first novel, Virginia Hall, fit the bill for a woman who is remarkable.

EC: Do you like the name Virginia?

ER:  LOL. The name likes me.  They are old-fashioned.  It seems everyone I search is either a Virginia, Violette, or a Vera.

EC:  Ok, so do you like women characters whose names start with “V”?

ER: I have grown to like it because I think of the victory symbols. It is fitting for these real women.

EC:  The main character of Virginia Hall from The Invisible Woman was formulated from some stories told to you by her niece?

ER:  I met her because she lives in Maryland, as do I.  I was able to interview her quite a bit.  She allowed me to see the family photos. She colored in the pencil sketch I had, able to get to know the real woman after I met her family. Virginia would take her niece on fishing and hunting expeditions.

EC: How would you describe Virginia Hall?

ER:  She is unconventional in that she and her husband Paul lived together before they were married at a time when that was unusual. She is assertive, formidable, inquisitive, intelligent, no nonsense, has a sense of loyalty/duty, and incredibly courageous. She was athletic, the captain of every team she was on. Since being told no a lot of her life, she was a little bit bitter. Her mother did not want her to travel the world, the Foreign Service said no because she was a woman and had a disability.  But she overcame all of it.

EC:  What was her disability?

ER:  She had a prosthetic leg.  She accidentally shot off her foot while hunting, shooting birds.  She named the leg Cuthbert, the Patron Saint of Birds. This is the only connection anyone could make with the name of her leg. Even with her loss of leg she had so many skills as an actress, hunter, sailor, adventurer, soldier, and linguist.

EC:  Had did Virginia Hall become a spy?

ER:  After France fell to the Nazis she went to London.  This is where she got on the radar of the British Special Operations Executive.  They saw her talents and were not put off about anything with her. After her first mission where the network was betrayed, she had a tremendous amount of anger. She lost a lot of people to death and imprisonment although she was able to escape. With her next mission to France, she had a lot of survivor’s guilt and PTSD.  She was afraid about losing people, yet she kept going, conquering it, and had hope.  I am working with the women of the intelligence agencies and her family to get her The Medal of Honor.

EC:  She became a commander in the resistance movement?

ER: She had a very keen eye for talent, spotting how certain people could help the allied cause, and gain their trust, which is how she created her resistance network. She was able to corral, train, and arm the resistance, showing how vital the network was to the allied cause. She was able to organize them.

EC:  How would you describe Vera Atkins who was in both books?

ER:  She was the ultimate spymaster, cool and calm. Being Jewish, Vera was deeply invested with those she supervised for the SOE to help fight the Nazis. She faced backlash as a woman but was able to recruit allies since she was incredibly charming and diplomatic. She could navigate the different circles. She and Winston Churchill were on the same page, not afraid to have women or people with disabilities serve. They were partnered with the OSS, the CIA precursor.  The author Ian Fleming based the fictional character “M” on Atkins in his James Bond novels. After the war she hunted down every bit of evidence of those she agents lost, feeling deeply responsible. She lost 118 of the 400 she recruited. Her research was used in the Nuremberg Trials to convict many Nazis.

EC:  In Sisters of Night and Fog there was also a Virginia, Virginia d’ Albert Lake?

ER:  She is very different than Virginia Hall because she was a typical run of the mill woman.  She did not seek danger and daring, thinking after she was married in France there would be a happily ever after. She was not wired for a leadership role but grew into it.  Virginia d’ Albert Lake was more grounded and quieter. She embraced her role, helping one person at a time.  She was a different kind of leader than Virginia Hall who could be kind of boorish.

EC:  What about Violette, another hero of the second book?

ER:  She is more hotheaded and impulsive than either Virginia.  She worked more on instinct. She grew up with five brothers and had to fight her way through life.  After the Nazis killed her husband during the war, she sought vengeance. Violette became a sharpshooter. She was more of a risk-taker, a wounded person, and more emotional than the other two.  She moved through life like a wrecking ball.  Her relationship with her father created in her wanting to be one of the boys and seeking the approval of the men in the resistance.  She matured through the years of the war. With her SOE training she became more focused, subdued, and polished.  This allowed her to be a great leader of those women who were imprisoned by the Nazis with her at Ravensbruck Concentration Camp.

EC:  What all three women had in common?

