Tag: World War 2

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When you’re on deadline and the time changes and you freak out when you lose an hour by Jina Bacarr

March 11, 2023 by in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as , , , , , , ,

when the time changes and you don’t…

If there’s one thing we writers never have enough of…

It’s time.

Words we got… thousands.

Coffee… by the potful.

Comfy bunny slippers… on automatic re-order from Amazon.

But time?

That’s as elusive as the instant bestseller.

I’m on autopilot this week until whenever to get it all together and bring my next Paris WW2 novel home for my publisher Boldwood Books. Amazing company. They take good care of their authors… fabulous marketing team… I love my editor, Isobel… and the company has won several ‘Best Publisher’ awards in the UK and is up for more awards this year.

And my fellow authors are like family to me.

But in the end, it’s up to me to write the damn book.

Sweat, tears… blood. Yes, I changed the order because I sweat the small stuff like commas and the big stuff like research which turns into major tears when I realize writing never gets easier but tougher (you demand more of yourself)… and blood because if you don’t bleed onto the page, you’re not giving it your all.

So, mes amis, tonight is the night we turn the clocks forward and lose the hour.

But guess what. I’ve decided to do something about it.

I’m going to type twice as fast for a solid hour (accuracy is another story) and write twice as many words and–

Voilà!

I’ve got my hour back… at least for tonight.

Tomorrow?

Well, that’s another day.

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Some great book news:

The trade paperback of my Paris WW2 novel THE LOST GIRL OF PARIS

is coming to THE WORKS stores in the UK… so check it out if you’re in the United Kingdom.

Listen to an excerpt in the video below…

E-book:

My heroine, Angeline de Cadieux, is a Roma girl in WW2 Paris… she’s strong, fights in the Resistance… makes exquisite perfumes and comes up with an amazing marketing campaign during the war to boost morale in France.

Thank you!

UK https://amzn.to/3j7eU6S

US https://amzn.to/3aD9Jae

CA https://amzn.to/3IbaVRZ

AU https://amzn.to/3xtrF1A

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And THE RUNAWAY GIRL is a Kindle Monthly Deal in Australia.

Thanks for listening… and now back to our regularly scheduled craziness.

Jina

 

 

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Are you an author or a writer? and my TikTok Confession by Jina Bacarr

January 11, 2023 by in category historical fiction, Holocaust, Jina’s Book Chat, Paris novels, Writing tagged as , , , , , ,
@jinabacarrauthor

WIP woes… #booktok #authorlife #writersoftiktok #amwriting #ameditingfiction #womensfiction #booktoker @bookandtonic #writer #authorsoftiktok #heartbreakingstories #amediting edit

♬ original sound – Jina Bacarr Historical Author♥

No, this isn’t a trick question.

It’s the challenge we ladies of the pen all face in our social media, digital, crazy, mad, mad world…

The answer is: BOTH.

The writer is me in total chaos working on an insanely difficult book about rape in France during World War II with a deadline looming. My office is a mess, I’m a mess… the manuscript, thank God, is NOT a mess but it’s not finished yet. Weaving such a trauma against the backdrop of the Nazi Occupation is the most gut-wrenching task I’ve ever faced. It’s taken me a while to get a handle on the story of two sisters and how the rape of one of them affects them both.

That’s the writer me.

—–

Now for the author me.

That’s the me writing this post because this is my chance every month to reach out to you guys and let you know what’s going on in my world. It’s how we present ourselves to the book world and at times is as just as trying and difficult as the writer me.

Hence, my TikTok confession.

I hope you enjoy my video showing me in my office drowning in research material… oh, Lord.

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And now for some good stuff, if I may.

My WW2 story THE ORPHANS OF BERLIN is now FREE to read in PRIME on Amazon 

THE OPRHANS OF BERLIN

Meet the Landau Sisters barely surviving in Nazi Germany… and Kay Alexander, the amazing debutante from Philadelphia who will stop at nothing to save them from the Nazis in 1939 Berlin…

And of course, there’s a British pilot hero to die for…

US https://amzn.to/3TMKZlf

UK https://amzn.to/3Qjp5mB

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Dipped in Chocolate: How I researched THE ORPHANS OF BERLIN and loved every minute by Jina Bacarr

December 11, 2022 by in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as , , , ,

Do you remember the hilarious scene in an episode of ‘I Love Lucy’ where Lucy and Ethel are working in a candy factory and the conveyor belt speeds up and they stuff their mouths with gourmet chocolates?

Pure heaven…

I didn’t have that experience, but I did have a blast researching the art of chocolate up close and personal for The Orphans of Berlin, tasting and munching on creams and caramels to my little heart’s content.

Then running on the treadmill for hours…

It was worth it.

