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Adriana Kraft

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My Review: Code Girls, by Liza Mundy @lizamundy #WWII #WomensHistory #Review #KU

November 19, 2022 by Adriana Kraft Leave a Comment

Code Girls, by Liza Mundy, is the third book in my current series of book reviews featuring the role of women in the WWII Allied victory. The first two books – The Atomic City Girls, and Daughters of the Night Sky – are historical fiction based very closely on actual events and characters.

Code Girls is not fiction, even though through most of its pages it reads as smoothly and dramatically as any novel. Following interviews with more than twenty participants and years of meticulous research, much of the data having spent decades as classified and unavailable, Liza Mundy has crafted the story of over 10,000 American women, most freshly out of college, who secretly worked during the war to break the German and Japanese military codes. These women saved thousands of lives and in no small part helped to bring down first Germany, and then Japan.

They – and their superiors – could tell no one about it for decades.

In November, 1941, letters began going out to select women who were seniors at several of the nation’s elite colleges. The letters invited the women to an interview, where the questions simply were whether they liked crossword puzzles and if they were engaged to be married. If they answered appropriately, they were invited to further meetings where they learned about “cryptanalysis” and were told never to utter that word to anyone else. They entered on-campus training in code breaking – again, about which they could tell no one, not even family members. Those who passed the rigorous training were the earliest recruits to facilities being readied for them in Washington, D.C., by both the Navy and the Army.

Over the ensuing years, recruitment criteria broadened, but secrecy, the ability to identify patterns, and having a bright mind remained paramount. Mundy’s account traces the initial American codebreaking developments between the wars, then proceeds through the war years chronologically. By weaving together historical data and material from her interviews, she provides a window into the mundane as well as the dramatic. We learn what interaction was like in the cramped working quarters; how the women were treated by outsiders – who could never know how technical and important their work was – how they spent their relatively few free hours; and, for many of them, how their lives unfolded after the war.

Most of them remained unacknowledged and unsung for the rest of their lives. Some family members never learned what a mother – an aunt – a grandmother – had accomplished, how many ships were sunk because the Navy “happened” to be in the right place at the right time, due to intelligence provided by the codebreakers.

I found this book to be both informative and very engaging, and I highly recommend it.

BUY LINK

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316439894/

Code Girls is available exclusively at Amazon
and is currently on Kindle Unlimited

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Filed Under: Adriana's Library, Blog Tagged With: American history, Book Review, Codebreakers, codebreaking, codebreaking machine, codes, enigma, Her Story, history, KU, review, Women’s History, WWII

On My #Bookshelf: Lilac Girls, by Martha Hall Kelly #WWII #TrueStory #HistoricalNovel #Review

October 9, 2022 by Adriana Kraft Leave a Comment

I was a very young teenager when my mother took me to see the documentary movie Mein Kampf. I’ve never been able to erase those visuals, black and white photographs of concentration camp victims. That was my mother’s point: We must never forget.

Perhaps for that reason, though I choose to read a lot of history and historical novels, I’m never thrilled to encounter Nazi horror up close on the pages I’m reading. I don’t wish to experience it again.

I picked up Lilac Girls on the recommendation of a good friend.

I made it through the early segments – the invasion of Poland, Caroline Ferriday’s work with refugees in New York City, the early violence against Jews in Germany. I set the book down when the narrative placed the German female doctor – Herta Oberheuser – in Ravensbrück. I didn’t want to go there.

When I told my friend, she said to keep reading, that it would be worth it.

And it was. Through the horror, in spite of the appalling devastation and loss, this is a story about redemption. And it is a true story, fleshed out with the author’s narrative of the main characters’ internal thoughts and reactions.

Through tracing the actions (and probable thoughts) of real characters New York socialite Caroline Ferriday and Herta Oberheuser, then weaving them with the narrative of the fictional polish teenager Kasia Kuzmerick, the author plunges us into the horror of the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp for Women.

