Tag: survival story

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The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel

Hello readers!  I wanted to tell you about another great book to check out – The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel.  It’s already creating a buzz in the book world even before its July 6 publication date.

The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel

Kristin, a master storyteller through the historical fiction outlet, continues her exploration of the Jewish experience during WWII. She takes a fresh angle by setting the book in the forests where Jews are hiding, rather than in the ghettos or extermination camps.

Twenty-some years ago a woman kidnapped two-year-old Yona  from her German parents. (Don’t worry. This isn’t a spoiler. The kidnapping happens right at the opening of the book.) Since then they have lived together in the forest. Yona is taught survival skills – how to provide food, shelter and physical protection for herself. Just as the war closes in on them, her kidnapper dies leaving Yona on her own.

Russian partisans and German troops begin canvassing the forests for Jews who have escaped nearby occupied towns. Although Yona was taught to fear people, she feels the need to help the Jews she finds in the forest. She can teach them the skills they need to survive.

For a book set mainly in the forest, it covers many topics: love, family, betrayal, surprises, danger, sacrifice, evil, discovery of self, questioning of ancestry, leadership vs. power, and more. 

The story feels realistic because it has balance. Yona can help some of the groups she encounters; others she cannot.  Sometimes she feels like part of a family and sometimes she feels like the outsider. She makes mistakes and she makes wise decisions. Other characters aren’t simply good or bad; they are complicated like real people. Continue reading “The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel”

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Surviving Savannah by Patti Callahan

Patti Callahan (also Patti Callahan Henry), writer of women’s fiction and historical fiction, is known for books such as Becoming Mrs. Lewis, about the love of C.S. Lewis, as well as Losing the Moon, And Then I Found You, The Bookshop at Water’s End and many more. Patti’s newest is an amazing story about the sinking of the steamship Pulaski, nicknamed the Titanic of the South,  in her newest historical fiction Surviving Savannah.

Told in dual timelines, readers experience the sinking of a luxury ship, the Pulaski, through the eyes of passengers from the Longstreet family as well as a modern day researcher.

Thirteen members of the Longstreet family (based on the real-life Gazaway Bugg Lamar family) board the ship transporting approximately 190 people. Travelers, seeking relief from the hot, humid Savannah summer, expect an easy trip sailing from Savannah to Baltimore with only one night on sea. No one foresees a simple mistake that causes one of the copper steam boilers to explode turning this into a real-life struggle for survival story.

Switching to a modern timeline, historian Everly Winthrop, is asked to curate a museum exhibition of the salvaged artifacts from the Pulaski shipwreck.  Everly wants to create a display worthy of the people who lost their lives and the families forever changed by the tragedy. Wanting the exhibit to feel personal,  she researches old letters and books to connect real lives to the finds coming from the research vessel at the wreck site.  Uncovering these stories also helps her work through a personal loss.

 

Patti, the author, began researching the sinking of the Pulaski to see if she wanted to write historical fiction based on the event. She knew it was meant to be when the actual 1838 shipwreck was discovered only weeks after she began her research. She chose to give these passengers a voice from a nearly forgotten, almost  two hundred-year-old story.  Finding written survivor documentation of the event and interviewing the wreckage recovery team helped Patti create authentic situations for fictionalized characters based on real people. Patti’s story began unfolding on the page concurrent with the real-life recovery of artifacts from the bottom of the sea. She has stated in numerous articles that the timing gave her “chill bumps.”

Patti’s novel follows survivors on the days directly following the sinking as they are being pushed beyond human limits to get to safety. Patti also goes beyond the rescue of some of the passengers to explore how surviving affects the rest of their lives. How do survivors survive being survivors? What will they do with the life they’ve been given? How does Savannah survive losing so many of their elite citizens? How do people move on after their world has been suddenly changed? 

Surviving Savannah is a read worth your time.