Indie Spotlight: November 2023
In this month’s roundup of BookLife titles, we feature books about historical subjects. Want to see your book featured? Check out the Indie Spotlight calendar at booklife.com/indiespotlight.
Delaware from Railways to Freeways
Dave Tabler
ASIN B0CB2DQG5D
Author statement: “My book lays out a captivating journey through pictures, little-known anecdotes, entertainingly educational stories, and a comprehensive deep dive into Delaware history. Readers ask how I narrow down what information to include and what to save or discard in my histories. On the one hand, I look to academic history book models to get an idea of broad topics that should be tackled. On the other hand, I personally love to include quirky anecdotes and folklore items that add local color.”
Don’t Break My Rice Bowl
Robert H. Dodd and Patricia Rykiel
ISBN 978-1-73961-553-6
Author statement: “This semi-autobiographical novel shines a light on a relatively unknown part of Vietnam War history as elements of Asian history and culture, including the introduction of ‘miracle rice,’ are woven into the challenges of being a civilian trying to work and live in a war zone. The book is based mainly in Saigon, Vietnam, in the late 1960s. My father wrote it in the 1980s, and then put it aside for years. In the 2020 lockdown, I reread the story and realized it needed to be published.”
An Enemy Like Me
Teri M. Brown
ASIN B0CFZBZDFS
Author statement: “My grandfather is of German heritage, though our family has been in the United States since before the Revolutionary War. When I was a young teenager, he brought up his time in WWII, which was something he rarely spoke about. He said, ‘I always wondered if the person on the other side of my gun was a distant cousin.’ That idea stuck with me and eventually became the basis for An Enemy Like Me.”
Lady of the Army: The Life of Mrs. George S. Patton
Stefanie Van Steelandt
ASIN B0BJ67JZ2Z
Author statement: “I was familiar with the accomplishments of General Patton growing up near Belgium’s Liberty Road. Still, it wasn’t until I watched the classic movie Patton and devoured several biographies that I realized Mrs. Patton was an even more interesting person. I recognized in her the same sense of adventure and curiosity that I possessed and began the four-year process of taking Beatrice Ayer Patton out of the footnotes and onto the front page.”
The Lucky Seven
Norman Holden
ISBN 978-1-73622-034-4
Author statement: “The Lucky Seven tells the story of my father-in-law’s brave journey in 1944 from being being shot down over Europe to freedom with help from brave resistance fighters on the ground in Belgium and France. The book includes stories from his fellow airmen and the Europeans who ensured his path back to safety. Researching this book took several years and was truly a labor of love. I have a passion for history, leadership, and personal growth, and I bring these to bear in the retelling of a very impactful personal story.”
Rain Dodging: A Scholar’s Romp through Britain in Search of a Stuart Queen
Susan Godwin
ISBN 978-1-64742-569-2
Author statement: “While at Oxford for a summer term, I was studying Anne Finch’s poem ‘Nocturnal Reverie’ when I stumbled upon the story of Italian princess Mary of Modena, married by proxy and against her will in the late 17th century to James, Duke of York, later James II. She had female writers in her court, so unusual for the time. I was compelled to find out how that came to be.”
Rites of Passage: The Legacy of Adventure Climbing in the Sierra Nevada
E.C. Joe
ISBN 979-8-218-17601-3
Author statement: “Rock climbing throughout the Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains of California has been going about quietly for well over a century. The exploits of its pioneers in this beautiful mountain range have been infrequently documented in a few books, alpine journals, and magazines. The experiences of climbers in this area remain elusive in comparison to more mainstream places like Yosemite. Rites of Passage is a collection of experiences from a few aficionados of the Southern Sierra who have graciously shared their adventures for this book.”
Sepia
Herlinde Cayzer
ISBN 978-0-645-27370-0
Author statement: “Sepia is a story about the sliding-door moments that govern our lives. If-only moments. I heard about an incident involving a young boy’s misguided deed in the waning days of Third Reich propaganda. This motivated me to envisage a what-if scenario of two youngsters who, subject to differing influences, are driven to respond to given orders. This timeless dilemma of forcing individuals to take a stand with potentially good or bad results drove me to pen this book.”
They Never Reigned: Heirs to the British Throne Who Never Became the Monarch
Blair Hoffman
ISBN 978-1-398-41947-6
Author statement: “As the title suggests, the book contains biographical sketches of many heirs to the British throne who, for various reasons, never became king or queen, including four heirs who were killed or died during the Wars of the Roses; Mary, Queen of Scots; and the tragic Princess Charlotte. I had the idea for the book for many years and decided to write it after I retired. The stories contain many fascinating ‘what-ifs’ of history: for example, what if Geoffrey, the third son of Henry II—who would have become king after Richard I died and who was the posthumous father of a prince named Arthur—had not died in a jousting accident?”
Wings over Germany
Eric B. Forsyth
ASIN B0C2SMM5KP
Author statement: “When I served on the 613 Royal Air Force fighter squadron in the 1950s, I flew with several pilots who had fought in WWII. Two had been shot down and became POWs, but one got as far as the Spanish border before he was caught. His stories inspired me to write of the adventures of a young RAF pilot, Allan Chadwick, in the years leading up to World War II (the first two novels in a series). This story, the third in the series, follows Chadwick’s adventures as Britain and Germany go to war, and he is spirited into Paris by the French.”
