Daily Archives: December 11, 2025

My WW2 Christmas Novella ‘A Soldier’s Italian Christmas’ was inspired by a special Christmas Eve in Italy and me getting kicked out of the convent by Jina Bacarr

‘I regret to inform you, but your daughter is no longer enrolled here,’ the Mother Superior announced to my parents on a cold, winter day in Bethlehem, PA. I was thirteen.

I hung my head, sad for my parents, but still not understanding what the hullabaloo was all about. It wasn’t like I was a longtime student at the convent school. I’d only been there a short time. Very short.

When my poor father asked why I wasn’t staying, the stern nun said in a crisp, clear voice: ‘She reads comics.’

Really?

True, the Sisters of Mercy catered to young girls thinking about joining the Order and with my sassy poetry writing and short skirts I was borderline — below borderline — but comics stashed under my hard pillow with my missal and rosary beads was the last straw for the pious woman. She knew I wasn’t nun material. I wanted to travel, meet cute guys, dance, eat chocolates at Ladurée in Paris…

And so I did. I had wild adventures up and down the Continent and spent Christmas with the troops in Italy. Yes, that’s me in the photo reading comics — I was with US Army Special Services on a trip with soldiers and their families to Abetone in the Italian Alps for a skiing trip. I found an Uncle Scrooge comic book in Italian and devoured it. I often read comics in different languages to learn the vernacular, slang, everyday expressions.

Not the catechism required at the convent.

But the good Sisters taught me about humility, giving, discipline. Traits that kept me out of trouble and helped me become a writer. So even though I wasn’t a good ‘fit’ to take the veil, I will always be grateful to the Sisters behind the revolving door of parochial and convent schools I attended. Sometimes the nuns uttered a sigh of relief when I left, others hugged me and cried over me leaving. They ‘got’ me with one nun giving me time during study hall to write my ‘Paris mystery novel’ when I was fourteen.

I often wondered if I should have entered a life of religious service since I have a strong need for detail and strict discipline to finish what I started, along with my fanatical dive into deep research mode for my stories, and my love of teaching children. Qualities needed to take that path and I just didn’t see it. That question prompted me to write a WW2 Christmas novella about a young woman who hides from the Nazis by becoming ‘Sister Angelina’ in charge of a motely group of orphan boys… then she meets Captain Mack O’Casey, an American Army captain who tests her faith…

Add to it a Christmas Eve memory at the service club where I worked in Livorno, Italy (we hosted a Christmas party for orphan boys and the nuns and how the EMs Enlisted Men helped me locate a lost little orphan named Daniele), and you have ‘A Soldier’s Italian Christmas’.

I hope you enjoy my video posted below near the end of this post! Merry Christmas!!

Jina xx

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My time travel back to WW2:

HER LOST LOVE:

Enjoy a trip back to Posey Creek, PA during WW 2 on the home front as Kate Arden prepares for the holidays… until her world comes crashing down when her fiancé ships overseas in ‘Her Lost Love’.

Available at e-tailers everywhere… print and audio book, too.

Find out more in HER LOST LOVE E-book links:

US Amazon https://amzn.to/2pcz2eN

UK Amazon https://amzn.to/31rF4pZ

Follow me on BookBub for new releases and promo deals!

Time travel back to Christmas 1943 on the home front with my holiday Women’s Fiction novel HER LOST LOVE

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On a cold December day in 1955, Kate Arden got on a train to go home for Christmas. This is the story of what happened when she got off that train. In 1943. In 1943 Kate Arden was engaged to the man she loved, Jeffrey Rushbrooke. She was devastated and heartbroken when he was called up for wartime duty and later killed on a secret mission in France.

But what if Kate could change that? What if she could warn him and save his life before Christmas? Or will fate have a bigger surprise in store for her?

Her Lost Love is a sweeping, heartbreakingly romantic novel – it’s one woman’s chance to follow a different path and mend her broken heart…

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HER LOST LOVE

Thank you for stopping by! If you like WW 2 romance, check out my holiday novella that takes place in Italy on the road to Rome on Christmas Eve during the cold winter of 1943: A Soldier’s Italian Christmas.

December 1943 Italy

He is a US Army captain, a battle-weary soldier who has lost his faith.

She is a nun, her life dedicated to God.

Together they are going to commit an act the civilized world will not tolerate.

They are about to fall in love.

Winner in the Novella Category in the I Heart Indie contest A Soldier’s Italian Christmas is available on Kindle ~Jina

Also, my Civil War medical drama: LOVE ME FOREVER is available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited  Liberty Jordan travels back to 1862 as an re-enactor– I love the Christmas scene with Liberty tending to the wounded from both the North and the South…

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If you love Civil War romance and time travel and TWO hunky military heroes, check out my Kindle Scout winner: LOVE ME FOREVER  

She wore gray.

He wore blue.

But their love defied the boundaries of war. And time.