ER:  Both Virginias were American. All three were courageous with an inner strength. They demanded respect.  They found their vocation, which helped them rise to different occasions. All of them faced a cycle of emotions from worry, fear, hope, guilt, and love. They knew the average life span was six weeks.  I loved them all with a different piece of my heart.

EC:  There is a quote in one of the books about humanity?

ER:  You are referring to this one, “Is humanity doomed?  Is it even redeemable at this point?  What’s the use of doing any small act of good when evil seems to overpower it?  The darkness seems to blot out all the light.” What the Germans did to the Jews: rounding them up, sending them to labor and concentration camps, endless killings, and torture. Man’s inhumanity to man is incomprehensible. The Nazis also crucified babies, locked the French up in Churches, and burned them.  Each of these women were determined to show that hope exists with the defeat of the Nazis.

EC:  What would you like readers to take away from the books?

EK:  There is always hope.  Women have the strength to do what is needed to be done.  They just must have courage. At the end of each book, they can read the author’s note if they choose to go deeper into the history.

EC:  Next book?

ER: I was thinking of writing about Vera Atkins, the supervisor of SOE but another author is doing it, Laura Kamoie.  After this WWII novel I will go into another area of historical fiction.  For my personal mental health, I am steering clear of WWII. 

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.

Book Tour/Feature Post and Book Review: Emma’s Tapestry by Isobel Blackthorn

Hi, everyone!

Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for EMMA’S TAPESTRY by Isobel Blackthorn on the Blackthorn Black Coffee Book Tour.

Below you will find an about the book section, my book review and an about the author section with the author’s social media link.

***

About the Book

At the dawn of World War Two, German-born nurse Emma Taylor sits by the bedside of a Jewish heiress in London as she reminisces over her dear friend, Oscar Wilde.

As the story of Wilde unravels, so does Emma’s past. What really happened to her husband?

She’s taken back to her days in Singapore on the eve of World War One. To her disappointing marriage to a British export agent, her struggle to fit into colonial life and the need to hide her true identity.

Emma is caught up in history, the highs, the lows, the adventures. A deadly mutiny, terrifying rice riots and a confrontation with the Ku Klux Klan bring home, for all migrants, the fragility of belonging.

Emma’s Tapestry is an imaginative retelling of the remarkable life of the author’s great-grandmother.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57612540-emma-s-tapestry?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=lyOGXtybn4&rank=1

Emma’s Tapestry: A Historical Novel

  • Genre:  Historical fiction
  • Print length: 311 pages
  • Age range: This is an adult book but suitable for mature teens
  • Trigger warnings: None

***

My Book Review

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

EMMA’S TAPESTRY: A Historical Novel by Isobel Blackthorn is a glimpse through historical fiction focusing on the years between and during the two world wars. This story follows a strong and compelling female protagonist.

Emma Taylor and her family are Mennonites from Germany who move to the United States to get away from religious persecution. The children are brought up to work hard and are expected to marry within their religion. Emma graduates from nursing school and is excited to marry the English brother of a friend, who works for a British import/export company. This will cause a permanent rift in her family because she is marrying outside her faith.

With her husband, Emma travels to England and then to Singapore for his job. While Emma is finding everything strange and difficult, she copes by using her nursing skills at the local hospital and befriends other businessmen’s wives. After the Sepoy Mutiny, Emma’s husband, Ernest transfers the family to Kobe, Japan. Once again, Emma is on her own to adapt to a new culture and home. Ernest is focused on climbing the business and social ladder like many in that time and place and expects Emma to be happy as a wife and mother.

When her parents die from influenza and her disintegrating marriage fails, she moves to Colorado with her children and is always fearful that her German ancestry will be discovered. Emma’s tapestry is not yet finished, and she still has decisions to make for herself and her daughters.

While I feel this is a character driven story, Emma is as caught up in the tides of history as much as she has control of her own destiny. Her life is typical of the married women of that time, but having a vocation makes her long for so much more than being a wife and mother. Emma and her husband have an emotionally turbulent relationship and the author does a wonderful job of writing that relationship reflecting both party’s expectations and faults for their time in history. I may not have always liked Emma, but I did find her strength amazing in a tumultuous time and life. I feel the time period and locations are thoroughly researched and this author’s writing brings them to life on the page.