Fast forward the narrative to the mid-fifties, after the war is over. I was unaware this story was real until I began to read about the role of Norman Cousins, editor of The Saturday Review. My family subscribed to that magazine, and through my early adulthood, I did, as well.

At that point I set down the book again and began chasing links online – yes, true story, impacted by people I “knew,” though not personally. Caroline Ferriday enlisted the help of Norman Cousins and his platform to raise funds to bring thirty five of the Ravensbrück survivors to the US for whatever corrective surgery was possible. In so doing, she was continuing a family legacy of political and charitable activism. Since the publication of Lilac Girls, author Martha Hall Kelly has released two additional books, chronicling the role of Caroline Ferriday’s ancestors during WWI (Lost Roses) and the Civil War (Sunflower Sisters). I highly recommend all three books.

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Filed Under: Adriana's Library, Blog Tagged With: Historical Fiction, Lilac Girls, Ravensbruck, review, WWII

The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah #Review #Mustread #Bookstoreread #MFRWAuthor

September 11, 2022 by Adriana Kraft Leave a Comment

If you’ve hit my blog today, it goes without saying that you’re an avid reader, too. Welcome! My husband and I write together as Adriana Kraft, and you can browse our website and links to learn more about what we write.

When you read, do you typically stick to a single genre? Widely different genres? A Potpourri? I’m pretty eclectic, myself, and a lot of my pleasure-reading is in genres outside romance: history, biography, historical fiction, contemporary mainstream fiction. My Kindle says I have a 236 day reading streak. I don’t doubt that. I thought I’d share some of my favorites from time to time, in no particular order.

I’ll start with the book that got my current kick started, and one of the few in recent years I’ve read a second time: The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah.

I love historical fiction, and I especially love when the main events are based on something that really happened. I’ve also long been drawn to novels (and history) about World War II, although I didn’t know that was a focus of this work when I started reading it. It was gifted to me by a close friend when I’d just had carpal tunnel surgery on my right wrist, and the surgeon had been unable to do it laparoscopically. I was functionally laid up and unable to write for several days.

I found this to be a five-star book, from start to finish. I’m a fast reader, but this was to be savored, even as I couldn’t wait to see what happened next. Since my first reading, I’ve pondered what the elements were that drew me into the story and back again for another round.

As a writer, I especially admired the structure Hannah used to present her story. She opens in 1995, in the reflective memories of one of the main characters. Here are that character’s opening lines:

If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.

Hannah does not tell us in that scene which of her two main characters is sharing memories – in fact, that discovery, towards the end of the book, is part of the book’s brilliance. We learn what happens across the war years, but we are never clear whose memory and present life we occasionally drop in on in the nineties. So part of the appeal of this book for me is its structure, both the weaving across the five-decade jump in time span, and the secrecy (one of many secrets) about whose memories and current life we are reading.

Two other aspects of the book are equally responsible for my “must read” (and re-read) recommendation. The first of these is her use of language. Of course it’s no surprise that a best-selling author creates magic with her words. When after the first 1990s scene she drops us into the bucolic setting of the Loire valley in 1939, I wanted to be there, in spite of knowing what was coming. Throughout, the text is rich, precise, inviting, invoking, equally powerful when the story is poignant or when it’s devastating. As always when I read a WWII story, there are some things I’d rather not see so clearly, but it’s important. We must never forget.

The final crucial feature of this book for me is that it tells a true story, in the broad sense of that word. During World War II, there were real people who experienced everything Hannah wrote. Everything. Her characters are not the actual heroes who did all those things, but nothing they’ve done across the span of the war was made up. It is all based on Hannah’s careful research and thorough understanding of Nazi-occupied France, Vichy France, and the countless stalwart, courageous ordinary citizens who risked everything to become resisters. Some, but not all, of the secrecy that pervades the story is driven by this fact: resisters must hide what they are doing. To reveal to the wrong person will cost lives – theirs, and those of countless others.

