Guest Blogger: Sarah Pleydell, Author of Cologne: A Novel

London, 1960: Renate von Hasselmann, a nineteen-year-old German au pair, arrives at Victoria Station prepared to meet her new charges, Caroline and Maggie Whitaker. Yet she is ill-prepared for their parents: the mother, Helen, knows more about Nazi Germany than Renate does, and the father, Jack, disarms Renate with his quicksilver charm.

In Sarah Pleydell's debut novel, childhood and history collide, blurring the distinctions between victim and victor, ruin and redemption. With delicate humor, Pleydell presents a portrait of a family on the cusp of great social change, while reminding us that the traumas of war revisit the children of the peace.

Reflections by Sarah Pleydell

The characters in COLOGNE emerged from the environment of memory. I grew up in London in the fifties and sixties, and as I began to remember the sentient details of this world certain characters began to assert themselves within it. At first they resembled people in my childhood, but the more I wrote the more they assumed their own discrete fictional identities.

For example, Renate the au pair. We had fifteen au pairs in our household as I was growing up and the character of Renate draws on them all. As the fictional Renate developed her own history, temperament and fate, the personality that evolved bristled with anger but was confused both by its source and the fact that the longer she was in England the fiercer it became. As a result she was forced to recall the personal and collective traumas she had been so determined to suppress.

This story thus became informed as much by the history of Germany pre- and post-World War II as by the World War history of England, specifically the history of the city of Cologne. I did research at the Library of Congress and discovered that the British firebombed Cologne as they had so many German cities. I also learned of the city’s rich cultural history. Questions began to merge about Renate and her family’s lived experiences. What if Renate’s father were a museum curator ? What if the family left Cologne to escape the bombings, but he remained to protect his artifacts? How would Renate, as a small child, feel abandoned by her father because his art mattered to him more? What about her older brother, who would have fought on the side of the Nazis? What if he were maimed by the Russians instead of killed? How would that tragedy have impacted an impressionable, fatherless young girl like Renate? And how would a sophisticated family like hers fare after so many personal and economic losses? Finally, I began to reflect on the way those Germans who were children during the war would have reacted to carrying a legacy of shame and crime they had no part in.

I began to understand then how Renate would have been susceptible to the charms of an opportunist like Jack Whitaker, the kind of mercurial person who emerges in a time of change, chaos and stress. With no strong male figures in her own life she would be vulnerable to the ersatz affection Jack offered her, but in the end, I discovered as I wrote, she was strong enough to resist him. But at what cost?

Prices/Formats: $14.95 paperback, $12.95 ebook, $6.47 ebook
ISBN: 9780984990856
Pages: 252
Release: September 18, 2012

Fuze Publishing paperback buy link: ($14.95)
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Amazon Kindle buy link: ($12.95)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009D7V06O?tag=tributebooks-20

Barnes&Noble.com Nook buy link: ($12.95)
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cologne-sarah-playdell/1112959139

Fuze Publishing ebook buy link: ($6.47)

http://fuze.directfrompublisher.com/catalog/book/cologne

A graduate of Oxford and London Universities, Sarah Pleydell is an award-winning writer, performer and playwright who teaches English and writing at the University of Maryland. For the past twenty years, she has been a master teaching artist and arts integration specialist, working with institutions that include The Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Luce Institute. In 2000, she won the American Association for Theatre Educators’ award for best book of the year with co-author Victoria Brown. Most recently she wrote the script and played the role of Isadora in Revolutionary: The Life and Times of Isadora Duncan with Word Dance Theater.

Based on her childhood in London, Cologne has been twenty years in the making. It has benefited from fellowships at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and input many generous and gifted writers.

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Book Review: The Proxy Assassin by John Knoerle

The American Spy Trilogy comes to an explosive end in The Proxy Assassin by John Knoerle.

Two years have passed since Former OSS Agent Hal Schroeder was sent on his last suicide mission. Maybe it's time for him to start settling down. Hal is invited to Washington D.C. by Frank Wisner, head of the CIA’s new covert ops division. He is then whisked off to Wisner’s Maryland shore retreat and introduced to Romanian royals, including the beautiful Princess Stela Varadja, a direct descendant of Vlad Tepes Draculea.

Wisner asks Hal if he would consider parachuting into a remote mountain camp to meet with the leader of a group of Romanian anti-Communist guerillas? That's when things get scary.

After being totally captivated by the second book of this series, A Despicable Profession, I eagerly anticipated the release of the final book. Hal is faced with a new puzzle to solve in the fight against Communism. Knoerle blends characters from the past book with new fictional and historical characters to create a story where the still infant Central Intelligence Agency is working against another threat to freedom. So much of what I like about Hal is part of this book: his cocky, sarcastic attitude, his ability to creatively get out of messes, and his vulnerability to the opposite sex. Hal is wise beyond his years, and he isn't afraid to tell it like it is.

I have to admit the first half of this the book lagged a bit for me. After reading a thrilling, fast-paced story in A Despicable Profession, I found The Proxy Assassin unfolded much more slowly, at least until around Chapter Nineteen, where the pace and action picked up. Knoerle did a superb job of connecting the past and the present. He managed to add a hint of romance or potential romance to Hal's life without distracting from the unfolding storyline. In addition, the back story was woven in well.  I only wish the tension and suspense had stayed steady.