This is a beautifully written historical fiction story.

***

About the Author

Isobel Blackthorn is a prolific novelist of unique and engaging fiction. She writes across a range of genres, including gripping mysteries and dark psychological thrillers.

The Unlikely Occultist: A biographical novel of Alice A. Bailey received an Honorable Mention in the 2021 Reader’s Favorite book awards. A Prison in the Sun was shortlisted in the LGBTQ category of the 2021 International Book Awards and the 2020 Readers’ Favorite Book Awards. Her short story ‘Nothing to Declare’ was shortlisted for the Ada Cambridge Prose Prize 2019. Her dark thriller A Legacy of Old Gran Parks won a Raven Award in 2019. The Cabin Sessions was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award 2018 and the Ditmar Awards 2018.

Isobel holds a PhD in Western Esotericism from the University of Western Sydney for her ground-breaking study of the texts of Theosophist Alice A. Bailey. Her engagement with Alice Bailey’s life and works has culminated in the biographical novel The Unlikely Occultist and the full biography Alice A. Bailey: Life and Legacy.

Isobel carries a lifelong passion for the Canary Islands, Spain, her former home. Five of her novels are set on the islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. These standalone mystery novels are setting rich and fall into the broad genre of travel fiction.

Isobel has led a rich and interesting life and her stories are as diverse as her experiences, the highs and lows, and the dramas. A life-long campaigner for social justice, Isobel has written, protested and leant her weight to a range of issues including asylum seekers and family violence. A Londoner originally, Isobel currently lives in rural Victoria, Australia.

Social Media Link

http://www.isobelblackthorn.com

Purchase Link

http://mybook.to/emmastapestry

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: Lana’s War and A Girl During the War by Anita Abriel

Elise’s Thoughts

Lana’s War and A Girl During the War by Anita Abriel are heartfelt reads.  The stories take place during World War II, the former in France and the latter in Italy.  Both books are filled with danger and romance. 

Lana’s War begins with a tragedy.  In Paris 1943 Lana Antanova is about to tell her husband, Frederick they are going to have a baby when she sees him brutally shot dead by a Gestapo agent.  To make matters worse, she loses the child. Knowing she can no longer sit idly by she accepts an offer to join the resistance. As the daughter of a Russian countess, Lana has the perfect background to infiltrate the émigré community of Russian aristocrats in the French Riviera, and socialize with German officers, including the man who killed her husband. Her cover story, being the mistress of Guy Pascal, a wealthy Swiss industrialist and fellow resistance member, allows her to move smoothly throughout the area.  Together they gather information on upcoming raids and help members of the Jewish community escape. She has grown attached to a young Jewish girl, Odette, who ends up losing her parents. Both Lana and Guy go to great lengths to protect Odette and protect each other.

A Girl During the War also has a young heroine risking her life to save others as well as valuable paintings. Taking place in Italy 1943, Marina Tozzi comes home to find her father brutally killed by the Nazis. Fearful of the consequences, Marina flees to Villa I Tatti, the Florence villa of her father’s American friend Bernard Berenson and his partner Belle da Costa Greene, the famed librarian who once curated J.P. Morgan’s library. Marina, an art expert, uses her expertise to save valuable pieces and uses her contacts to save a Jewish family. A neighbor, Carlos Adamo, uses his charm to sweep Marina off her feet. But after he disappears at the war ends, she must make a new life without him, traveling to Argentina to help an organization return paintings to their rightful owners.

Both books allow readers to take a journey with these heroic women. The tales of survival and second chances will have people feeling the same emotions as the characters: anxiety, fear, and even sometimes joy.

***

Author Interview

Elise Cooper:  You write World War II books?

Anita Abriel:  The Light After the War, which came out two years ago, is the one readers connected with.  It is my mother’s story. It is a moving book because my mother escaped from a train heading toward Auschwitz with her seventeen-year-old friend.  They ended up in Maples, tried to get to Ellis Island but were rejected, from there went to Venezuela, and ended up in Australia where I was born. It is all based on fact.  This is when I started to write historical fiction. My second book is Lana’s War and then in March my third book came out, A Girl During the War.

EC:  In these three books there is always something about the Jewish peril during the war?

