I look back on 2018 with utmost gratitude. A year ago, my husband and father suffered strokes within the span of three weeks. I spent months worrying about their recovery, watched tentative steps grow into wobbly walks. Neither man is fully recovered, yet they are moving, talking and exercising.
My father just turned 90 and is still able to live in his childhood home. And I’ve enjoyed spending time and taking care of him because for thirty years I lived 5,000 miles away and only saw him for a few days each year.
In June I was able to finish the German translation of SURVIVING THE FATHERLAND and I recently completed my seventh novel, WHERE THE NIGHT NEVER ENDS, a prohibition era historical romance (light on romance). After my editor gets done with it, the book is scheduled to release in March 2019.
I’m thankful for all my readers, many thousands who read my books, who have written amazing reviews and supported me. You make it possible for me to do what I love most. Thank you!
Looking ahead to 2019
My next project is the true story of my grandfather Willi (Wilhelm) who was taken prisoner by the Russians in May 1945 and spent the next eight plus years in gulags in Siberia and the Ural. To do a thorough job I’ve got to research life in a prison camp.
In the 1960s the German government commissioned a study about prisoners of war (POW). They looked at soldiers who’d spent time in French, British, U.S. and Russian camps. They analyzed food, social structure and behavioral changes in captivity. They researched how hunger affected men. Findings were collected in ten volumes of which I own several. Now it’s time to get busy and try to grasp what it was like to live or more accurately subsist in a Russian gulag.
I wish you and yours a happy, healthy and successful New Year!
It’s time to get busy.