Hannah Byron's Blog, page 15

The Resistance Girl Series: stand-alones with related content

During the initial phase of plotting a number of books about strong women in WW2, I didn’t spend much thought on whether the books would be stand-alones or a series. I knew the overarching theme would be The Resistance Girl Series, with every book having the same subtitle A Resistance Girl Novel. How many books I’d eventually write (still not decided🧐) and if they’d have related content was decided later. I hadn’t even planned In Picardy’s Fields at first, the WW1 prequel.

I know this all sounds rather haphazard but in fact it’s not as unstructured as it may sound.

I began with mapping out the initially 3 (now 6) heroines with their own stories. Young woman from different countries, with different backgrounds. While doing my research I stumbled - of course - upon the famous British spy Vera Atkins and found out she’d been a student at Le Manoir in Switzerland, a finishing school for young, upper-class women. If you want to read more on how young ladies were groomed for married life and running a grand home, I wrote a blogpost about finishing schools here.

That was unrelated! 😁

The idea grew to have the 3 heroines Lili, Océane and Esther meet at Le Manoir before the war. They’d become friends and would have to say goodbye when war broke out on 1 September 1939 following Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Then they’d promise each other to meet up after the war in Paris.

While I was writing The Diamond Courier, it came to my attention that it might be better to bring out a reader magnet for my newsletter and that’s how I decided to write In Picardy’s Fields, which was a thorough rewrite of an earlier book I’d written. It helped to let the romances that blossomed in this prequel result in daughters that would do their bit in WW2. The Diamond Courier and The Parisian Spy revolve around these daughters (Lili and Océane). Esther from the 4th book in the series The Norwegian Assassin has no relation to the WW1 novel. And now I’m making some cross connections withThe Norwegian Assassin to write a 5th Resistance Girl Novel. I just love this series so much!

Apart from the girls, there are some other characters that make a reappearance in the various books. So The Resistance Gil Series has become a series of related stand-alones that can be read separate from each other.

Podcast Bound By Books

Welcome to Bound By Books, a podcast of five authors across the genres talking about that one thing we are all bound by: books. With hosts Hannah Byron, Marianne Morea, Tina Moss, Sherri Hayes, and Danielle Bannister.

After our upbeat tune, this is what you’ll hear when you join our weekly author podcast BoundByBooks on Spotify or Blogtalkradio. A brand-new episode launches every Monday!

The Fab 5 - as we call ourselves - met during a marketing class in November 2020. To get a better grip on the topics discussed in the modules, we started weekly Tuesday meetings via Zoom. 4 of us live in the States. I’m the only European in the mix. We still meet most weeks and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

In April of this year we started toying with the idea of beginning a podcast and actually took the bull by the horn on 16 May 2021 when the first podcast with Sherri and Danielle aired. We have a 2-author schedule so we have a fresh duo every week and we discuss all things books, reading & writing related. Our target audience is readers, book lovers, other (indie)authors. We just don’t discuss marketing, or minimally.

Though good friends and supportive colleagues by now, we couldn’t write more different books. There’s only one trope we have in common in our fiction and that’s a stiff dose of Romance. For the rest we cover every genre from Clean Historical Fiction to Contemporary BDSM to Women’s Fiction, YA, all types of Fantasy and even RomCom. With such a vast palette of genres there are plenty of topics to discuss. Whether it’s heat levels in romance, killing off characters, doing the research, writing styles, tropes, indie versus traditionally published. Years of discussion and fun! We laugh a lot.

We’re about to launch our website at www.boundbybookspodcast.com (not live yet) and will start uploading the video recordings of our discussions on YouTube. Stay tuned!

Here are two short BoundByBooks podcast clips as tasters! We’d love for you to become a weekly listener on Spotify or Blogtalkradio.

The Parisian Spy is live!

📕 The 3rd book in The Resistance Girl Series is available. Both The Parisian Spy eBook and paperback went live on Tuesday 20 July. I’m delighted ☺️ & grateful 🙏 she’d well-received. 📕

Here’s one of the first 5 * reviews for my new release.