AA:  I write these because of my background. I am Jewish. My parents who survived the Holocaust are Jewish.  My father’s parents died in a concentration camp. I grew up in Sydney Australia.  My mother was a little afraid because of everything that happened to her.  My father escaped by fighting in the Red Army.  He was extremely Jewish. 

EC: The idea for Lana’s War?

AA:  I wanted to write another story set during the Holocaust.  My mother always talked about the French Riviera.  As I was looking online, I saw a plaque in front of a hotel in Nice France saying, “this is where the Gestapo had its headquarters.”  For a long time, this was a safe place for Jews until the Nazis occupied it in the last years of the war.  Then they were sent to concentration camps. Gestapo Agent Alois Brunner is a real person.

EC:  How would you describe Lana?

AA:  She is very brave, caring, and gave up a soft life in Paris to join the resistance to put herself in great danger. It is unfathomable about what she went through.  While she was grieving, at the same time, she was fearless.

EC:  Lana’s first husband, Frederick.  Can you describe him?

AA:  Frederick is very straight-forward, honest, courageous, and wanted to get involved.

EC:  How would you describe the resistance member, Guy?

AA:  Guy wanted revenge, very noble, courageous, and sophisticated. His relationship with her was complicated. Lana was not very fond of his manners.  He was very authoritarian, bossy, opinionated, and initially did not give her any respect. 

EC:  How would you describe Lana’s relationship with Frederick versus Guy?

AA:  With Guy she was more of an equal. She also wanted revenge. They were very focused on their mission. Their relationship was complicated. Frederick always tried to protect her until he was killed. He was Lana’s first great love, very sweet and innocent, a gentleman.

EC:  The role of Odette?

AA:  She was a twelve-year-old who represented all those children that were incredibly harmed and scarred by the war.  As a child, Odette wanted to return to normalcy, instead of having to hide all the time. She saw her father killed by the Nazis and then she was told about the Nazis killing her mother. Odette had a quote in the book, “If all the Jews ran away the Germans would succeed, what Hitler tried to accomplish.  I am French.  This is where I belong.”  She said this because she wanted to hang on to her identity and not lose it. Very common among the children was that they were wiser than their years and had to grow up too fast.

EC: You also refer to real-life figures such as Coco Chanel?

AA:  Some people felt she had to work with the Nazis, while others felt she could have left.  Now people think she was a collaborator. 

EC:  A Girl During the War changes the setting from France to Italy?

AA:  A lot of this book is true. I stumbled on the story because I really love Florence Italy.  The Ponte Vecchio was the only bridge that was not blown up during the war because it was saved by the German council. I wondered why he did it.  I found out information about certain characters such as Ludwig who was a head art historian in Italy. During my research I found out about the Villa I Tatti, where scholars now go to learn about Renaissance art.  Bernard and Belle da Costa are also real people and were lovers.

EC:  How would you describe Marina?

AA:  She is the heroine of the story. Younger and less sophisticated than Lana. She was very protected and attached to her father who was killed by the Nazis. She travels and stays with Bernard.  This book is her journey in the middle of a war. I think she probably had PTSD because she found her father’s body and knew had she arrived home a few minutes earlier she could have also been killed. She is also serious, lonely, angry, guarded, and trying to make sense of the war. 

EC:  How would you describe Carlos versus Luc?

AA:  I do not like Carlos.  He is despicable. He knows he is good looking and does not love anyone like he loves himself. He is self-centered. He has a magnetic personality and confidant. Luc is the direct opposite, a sweet and a caring person. After the war he tried to return the art to their rightful owners.

EC:  Relationship?

AA:  Carlos, her lover, is attractive, interesting, and edgy.  He does not give her what she needs, to fill her emptiness.

EC:  In both books you have children angry at the situation they are placed in?

AA: In this one it is Eli and in the other one is Odette.  I cannot imagine how they can be anything other than angry.  Eli is a good-looking young Italian male who had a promising life.  Instead, he sees death and is held prisoner having to hide in a barn.  His little sister cannot even go outside.

EC:  In both books’ art plays a role?

AA:  I had a quote in this book, “Art is not always about the painting itself, it’s about the joy of sharing important pieces with others.” Art lasts centuries and brings people together. Everybody has their own opinions and ideas. It takes on a life of its own.  Therefore, it is horrible to think of what was lost or could have been lost during the war. Bernard and Marina in both books risked their lives because they saw the value of art.