I wanted to get a feel for what it was like to grow up in the world of chocolate like my debutante-heroine Kay Alexander and become familiar with how candy is made… as well as its importance during World War 2 when Ration D chocolate bars were loaded with vitamins and included in every soldier’s military ration kit.

It all started in 1868 when Kay’s candy-loving, Irish great-grandfather started a candy business called ‘Radwell’s French Chocolates’. Being a candy heiress gives Kay the opportunity to spare no expense getting Jewish children out of Nazi Germany.

I discovered a publication called the ‘Confectioners and Bakers Gazette’ which detailed the candy business from 1896 – 1930, including candy factories in Philadelphia (in 1908, there were twenty-five factories in the US manufacturing chocolate). I find it odd it ceased publication during the Depression since candy sales boomed during those lean years, including Radwell’s French chocolates.

‘Sorority Chocolates’ were a big seller reputed to reach seventy-five million customers, appealing to high school girls, their moms, aunts, and grandmas.

Other notable facts include the use of synthetic vanilla called vanillin even back then; but as any Christmas cookie baker will tell you, real vanilla in his cookies is what makes Santa smile.

I also read books on chocolates and searched the Internet for chocolatier’s ‘secrets’ and favorite recipes to come up with my own special chocolates for the Radwell’s brand.

Here are a few samples for your taste delight:

Renoir Dark Chocolate Bars

Hand-dipped, chocolate-covered squares

… topped with a swirl of buttercream

 

Caramels de Vendôme 

Dark chocolate

… filled with honey caramel and vanilla ganache

 

Truffles à l’Opéra

Bittersweet chocolate

…filled with raspberry ganache 

 

Montmartre Mints

Dark chocolate thin mints

… with flecks of almonds

 

Versailles Soft Creams

Dark chocolate hearts

… filled with raspberry buttercream 

 

Notre-Dame Angels

White chocolate truffles

… filled with pecans and vanilla ganache

I invite you to give yourself a treat when you’re reading The Orphans of Berlin. Stock up on your favorite chocolates filled with creamy mousse, rich ganache… and decadent truffles.

I dip my fingers into the box of gourmet chocolates and grab the last piece. A raspberry dark chocolate truffle. Mm… delicious. A gift from the candy gods.

Ah, the travails of a writer’s research… a tough job.

But somebody’s got to do it, n’est-ce pas?

@jinabacarrauthor

1939 Berlin What if you’re a mom and you have to send your daughters to France to save their lives? #historytokwwiihistoricalfiction@bookandtonic

♬ original sound – Jina Bacarr Historical Author♥
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The Secret Babies of Dachau by Jina Bacarr

January 11, 2022 by in category Holocaust, Jina’s Book Chat, Paris, Paris novels, perfume, Reading, Writing tagged as , , , ,

(The video above takes place on a train in 1944 Germany — my heroine, Angeline, is very pregnant and on her way back to Auschwitz with two SS guards…)

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Nothing is more heartbreaking than holding a newborn baby in your arms and it doesn’t cry.

The anguish, holding your breath while you wait for that first sign of life, the tears that fall upon your cheeks as you pray for that lovely, beautiful cry.

Then… a burst from the baby’s lungs and a heart-swelling joy overcomes you when the infant’s wail fills the air like an angels’ choir.

But what if you’re pregnant and imprisoned in a concentration camp in Southern Germany? A place where American soldiers were so devastated by the horror they found when they neared the camp, they wept when they liberated Dachau on April 29, 1945.

They discovered more than thirty railroad cars filled with dead bodies.

What if you were imprisoned there? Would you have lived? The odds were against you if you were a soon-to-be-mother.

It’s well documented the chances for survival for pregnant women and their babies in the camps was practically zero. They were immediately singled out for execution when they arrived.

It pains me to write this, but Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, was determined to exterminate all Jewish children (he proclaimed his policy in a secret speech in Poland on October 6, 1943).

As many as 1.5 million Jewish children died in the Holocaust.

Thanks to survivors’ stories and seven Jewish mothers from Hungary, we have the miracle of the Dachau babies. How for reasons never made clear, these mothers were allowed to live and brought to a sub-camp of Dachau in the waning days of the war known as Kaufering I.

And how under horrific conditions (no hot water, no instruments for the prisoner/doctor), they delivered seven healthy babies from December 1944 to April 1945 when fate stepped in and dealt them a cruel blow… I shan’t spoil it for you, but I promise you, I followed these events as they happened in ‘The Lost Girl in Paris’.

My heroine, Angéline de Cadieux, was there and very pregnant.

How did this Frenchwoman born Roma find herself in a concentration camp with Hungarian mothers-to-be? It was a challenge to orchestrate the series of events that bring her there… counting the days of her pregnancy in Paris, being honest to the unsanitary, degrading conditions found in the camps, the treatment of Roma by the Third Reich. Few have written about the Roma Holocaust and how anywhere from 220,000 to half a million Romani people died at the hands of the Nazis.