Good Read *****

This is the third book in The Resistance Girl Series and like the other two, it will not disappoint. There is romance, espionage, intrigue, danger, and historical fiction. Hannah Byron has a unique writing style that puts you in the scene right next to the characters.

Océane Bell is undecided what career choice she wants to pursue. Both her parents are doctors and she feels pulled in that direction, but in her heart she wants to be an artist. This indecision gets her in trouble at school, and she leaves America to go to Europe…

Buy at Amazon or read in KU

Three more sleeps…

I’ve worked - intermittently - on The Parisian Spy since September 2020 and now finally, finally the book is almost LIVE! Three more days. 20 July to be precise.

Every book release is special, at least for me, because I don’t publish rapidly. Historical fiction books demand so much research and precision to write, I give myself that time. I can’t bring them out by the dozen. No way.

But there’s another reason I’m excited and slightly fearful for this release. The Parisian Spy has sold many more preorders than the first two books in the series - In Picardy’s Fields and The Diamond Courier. This sort of scares me. What if all the folk that have blindly bought my book suddenly don’t like the story? Success - even as modest as mine - increases the pressure on a writer. I hadn’t realized this as I’ve never yet had to be cognizant of the fear-of-success phenomenon before. 🤔

The buyers tell me they like the cover, the premise, the theme. So far, so good.

Anyway, it will be a bit of a hold-my-breath moment for me after The Parisian Spy goes live. The paperback also releases on 20 July.

I just hope people fall in love with OC and JJ’s story. I’ve given it my all. ☺️

P.S. If you read & enjoyed The Parisian Spy, please consider leaving a review. Reviews are the author’s bread and butter.

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Our heroine meets Coco Chanel

Coco Chanel in WW2

Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel (19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971) is without doubt a fashion designer and business woman who until the present day inspires millions of women around the globe. Her simple yet exquisite style, her free spirit, her jest for life is still the nonpareil of femininity.

But the Second World War wasn’t Coco’s most glorious period: stories of collaboration with the Nazis, a relationship with a German while living at the Ritz and still doing business. It’s all rather dubious.

In the long run this fauxpas doesn’t seem to have been held against our icon. Plenty of reason, though, for me as a novelist to write Coco Chanel into my fictional The Parisian Spy.

Here’s where our heroine Océane Bell meets the fashion designer.

Snippet from The Parisian Spy

The lift boy asked Von Stein which floor he wanted to go to, and he pointed to the top gilded button. Océane braced herself. This was going to be the next phase in her unasked-for adventure. She’d have to undress, forego her identity, forget about JJ and follow what this pale-skinned, phlegmatic German ordered her to do. There was little choice.

She stood next to him as he pressed the buzzer and a young, very elegant woman with platinum blond hair in a black designer suit opened the door, a cigarette in a long holder deftly between her fingers.

“Yes?” Perfectly painted eyebrows wrinkled an otherwise smooth forehead.

“Is Madame Chanel in?”

Océane felt the unsteadiness in her legs increase as the blonde cried over her shoulder, “Chérie, are you in?”

A smoked-through female voice called back, “Who’s there?”

“Un ami de Hans Günther?”

“Which one?”

“Dieter, of course.”

“Let him come in but I’m in the bath. Give him a Courvoisier.”

The blonde hesitated before she called again. “He’s not alone, he’s brought one of his … uh … secretaries.” She gave Océane a haughty look.

Von Dieter clearly was becoming impatient with this calling to and fro, so he resolutely stepped across the threshold, almost pushing the blonde over. Ash scattered from her cigarette on the thick carpet. She rubbed it in with her bare feet with painted toenails.

“I’ve come for business,” he snapped, “not on a social call. Coco, venez ici s’il vous plait! Come here!”

Océane followed behind them. Curiosity battled with her misery as she peeked around the luxurious apartment. It was not only extravagantly furnished, it also had racks of Chanel clothes and the air was heady with Chanel No 5. Her mother’s favorite scent. Pain and chagrin had no place in this little palace and for a moment she felt like Alice in Wonderland, close to France’s greatest style icon. The thrill of it!