EC:  What was real and what was made up?

AA:  There were some real artists, such as Giorgione.  But I did make up that famous picture by Verrocchio who was a real artist. There are very few of his paintings left.  As far as copies I made it up, but I am sure it happened.

EC:  What about your next books?

AA: My next book will be historical fiction, out next year sometime.  I am not ready to talk about it yet. I also write Christmas books under the name Anita Hughes, with the latest coming out in September, titled Christmas at The Ranch. It is about a heroine who rarely leaves her neighborhood, but her editor has her go to Jackson Hole Wyoming.

THANK YOU!!

***

Elise’s Author Interview

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.

Blog Tour/Feature Post and Book Review: Radar Girls by Sara Ackerman

Hi, everyone!

Today I am once again on the Harlequin Trade Publishing Historical Fiction Summer 2021 Blog Tour and I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for RADAR GIRLS by Sara Ackerman.

Below you will find an author Q&A, an about the book section, my book review, an excerpt from the book, an about the author section and the author’s social media links. Enjoy!

***

Author Q&A

Q: What do you think drives authors to continue to find stories to tell set around WWII?

A: Perhaps it’s because there are still so many amazing untold stories out there? There are so many individuals with unique experiences during the war, all over the world, that the books could just keep coming. Also, I know for myself, while I’m researching for a novel, I often stumble upon something that makes me sit up and think, Wow, that would make a great story! And then I file it away for future consideration. This happened while I was researching for The Lieutenant’s Nurse, my second novel, and first heard about the Women’s Air Raid Defense. It’s how Radar Girls was born! 

Q: How are you hoping readers will relate to Radar Girls?

A: I hope that readers will see a little bit of Daisy Wilder in themselves. I think it’s human nature to put yourself in the shoes of the characters and wonder about how you would react in a crisis. Would you rise to the occasion? 

In Radar Girls, we have one woman trying to make her way in the world. Daisy is special in her own way, but no different than you or I, really. And then in one day, everything changes. Through her lens, we experience what it was like firsthand to live in wartime Hawaii, a very dark and scary time. We go along for the ride as she overcomes obstacles, deeply connects with other WARDS, falls in love, and proves herself as an important member of a critical command center Pearl Harbor. We feel her hopes, dreams and fears. As a reader, when I feel the humanity of a story, it makes me care. And when I care, I want to keep turning the pages. I hope that as readers turn the pages of Radar Girls, they will feel empowered and inspired and proud.

Q: What’s something that you connected with personally as you researched and wrote Radar Girls?

A: When I was reading about the real WARDs, the thing that stood out to me the most was how these women quickly became a sisterhood. And I know that many were still close and kept in touch until their dying days. I have a band of friends who I love like sisters, so this really resonated with me. I greatly admire how the WARDs held each  other up and maintained such grace under pressure, as well as a great sense of humor throughout. It was so inspiring to me, and made me want to hug all of my friends.

***

About the Book

WWII historical fiction inspired by the real women of the Women’s Air Raid Defense, RADAR GIRLS follows one unlikely recruit as she trains and serves in secrecy as a radar plotter on Hawaii. A tale of resilience and sisterhood, it sees the battles of the Pacific through the eyes of these pioneering women, and will appeal to fans of Kate Quinn and Pam Jenoff.

An extraordinary story inspired by the real Women’s Air Raid Defense, where an unlikely recruit and her sisters-in-arms forge their place in WWII history.

Daisy Wilder prefers the company of horses to people, bare feet and saltwater to high heels and society parties. Then, in the dizzying aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Daisy enlists in a top-secret program, replacing male soldiers in a war zone for the first time. Under fear of imminent invasion, the WARDs guide pilots into blacked-out air strips and track unidentified planes across Pacific skies.

But not everyone thinks the women are up to the job, and the new recruits must rise above their differences and work side-by-side despite the resistance and heartache they meet along the way. With America’s future on the line, Daisy is determined to prove herself worthy. And with the man she’s falling in love with out on the front lines, she cannot fail. From radar towers on remote mountaintops to flooded bomb shelters, she’ll need her new team when the stakes are highest. Because the most important battles are fought—and won—together.