So I will close with another reflection from the opening scene: “As I approach the end of my years, I know that grief, like regret, settles into our DNA and remains forever a part of us.” Some of Hannah’s story is true about the past, but much of it, as this awareness, is equally true of the present.

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Filed Under: Adriana's Library, Blog Tagged With: Kristin Hannah, Mainstream Fiction, Must Read, review, WWII

Addicted – Will Recommend Gladly! #romanticsuspense #MFRWAuthor #Review

April 16, 2017 by Adriana Kraft Leave a Comment

Addicted – Will Recommend Gladly!

These are words authors LOVE to hear. Four out of five Bites for The Painter is a Lady from Love Bites and Silk Ties!

“Mystery and romance are woven well in this tale. I got caught up in the small-town gossip as well as the intrigue. Michael is hero worth falling for and Brenda is a heroine who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to get it. The host of secondary characters also make for an engaging story. Fans of small-town romance or romantic suspense will enjoy this. Happy to recommend.”

Can you tell we’re pretty pumped? This is why we work so hard 🙂 . We totally lost count of how many editing rounds this story went through with our marvelous editor at Extasy Books. The plot is complex, with a lot of twists and turns (it’s suspense, after all), and he kept finding spots where readers might get confused or lost. We’re grateful he hung on through the process.

 

 

Secrets. Trust. Courage.

 

Who will knuckle under first—

the war hero?

The spirited single mom?

Or the former high school bully who still hates them both?

 

 

BUY LINKS

PRINT

Amazon

E-BOOK

Amazon   Smashwords   iTunes

Kobo   B&N   Extasy Books

Full blurb and an excerpt are available at this LINK

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Filed Under: Romantic Suspense Tagged With: review, Romantic Suspense

Great New Review for Writing Skin!

August 25, 2009 by Adriana Kraft 2 Comments

“Can an erotic romance involving three people have a happy ending for everyone involved? Is it even possible? Yes, at least in the plausible-enough world of this novel…Chapter by chapter, the characters and the reader wade steadily deeper into unmapped territory. Somehow it all works, and the menu of the place has enough variety to please most appetites. The sex scenes range from gentle rituals to intense, spontaneous fucks, and each scene leads to greater trust among the characters. Throughout the saga, all three central characters keep the strangely innocent quality of people who never lose their ability to empathize with others. You’ll be glad you met them.”

Read the entire review at lizardlez

Buy Writing Skin at Extasy Books

Skin 150
What would it be like to be romanced by not one but two potential partners, simultaneously? Luci Parker has finally achieved the career of her dreams as an erotica author – but the only romance in her life these days is in the books she writes. Long attracted to both men and women, Luci despairs of ever finding just one person to settle down with.

Owners of a South Side Chicago bookstore, Chai and Frank Ferguson eagerly devour Luci’s books as fast as she can write them, and now they wonder if she might be the woman they’ve been looking for.

Frank is deeply in love with Chai but knows she’ll never be complete without a woman to love as well. Can he match the passion of not one but two exquisite and complicated women at the same time? Will Luci even want him? And if Chai truly falls in love with Luci, will there be room for him?

All three characters in this intense erotic love story wrestle with the meaning of love, lust and commitment as they struggle to find themselves—and each other.

Read an Excerpt

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Filed Under: LGBT, Uncategorized Tagged With: Adriana Kraft, bisexual, erotic romance, erotica, Extasy Books, LGBT, LizardLez, review, Writing Skin

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REVIEWS


Erotic Romance “Seducing Cat is a Must Read…Hot in all the right places!”


Love Bites and Silk Ties
Romantic Suspense: Mystery and Romance are woven well in The Painter is a Lady.


Romantic Suspense: “The Unmasking is a fascinating tale…some emotionally trying scenes.”


Erotic Romance FFM Menage: “Edgy characters, inclusive sexuality…The Reunion is not for the faint of heart.”


Erotic Romance FFM Menage: “The intimacy is genuine and breathtaking”

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