The style icon herself came into the room barefoot, draped in a cream-colored silk peignoir, a turban wrapped around her onyx hair. She was every inch the mysterious beauty from the photographs in Le Matin and Paris Monde. Impressive and regal despite her petite frame.

Sauntering over to Von Stein, she let him give her a peck on the palm and with only a quick glance at Océane lay down on the chaise longue, stretching out her elegant legs as the peignoir fell open, revealing a pair of tanned thighs.

“To what do I owe this visit, Steiny?” she said in her languid voice, accepting a glass of amber colored liquid in a large, round glass from the blonde. Her helper also lit a cigarette for her from a golden case with CC embossed on it. She handed it to Coco, who drew on it eagerly.

Océane was already busy painting the designer in her sketchbook. The chaise, the woman, her body, the glass, the slender, naked arm holding up the cigarette. So much decadent beauty and goddess-like femininity. It was a picture worth imprinting on her mind.

“Do you have anything left from your summer collection, Coco?” he asked as he sat down on a straight chair across from her, his bones and boots creaking.

“Not so uptight, Steiny! Have a drink first, then we’ll talk. I’m always so sleepy when I come out of my bath. I can’t talk business like that.” She snapped her fingers with the pointed red nails. 

Océane was meanwhile still standing near the door, unobserved by the others, not knowing whether she was supposed to come forward or stay where she was. Coco finished her glass in a few large gulps, put her cigarette in the ashtray, and sat up. Black eyes with black lines around them took her in from head to toe. Then she slowly clacked her tongue.

“Superb!” she said, winking at Von Stein.

Raising her catlike body from the chaise longue, she pattered over to Océane, all the while scanning her with those unfathomable eyes. Just when Océane thought she was going to bump right into her, Coco took a turn for one of the clothes’ racks. With nimble movements she picked a number of items from their hangers and threw them towards the blonde, who caught them deftly.

“Bedroom!” she ordered. “Babette, help Mademoiselle with the garments while I chat with Steiny.” And to Océane she lisped, “Show me every item but make sure you wear them, instead of them wearing you. Understood?” 

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Madeline Riffaud: One of the French Resistance Heroines

Young and Old Madeline

This blogpost is based on 2019 interviews that the then 94 Madeline Ruffaud gave in various newspapers.

One sunny summer Sunday in 1944 Madeleine Riffaud hopped off her bicycle and followed a German officer who was taking a stroll on one of the most picturesque bridges over the River Seine in Paris.

He was taking in the view of Louvre and the Tuileries gardens when Riffaud, then just 19 and a trainee midwife, shooed a little boy away and took out her pistol.

“It happened all very quickly,” she told AFP. “I didn't want to shoot him in the back… I wanted him to see me, so he would have time to get his weapon out.

“He turned and I put two bullets in his head. He dropped like a stone. He didn't suffer. 

“It wasn't done with hate, if anything I was pained about having to do it,” she said, her eyes closed as she remembered the moment.

Riffaud was one of the most remarkable Resistance leaders who helped liberate the French capital in August, 1944.

But she very nearly did not live long enough to see it. Having ridden away on her bicycle, members of the collaborationist French militia chased her and mowed her down with their car.

Knowing she would probably be sexually abused and tortured before they killed her, she reached out for her gun that had been knocked onto the pavement.   

But they got there first.

“I expected to be shot”

“I was lucky because they could have killed me right there,” and she was “lucky” again that they handed her over to the Gestapo so their leader could collect a bounty for her rather than to his own militia interrogators – who tended to rape their female prisoners.

“Because it was a Sunday afternoon the Gestapo's torture specialists were off, so I was questioned by some crudely brutal SS members who knocked me out but lacked the finesse of the true experts.

“I told them nothing and I expected to be shot the next morning,” Riffaud said, holding a cigarillo.

Instead she was handed over to the French police. While in detention Riffaud helped a Jewish woman deliver a baby.