This inspiring and uplifting tale of pioneering, unsung heroines vividly transports the reader to wartime Hawaii, where one woman’s call to duty leads her to find courage, strength and sisterhood.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55004551-radar-girls?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=D2ftns4gw2&rank=1

Radar Girls  

by Sara Ackerman

On Sale Date: July 27, 2021

9780778332046

Trade Paperback

$16.99 USD

368 pages

***

My Book Review

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

RADAR GIRLS by Sara Ackerman is an engrossing historical fiction story featuring young women on the island of Hawaii after the attack on Pearl Harbor who are enlisted and become the Women’s Air Raid Defense (WARD). This is a standalone historical fiction novel with a romance subplot set on a beautiful island with plenty of real life drama and intrigue.

Daisy Walker is more comfortable around horses than people and is working on the Montgomery Ranch to support herself and her mother. Then the attack on Pearl Harbor throws the island and the entire country into a panic. The men are needed for the front and Daisy is recruited with many other young women to be trained to take over their jobs in the newly formed Women’s Air Raid Defense (WARD) to protect the Pacific coast and help pilots find their way back home.

For the first time in her life, Daisy builds bonds with other women who like and respect her. The women are a diverse group who learn a strategic top secret skill and learn to work together even through their differences in education and social status. As the women bond, it is not all work, as the group gets caught up in several schemes and adventures. Daisy also learns about relationships from her friends and begins to fall for her neighbor who has always seemed out of reach.

Set between the attack on Pearl Harbor and VJ Day, this historical fiction drew me in immediately and I was sorry when it was over. Ms. Ackerman did amazing research not only on the time period and location during the early 1940’s, but on radar and all the skills the women needed to learn and do their jobs. Daisy is a memorable and strong lead character who matures and grows in confidence in herself as the story progresses. She also learns how strong the bond can be between female friends. The romance subplot between Daisy and Walker was realistically paced and intertwined with her relationship growth with the other women. All the secondary characters were believably written and Daisy’s female friends stood out. All of the story elements kept me turning the pages.

I highly recommend this historical fiction story!

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Excerpt

2

The Bust

Their shack, as Daisy referred to the house, was nestled in a cluster of bent ironwood trees, all by its lonesome. Set back far from the beach to protect it from a direct blast of onshore winds, it still took a constant battering and the salty air and elements had done a fine job reclaiming it. Windowpanes had been blasted opaque, you could see through the back wall, and flowers had taken up residence in the gutters. The siding had gone from forest green to pale green to peeling gray, the roof turned to rust.

When he had first started working up at the ranch, Daisy’s father had somehow persuaded Mr. Montgomery to sell him the small parcel of beachfront property for the price of a bag of sand. Most likely because it was in no-man’s-land between Waialua and the ranch. And because her father had been the best horse trainer in Hawai’i and everyone knew it.

She flung open the front door and ran inside. “Mom?” she called.

All quiet. She tiptoed across the lauhala mat in the living room, avoiding the creaking floorboards. Her mother spent much of her life in one of two states—sleeping or staring out to sea. The bedroom door was cracked and a lump lay under the blankets, pillow over her head. There was no point in trying to wake her, so Daisy ran back outside, hopped on her bike and rode for the stables.

The air was ripe with burnt sugarcane and a scratchy feeling of dread. She bumped along a dirt road as fast as her old bike would carry her. That plume of black smoke above Schofield caused her heart to sink. So many Japanese planes could mean only one thing. An attack or invasion of some kind was happening. But the sky remained empty and she saw no signs of ships on the horizon.

By the time she reached the stables, she had worked out what to tell Mr. Silva—the only person at the ranch who was even close to being a friend—and beg that he help her find Moon. Whether or not he would risk his job was another story. Jobs were not easy to come by, especially on this side of the island. Daisy counted herself lucky to have one. When she rounded the corner by the entrance, she about fell over on her bike. Mr. Silva’s rusted truck was gone and in its place sat Mr. Montgomery’s shiny new Ford, motor running and door open.

As far as old Hal Montgomery was concerned, Daisy was mostly invisible. She had worked for him going on seven years now—since she was sixteen—but she was a girl and girls were fluffy, pretty things who wore fancy dresses and attended parties. Not short-haired, trouser-wearing, outdoorsy misfits. And certainly not horse trainers and skin divers. Nope, those jobs belonged to men. There was also the matter of her father’s death, but she preferred not to think about that.