Post-WWII fiction lovers, those who enjoy espionage novels, and those interested in historical novels set around the early years of the Cold War should consider this one.

Paperback: 280 pages
Publisher: Blue Steel Press (September 1, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0982090390
ISBN-13: 978-0982090398
SRP:  $15.00
Kindle version only 99 cents

I received a free copy of this book from the author. This review contains my honest opinions, for which I have not been compensated in any way.

This book is the 57th book I've read for the following challenge:

It is the 34th book I've read for the following challenge:

It is the 13th book I've read for the following challenge:

Book Review: The Katyn Order by Douglas W. Jacobson

If you are a reader of World War II fiction, you'll definitely want to pick up a copy of The Katyn Order: A Novel.

The Germans are retreating as the Russians advance in Warsaw. Resistence fighters rise up against their Nazi oppressors, but the Germans retaliate, leveling the city. American Adam Nowak is dropped into Poland by British intelligence as an assassin. He has lost much, and has had to disengage himself from his past and all he's known to concentrate on his mission. But then he meets Natalia, a woman who has also lost much, he yearns to tap into the human part of himself he is sure must be left behind forever. Together they work to find a copy of the 1940 Soviet order that ordered the murders of 20,000 Polish Army officers and civilians.

Fabulous! Superb! Outstanding! These words and more describe this powerful, dramatic historical offering from Douglas W. Jacobson.

The author has put together a perfect blend of fact and fiction, mixed in multi-faceted characters whose lives you become immersed in, and tossed them together with historical characters to create a winning story that pulls you in right from the start. Rich in detail, Jacobson makes you believe you are there in Poland with Adam and Natalia, fighting with them, grieving with them, hoping for them.

If you are interested in WWII or enjoy gripping historical fiction, buy this one up today. I highly recommend it!

Title:  The Katyn Order
Author:  Douglas W. Jacobson
Publisher: McBooks Press
ISBN-10: 1590135725
ISBN-13: 978-1590135723
SRP:  $24.95
Also available in a Kindle edition.

I received a copy of this book from the author who is currently on a virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book. This review contains my honest opininons, for which I received no monetary compensation.

Book Review: A Despicable Profession by John Knoerle

Do you like spy novels? Do you enjoy mystery and intrigue? Do you enjoy post-WWII fiction?

If you answered yes to any of these, you must pick up a copy of A Despicable Profession: Book Two of The American Spy Trilogy by John Knoerle.

It's May 1946. America is enjoying its victory over the Germans. The OSS has been disbanded and the CIA is still more than a year away from being formed.

Former OSS agent Hal Schroeder is offered a job as a trade rep in Berlin. When he flies to meet his new boss in New York, he's shocked to come face-to-face with former OSS Chief Bill Donovan. Schroeder has no interest in being a spy.

When rumors swirl about the Red Army massing tanks along the Elbe in East Germany, and Hal ends up meeting a man from his past in Berlin, Hal's interests take a backseat to discovering the truth.

My husband and I have this ongoing battle. I prefer to read fiction set during the American Revolution or the Civil War. The birth of our nation and the War that divided our country--in some places still does--fascinate me. I believe they hold a great influence, even today. My husband, however, believes that anything prior to World War II is unimportant. He prefers to read fiction set during that time period.

This helps to explain why I had no idea while I was reading A Despicable Profession that William Donovan was an actual person. The majority of my fiction entertainment dealing with Nazis and WII came in the form of Wonder Woman. But I enjoy mysteries and intrigue, so I figured I would give A Despicable Profession a chance.

It is an outstanding book!

Knoerle immerses the reader in Hal's world. Hal's a bit of a smart ass. Maybe that comes from being sent on repeated suicide missions in WWII. Speaking of that, did I mention that the guy Hal meets in Berlin is Victor Jacobson, the case officer who sent him on all those missions?

If you're getting the idea that Knoerle does an excellent job of pushing Hal to the limits, you would be right. Hal was more than happy to get out of the spy business. Now he's being drawn back in by his former cronies and forced to work with a guy he can't stand. Those naughty Russians, they are messing everything up. Why does the Central Intelligence Group have to be so darn ineffective?

I have to admit I fell in love with Hal. He's probably the only person more sarcastic than me. But the guy knows his stuff. He's a professional. There are so many twists and turns in this book I thought Hal would come out looking like a wrung out wet towel. And Ambrose, Sean, and Patrick Mooney provide some comic relief, but they are guys you won't forget soon.

Knoerle knows how to keep readers turning the pages. Never once did this book lag. I just kept flipping page after page, hoping to sneak in one more chapter before my eyes shut. Character development is certainly the author's strength, but the plot and the attention to detail are equally superb.

I loved A Despicable Profession so much that I am eager to read the first book in this trilogy, A Pure Double Cross. In addition, I hope Knoerle keeps me in mind when the last book comes out.

A Despicable Profession is a book you shouldn't miss!


Title:  A Despicable Profession
Author:  John Knoerle
Publisher: Blue Steel Press
ISBN-10: 0982090307
ISBN-13: 978-0982090305
SRP:  $15.00