Happy January! My name is Tara Fox Hall, and I’m here to promote my new Lash Series
Book, War, the third installment in
this paranormal fantasy action series with historical elements.
WAR PASSIONS
First off, let
me say that I never expected to feel passionate about World War II. When I
began writing the Lash series book which takes place during World War II, I
didn’t know very much about World War II at all, other than there were Axis and
Allies as opponents, and it had been fought in the early 1940s. I began
researching that time period, to make the novel realistic historically. I
planned to add a few battles, a couple key historical figures from the war, and
that was going to be it; the rest of the book would all be fictional adventure.
To facilitate this, I obtained several thick tomes detailing out every aspect
of WWII, which gave me a lot of dry facts. I also watched many movies done of
that time, as well as hundreds of hours of documentaries with historical
footage and survivors telling their actual experiences, to get a feel for the
time period, slang, and culture.
Before I wrote
this book, I did not understand what war was, or how it could change someone
who lived through it so utterly. I lived through war times myself, but those
were foreign wars, where I remained safely in on United States shores and saw
no real fighting. There was little impact on my day-to-day normal life. No
soldiers camped on my property, stole my food, hurt me, or killed my loved
ones. My sleep was not disturbed by gunfire, or my home and livelihood
destroyed. I had taken many history classes in college, but most of the true
horrors of war had been edited out, or smoothed over…errors that documentaries
and historical footage made crystal clear to me. A fact on a book’s page of
thousands dying in a battle I never heard of before is not that moving, and
easy to forget. Seeing a 70 year old man crying as he remembered his friends
dying in a burning tank, or the translation of an old woman’s words as she
shakily told of how she hid herself and her sister from the Nazis while the
rest of her family were shot to death outside their home absolutely wrecked me.
The more I
learned of the true horrors the populations of Europe went through—especially
retold by soldiers who had lived through it—the more historical facts I began
to include, until this fiction book had vast sections of true historical data,
much more so than the previous Lash books. I didn’t expect to be so affected by
my research, but there was no way to tell a book about war without including
all its horrors, both those that soldiers went through, and the tremendous
life-altering situations that ordinary citizens faced in their day to day
survival.
This experience
got me thinking of how many other people in our tech savvy cyberworld might
have no idea how terrible a world war is, or what World War II was like. And it
suddenly became very important that I share what I had learned with others. Our
World War II veterans are dying at the rate of about 600 per day. Many, like my
grandfather who served in the Navy, died young. Currently, there are
approximately only 1.2 million veterans remaining of the 16 million who served
our nation in World War II; men like my great Uncle, who served in the Army Air
Forces. That is why I dedicated the book itself to all the people who fought in
World War II, or lived through that life altering conflict. You truly were the
Greatest Generation. God Bless you…and thank you.
Author
links:
Facebook Page:
Blurb
from War: Weresnake
Lash journeys to Europe on the eve of war, desperately searching for not only
his nephew, but also his former lover Nancy. Leveraged into service to Germany
by the malicious German werecougar Theodor von Kessel, Lash befriends fellow
soldier and weresnake Dieter, even as he secures safety for Nancy. When Theodor
divulges The German Final Solution and the part they are destined to play in
it, Dieter and Nancy attempt escape to England while Lash orchestrates
distraction. Horrified to learn upon his escape that Nancy and Dieter were
captured, Lash returns to Europe in a second rescue, banding with another
weresnake called Nails and his motley crew of various weremen to free Dieter
and Nancy from the camps where they are imprisoned. Caught by demons in an
ambush, Lash is imprisoned in a death camp, but breaks free with Dieter in time
to join the American Forces near D-day. Resolute, Dieter and Lash fight onwards
with Allied forces to Germany itself, their goals to find Nancy, kill Theodor,
and survive the final bloody days of World War II.
Excerpt:
“Don’t
ask any questions,” I said coldly. “Just meet us here before your next
mission.”
“That is tomorrow,” Dietrik hissed back at me, his own
fangs growing in anger. “There is no rotation of crews.”
“Watch your temper,” I cautioned, another evil smile
gracing my lips. “The snake will come out of you with any strong emotion. And
that includes sexual release.”
He jaw worked, but to my grudging respect, he contained
the transformation this time. “Thank you for the warning.” He put on his hat,
then holstered his gun. “I’ll send a car for you.” He strode out.
I’d either engineered our escape or sealed our doom. I
went upstairs to Evans, praying he was asleep.
***
“I can’t believe you turned him,” Evans hissed to me the
next morning as we waited for the car. “You realize he can now make his whole
crew snake, right?”
“Being snake doesn’t save you from drowning,” I hissed
back, remembering my mother’s warnings long ago. “We’re not immortals. You were
done for if I hadn’t saved you. We’re both done for if we don’t get out of
here. Now shut up.”
After the car’s arrival at the shoreline, we were
blindfolded, then taken to the underground bunker where the U-boats were
docked. After boarding, we were left alone in a small room, the only sound the
whine of the boat’s engines. I could feel the pressure as we dived and
resurfaced, but that was all. Evans’ constant hissing and bitching drowned out
all other noise.
Hours later, we were taken to the deck of the U-boat and
our blindfolds were removed. Dietrik was there in front of us alone, waiting.
“You are AWOL, Lash,” he said softly. “You’re wanted for
questioning in the disappearance of another officer as well.”
He was no match for me, not newly turned as he was. “Yes,”
I replied, then stared at him, waiting for him to make a move.
Buy
Links:
Barnes and Noble.com: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/war-tara-fox-hall/1116373328
No comments:
Post a Comment