Should she turn around and hightail it out of there before he caught sight of her? He’d find out eventually, and he would be livid. Daisy pulled her bike behind the toolshed and slipped around the back side of the stables, peering in through a cloudy window. The tension in the air from earlier had dissipated and the horses were all quiet. A tall form stood in front of the old horse—Ka‘ena—she was supposed to ride. It was hard to tell through the foggy pane, but the man looked too tall and too thin to be Hal Montgomery.

Horsefeathers! It was Walker, Montgomery’s son. A line of perspiration formed on the back of her neck and she had the strong urge to flee. Not that Daisy had had much interaction with Walker in recent years. He was aloof and intimidating and the kind of person who made her forget how to speak, but he loved Moon fiercely. Of that she was sure. Just then, he turned and started jogging toward the door. His face was in shadow but it felt like he was looking right at her. She froze. If she ducked away now, he would surely catch the movement. She did it anyway.

She had just made it to her bike when Walker tore out of the tack room with a wild look in his eye. He had a rifle hanging across his chest, and he was carrying two others. He stopped when he saw her. “Hey!” he said.

“Oh, hello, Mr. Montgomery.”

He wore his flight suit, which was only halfway buttoned, like he’d been interrupted either trying to get in it or trying to get out of it. His face was flushed and lined with sweat. “Don’t you know we’ve been attacked? You ought to head for cover, somewhere inland.”

He was visibly shaken.

“I saw the planes. What do you know?” she said.

“Wheeler and Schofield are all shot up, and they did a number on Pearl. Battleships down, bay on fire. God knows how many dead.” His gaze dropped to her body for a moment and she felt her skin burn. There had been no time to change or even think about changing, and she was still in her half-wet swimsuit, hair probably sticking out in eleven directions. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I was worried about the horses,” she said.

“That makes two of us. And goddamn Moon is not in his stall. You know anything about that?”

Taking Moon had been about the dumbest thing she could have done. But at the time, it seemed a perfectly sane idea. The kind of thinking that got her into plenty of trouble over the years. Why hadn’t she learned? She looked at the coconut tree just past him as she spoke. “I have no idea. Perhaps Mr. Silva has him?”

“Mr. Silva went to town last night to see his sister,” he said.

She forced herself to look at him, feeling like she had the word guilty inked onto her forehead. “Looks like you have somewhere to be. You go on, I’ll find Moon. I promise.”

Her next order of business would be scouring the coast and finding that horse before Walker returned. There would be no sleeping until Moon was safely back at the stables.

“I sure hope so. That horse is mighty important to me,” he said.

Tell him!

She was about to come clean, when he moved around her, hopped in the car and slammed the door. He leaned out the window and said, “Something tells me you know more than you’re letting on, Wilder.”

With that, he sped off, leaving her standing in a cloud of red dirt and sand.

In the stables, the horses knew the sound of her footsteps, or maybe they smelled the salt on her hair. A concert of nickers and snorts erupted in the stalls. Daisy went to the coatrack first, and slid on an oversize button-up that she kept there for chilly days. It smelled of hay.

“How is everyone?” she said, stopping at each one to rub their necks or kiss their noses. “Quite a morning, hasn’t it been?”

Peanut was pacing with nostrils flared, and she spent a few minutes stroking his long neck before moving on. Horses were her lifeblood. Feeding, grooming, riding, loving. She only wished that Mr. Montgomery would let her train them—officially, that was. Without being asked as a last resort by Mr. Silva when everyone else had tried. Lord knew she was better than the rest of the guys. When she got to Moon’s stall, all the blood rushed from her head. The door had been left open and two Japanese slippers hung from the knob. She had hidden them in the corner under some straw—apparently not well enough.

Damn.

Just then she heard another car pull up. The ranch truck. A couple of the ranch hands poured out, making a beeline to the stables. Mr. Montgomery followed on their heels with a machete in his hand and a gun on his hip. Daisy felt the skin tighten on the back of her neck. His ever-present limp seemed even more pronounced.

When he saw her, he said, “Where’s Silva?”

No mention that they were under attack.

