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
December 11, 2025 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as Christmas eve, comics, Italy, World War 2, writing
‘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.
0 1 Read more1950s COMIC BOOKS – CONSPIRACY OR SCARE? by Will Zeilinger
October 3, 2018 by Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger in category Partners in Crime by Janet Elizabeth Lynn & Will Zeilinger tagged as 1950s, comics, Congress, Partners in Crime
1950s COMIC BOOKS – CONSPIRACY OR SCARE?
Many of us in the “Baby Boom” generation remember collecting soda pop bottles and turning them in for a few cents each or saving our allowance to buy one of our favorite comic books for a dime. In the 1950s it could be anything from Archie, Superman and Lois Lane, or Blackhawk, to Tales from the Crypt or G.I. Joe. We would sneak off somewhere and devour the latest adventures of our choice.
The truth is we had our noses in comic books like young people of today have their eyes and thumbs glued to their electronic devices.
According to historian Michael A. Amundson, there was an altruistic rationale for some comic books. Familiar comic book characters helped ease young readers’ fear of nuclear war and neutralize anxiety about the questions posed by atomic power. For example, characters from the Blondie comic strip were used in the Educational Comic (EC) book Dagwood Splits the Atom. It was also during this period that long-running humor comics debuted, including EC’s Mad comics and Carl Barks’ Uncle Scrooge in Dell’s Four Color Comics (both in 1952).
Little did we know something more sinister was brewing to which most of us were totally oblivious.
Congress Gets Involved
In 1953, the comic book industry hit a major setback when the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency was created in order to investigate the problem of juvenile delinquency. This was a publicity thing to satisfy the passions of the do-gooders.
Estes Kefauver, who had run for the Presidency in 1952, and held hearings on organized crime a few years before, extended the reach of his committee and met in New York City to investigate comic books. They had several people testify.
This was followed by the publication of Fredric Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent the following year (that claimed comics sparked illegal behavior among minors) comic book publishers were subpoenaed to testify in public hearings. As a result, the Comics Code Authority was created by the Association of Comics Magazine Publishers to enact self-censorship by comic book publishers.
Seal of Approval
The word quickly spread about what the new standards would be. In fact, this served the interests of concerned parent groups, who were active locally. That would be where the real action happened—not from the top, but from the pressure of people on the stores, on the distributors, from churches and PTAs and others. For example, kids were encouraged to trade in (“swap”) “bad” comics for “good comics.”
Other communities collected comics and burned them! Trashed them! Some kids tried to protest, saying this was like the Nazi book burnings, but folks didn’t believe them. The main result, though, was the production of a new “Comics Code.”
For most kids of that era, comic books would still be bought, traded and read. The political winds of Washington would have little effect on them.
0 0 Read moreComics and the Civil War: Girls want to have fun, too by Jina Bacarr
October 11, 2015 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as #amwriting, book cover, Civil War, comic books, comics, Confessions of a Podcast Goddess, Kindle Press, kindle scout, love scene, romance, sexy, time travelSpread out over gorgeous pages of…
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If you love Civil War romance and time travel and TWO hunky military heroes, check out my Kindle Scout winner:
She wore gray.
He wore blue.
But their love defied the boundaries of war.
And time.
LOVE ME FOREVER is now available from Kindle Press at Amazon.com
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