Ciji Ware
on tour
March 2-13
with
Landing By Moonlight:
A Novel Of WWII
(Romantic thriller/Historical novel)
Release date: October 15, 2019
at Lion’s Paw Publishing
476 pages
SYNOPSIS
Based on the lives of a small group of American women secret agents working for British intelligence parachuting into France to help the Resistance during WW II.
The year is 1942, and American secret agent Catherine Thornton has no idea whether she will be dropped behind enemy lines in an inflatable raft launched from a submarine or be flung through the moonlit sky from a low-flying British Halifax. Either way, the young embassy wife and erstwhile journalist knows there’s always the chance she’ll be picked off by German sharpshooters, although nothing in her imagination prepares her for the trial-by-fire to come.
Only she understands why she volunteered for such “unwomanly warfare” and the secret reasons she joined a handful of female American spies destined to risk her gilded life on French soil–yet former Vichy diplomat Henri Leblanc, code name Claude Foret, thinks he knows the answers.
As Catherine’s missions grow more harrowing each day, and she fears she’s fallen in love with a captured fellow agent, the German SS begin to close in on the world of Madame “Colette Durand” and her Résistance network embedded in coastal cities along the French Riviera—an exposure that could threaten the Allied victory itself.
And hanging in the air like a half-opened parachute is the life-or-death question: Who is the betrayer and who will be betrayed in this, their finest hour?
MY REVIEW
This book is thoroughly enjoyable for many reasons. The enjoyment encompasses plenty of breath-holding moments because our heroine walks on a knife edge in her role as secret agent. It’s hard for we readers to be as calmly confident as she always appears to be that things will go to plan, more or less. Catherine is determined, initially almost exuberant in her commitment to her role, but always professional. She loves life, has a sassy streak, but when push comes to shove she’s courageous, loyal and resourceful.
The author creates the wartime atmosphere brilliantly. Her fascination with history and particularly this pivotal time in the twentieth century is obvious. There are so many details lurking in the background adding richness but never becoming overwhelming, from mentions of clothes, food, transport and so on of the time. Most of all, the mentality of the period comes through – how people got through each day when truly horrific things could happen at any moment. How ordinary people were so brave, so heroic, which carries extra poignancy when read in contemporary Britain where certain politicians hide in fridges to avoid journalists, never mind armed enemies. But I digress a little…
This novel is exciting and engrossing. Every character we meet is convincing and rounded, every setting atmospheric, every event carefully choreographed and contributing to such a wonderfully crafted whole. You experience many different emotions as you read.
It’s a book that stays with you long after you’ve finished reading it and throws a new perspective on the wartime period.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ciji Ware
is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author
of twelve works of historical and contemporary fiction,
two of nonfiction,
and was short-listed for the Willa [Cather] Literary Award
for Historical Fiction in 2012.
A graduate of Harvard University in History,
she is an Emmy-award winning television producer,
a Dupont awardee for investigative journalism,
and an American Bar Association winner
of a Silver Gavel for her magazine work.
For eighteen years, she was a broadcaster and commentator for KABC Radio/TV in Los Angeles.
A recipient of Harvard’s prestigious Alumni Award in 2004,
Ware was the first woman graduate of the university
to serve as President of the Harvard Alumni Association, Worldwide.
Ware and her husband, Tony Cook, live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Buy the book: paperback and ebook available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, ibook/Apple, and Kobo.
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AND A GUEST-POST
Thanks for your enthusiastic review. So glad you enjoyed it. You should try her other books
As the author of LANDING BY MOONLIGHT, I was delighted by such a thoughtful, insightful review and was thrilled when you mentioned you appreciated the research of WW II I wove into a fictional telling about the very few American women secret agents who parachuted into France to help fight the Nazi takeover of Europe. I am now hard at work on Book 2 in this “Spy Sisters Series” and deep into what is known about women intelligence agents who could SKI and served as couriers in the French, Swiss, and Italian Alps, delivering messages about weapons “drops” by parachute; downed pilot’s attempts to escape to Switzerland and Spain; and plans to sabotage the German war machine as the Normandy invasion grew closer in June of 1944… I have every hope your review can introduce my novel to your readers and thank you so very much for the opportunity to “meet” you! All best, Ciji