“In town,” she answered.

“What about Walker?”

“Walker just left in a big hurry,” she answered.

One of the guys had his hunting dog with him. It was a big mutt that enjoyed staring down the horses and making them nervous, as if they needed to be any more nervous right now. Daisy wanted to tell him to get the dog out of there, but knew it would be pointless.

“The hosses in the pasture need to be secured,” Mr. M said.

“Do you need my help?” she offered.

“Nah, you should get out of here. Get home. Fuckers blew up all our planes and now paratroopers are coming down in the pineapple fields. Ain’t no place for a woman right now.”

Daisy wanted to stay and help, but also wanted to get the hell away before he noticed that Moon was not here. “Yes, sir.”

He stopped and sized her up for a moment, his thick brows pinched. “You still got that shotgun of your old man’s?”

“I do.”

“Make sure it’s loaded.”

On her way home, Daisy passed through Japanese camp, hoping to get more information from Mr. Sasaki, who always knew the latest happenings. A long row of cottages lined the road, every rock and leaf in its place. The houses were painted barn red with crisp, white trim. On any given Sunday, there would have been gangs of kids roaming the area, but now the place was eerily empty.

“Hello?” she called, letting her bike fall into the naupaka hedge.

When she knocked and no one answered, she started pounding. A curtain pulled aside and a small face peered out at her and waved her away. Mrs. Sasaki. She was torn, but chose to leave them be. With the whispers of paranoia lately, all the local Japanese folks were bound to be nervous. She didn’t blame them.

This time when Daisy ran up to the shack, her mother was sitting on the porch drinking coffee from her chipped mug.

She was still in her nightgown, staring out beyond the ocean. When she was in this state, a person could have walked into their house and made off with all of their belongings and her mother would not even bat an eye.

Daisy sat down next to her. “Mom, the Japanese Army attacked Pearl Harbor and Wheeler and who knows where else.”

Her mother clenched her jaw slightly, took a sip of her coffee, then set it down on the mango stump next to her chair. “They said it would happen,” she said flatly.


“This is serious, mom. People are dead. Civilians, too. I don’t know how many, but the islands are in danger of being invaded and there are Japanese ships and planes all around. They’re telling us to stay inside.”

A look of worry came over her mom’s face. “You should go find a safer place to stay, away from the coast.”

“And leave you here?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

Her mom shrugged.

She knew Louise couldn’t help it, but a tiny part of Daisy was waiting for that day her mother would wake up and be the old Louise Wilder. The mother of red lipstick and coconut macaroons, of beach bonfires and salty hugs. The one who rode bikes with her daughter to school every day, singing with the birds along the way. The highs and lows had been there before, but now there were only lows and deeper lows.

After some time, her mother finally spoke. “Men, they do the dumbest things.”

“That may be true, but we’re at war. Does that mean anything to you?” Daisy said, her voice rising in frustration.

“Course it does, but what can we do?”

She had a point. Aside from hiding in the house or running away, what other options were there? Used to doing things, Daisy was desperate to help, but how? Their home was under attack and she felt as useful as a sack of dirt.

Louise leaned back. On days like these, she retreated so far into herself that she was unreachable. You could tell by looking in her eyes. Blank and bottomless. Mr. Silva always said that you could see the spirit in the eyes. Dull eyes, dull spirit. That Louise looked this way always made Daisy feel deeply alone. The onshore winds kicked up a notch and ruffled the surface of the ocean. She knew she should stay with her mom, but more than anything, she wanted to go in search of the horse. Moon meant more to her than just the job. She loved him something fierce.

Only one thing was clear: their lives would never be the same.


Excerpted from Radar Girls by Sara Ackerman, Copyright © 2021 by Sara Ackerman. Published by MIRA Books.

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About the Author

USA Today bestselling author Sara Ackerman was born and raised in Hawaii. She studied journalism and earned graduate degrees in psychology and Chinese medicine. She blames Hawaii for her addiction to writing, and sees no end to its untapped stories. When she’s not writing or teaching, you’ll find her in the mountains or in the ocean. She currently lives on the Big Island with her boyfriend and a houseful of bossy animals. Find out more about Sara and her books at www.ackermanbooks.com and follow her on Instagram @saraackermanbooks and on FB @ackermanbooks.

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