I admit it was a tremendous undertaking bringing all this to my story. I spent many sleepless nights trying to bring justice to these unbelievable women who not only survived the camps, but had the courage to tell their stories.

I have tried to tell one woman’s story albeit fiction, but everything Angéline de Cadieux experiences in the camps is based on truth.

So, my friends, cry as I did, become angry these events ever happened, but most of all, never forget.

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THE LOST GIRL IN PARIS is now available across all platforms.

Available in e-book, print and audio

The Lost Girl in Paris universal link: https://books2read.com/u/3LyrdN

It’s the story of woman who survived both Auschwitz and Dachau, but never spoke about it until she meets a young reporter named Emma Keane who touches a nerve in her that now is the time to speak about those times. Her memories are as vivid to this eighty-year-old as if she were the seventeen-year-old girl who ran away to Paris to become a parfumier after losing her mother to the Nazi war machine.

I wrote THE LOST GIRL IN PARIS to pay tribute to the strong women who survived the Holocaust and willingly shared their stories with us. The horror of Nazi brutality, the loss of family, their dignity… but also about their strength just to ‘survive another day’.

And the strong bonds with their sisters-in-arms they formed with fellow prisoners. How they learned to trust each other and stood up against the enemy to save each other.

We must never forget.

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Here is a second short excerpt from THE LOST GIRL IN PARIS:

 

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 The LOST GIRL IN PARIS is part of the ‘Get Inspired’ promotion in UK, AU, and NZ

New Zealand: https://www.kobo.com/nz/en/ebook/the-lost-girl-in-paris-1

UK: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/the-lost-girl-in-paris-1

AU: https://www.kobo.com/au/en/ebook/the-lost-girl-in-paris-1

 

 

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Perfume: what you never expected to find in a World War II novel set in Occupied Paris by Jina Bacarr

October 11, 2021 by in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as , , , ,

I’ve had a zillion jobs in my career.

US Army rec specialist in Europe, AM/FM radio commercial artist, traveling cosmetic saleslady for a French company, club dancer, soap opera player, writer for kids’ TV…

And perfume model.

So, what does a perfume model do?

The gig started when I got a call from the modeling agency I worked for asking me if I was available to introduce a new perfume. Since I was freelancing for a travel magazine company in Beverly Hills back then, I jumped every time the agency called me with a perfume job.

The pay was good. The hours ranged from four to six hours a day. The location was always a posh department store (remember Bullocks, I Magnin’s?), and occasionally, I’d get to wear wardrobe from the couture department to complement the color scheme and theme of the perfume.

I felt like a film star.

After a session with the perfume rep explaining their marketing campaign, off I went. Sashaying around the store like I was walking on the red carpet. I’d engage customers in small talk and introduce them to the perfume.

I’d spray it on their wrist – or mine if they preferred – and then gave them a sample. It wasn’t easy. I was snubbed by snooty women, hit on by male customers, and constantly asked, ‘Where is the ladies room?’

By the end of my shift – toes squashed in three-inch heels – my feet were killing me.

But I loved it. The customers were enchanted by the quick whiff of a new fragrance and loved being whisked away for a moment of glamour. I’d regale them with my stories about Paris and the Belle Époque department stores I visited along with the history of perfume.

And the different notes of the perfume. Top, heart, base.

I soon discovered you didn’t sell the steak… perfume, that is… but the sizzle. The mystique, the mood. I had to evoke an emotional response in the customer and I did it by storytelling and learning as much as I could about perfume. How it’s manufactured, the ingredients, what that perfume can do for that customer to make her happy, feel sexy. Powerful. Loved. I became an amateur ‘nose’, learning about the different scents and essences and how they configure in varying ratios to make up a lovely new fragrance.

I used that perfume experience to create parfumier Angéline de Cadieux when I wrote ‘The Lost Girl in Paris’.

How a girl from a controversial upbringing becomes a famous perfumer during the war when she comes to Paris in 1940 to escape the Gestapo. Then how she uses perfume to do her part to win the war…

THE LOST GIRL IN PARIS is up for pre-order – and my just-revealed cover is on Amazon!

Release date: November 30, 2021

US https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09B1QDRVW/

UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09B1QDRVW/

CA https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B09B1QDRVW/

Australia https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B09B1QDRVW/ 

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Photo credits:

Jina Bacarr: Laura Burke Photography

Background: ID 137251284

© Viktoriya Panasenko | Dreamstime.com

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Nearly 500 ratings on Amazon UK!

The Resistance Girl

Juliana discovers her grandmamma was a famous French film star in Occupied Paris & her shocking secret…

UK https://amzn.to/3bU18Qv 

US https://amzn.to/2FoKKeS

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