It was stillborn. A notorious officer had repeatedly kicked the mother in the stomach to try to get her to betray the child's father.

Having shamed him into allowing the hemorrhaging woman to go to hospital, the officer battered Riffaud and handed her back to the Gestapo, saying they would “poke out my eyes and cut me into little pieces”.

But somehow Riffaud – who had taken on the codename “Rainer” after the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke – survived, narrowly avoiding the firing  squad before briefly escaping as she was being deported to a concentration camp. 

She was then released in a prisoner swap on August 19, a week before Paris was liberated.

German arms train ambush

A day or two later Riffaud was back in action commanding a group of fighters in the working class northeast of Paris as a popular revolt against  the Nazis broke out across the city.

She was already regarded as a hardened veteran of the Resistance, even though she had only joined the armed struggle the previous winter.

Back then the raids and bombings she and her comrades undertook were often little more than suicide missions. 

Now people were flocking to join the Resistance “who had done nothing during the war.

“They were pouring onto the streets and learned very quickly how to handle a rifle.

“It was joyous,” Riffaud recalled. “People were falling in love and kissing each other without knowing each other. After years of having to do everything in secret, we could fight in the open.”

Outfoxing the Germans

Her biggest exploit was capturing a German arms and supply train and taking the 80 soldiers on board prisoner with just three men and an heroic French train driver.

After a fierce battle where they chucked all the grenades and explosives they had at the train, Riffaud used fireworks to hoodwink the Germans into thinking they were hugely outnumbered and outgunned.

“We made an incredible amount of noise and it terrified the poor Germans and they pulled back into a tunnel. The locomotive was still sticking out and we managed to persuade a retired train driver who was washing the dishes with his wife to go down with us to detach it. 

“He was a brave man. We warned him that he would be a perfect target, but he told us not to worry, and crawled underneath the engine, unhooked it and drove it away, and then walked home. We didn't even think to thank him.”

By then Riffaud's happy few had been reinforced by local firemen and even the mayor.

“It was all quite festive,” she admitted.

Cut off inside the tunnel, the cowed Germans eventually gave themselves up.

It was only then that Riffaud realized it was her 20th birthday and they partied with the ham, jam and dried sausages they found on the train.

Two days later, while the rest of Paris celebrated the liberation, she was battling the last battalion of fanatical SS soldiers holed up in the city.

Her men carried the last Resistance fighter to die in Paris, her old comrade violinist Michel Tagrine, to her, but she could do nothing for him.

Note by Hannah Bryon: I cannot even fathom the courage of a woman such as Madeline Riffaud. To be a heroine of that caliber at 20! Just all my respect and admiration as a mere historical fiction author.

Read how the fictive Océane Bell helps to liberate Paris in The Parisian Spy. Release date 20 July.

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Women in the French Resistance #1

The Fictional Parisian Spy: Océane Bell

My new book The Parisian Spy that comes out on 20 July and now is on preorder is a tribute to the brave women who fought in the French Resistance – La Résistance – during World War 2 against German occupation.

The fictional Océane Bell is a doctor in training when the Germans overturn Paris with their Blitzkrieg. Océane is not inclined to take part in revolt or politics, ingrained as she is by her parents, who were both front-line doctors in WW1, to stay out of conflicts. Doctors don’t take sides; the alleviation of human suffering goes above ethnicity, rank, or nationality.

But things change when her boyfriend Jean-Jacques Riveau, who has joined the Resistance, is arrested by the Gestapo.

So far my fiction. Now the real heroines!

Twenty percent of all French Resistance fighters were WOMEN!

Wow that sounds amazing!

Women - ordinary French women (housewives, teachers, secretaries, farmers wives, artists, students) played an important role in the French Resistance during World War II. They represented 15 to 20% of the total number of fighters throughout the occupied part of France and the Vichy Puppet state. Alas, they also represented 15% of political deportations to Nazi-run concentration camps.

But wait it sounds more spectacular than it really is…

Servants roles

Though the number of female rebels may sound impressive, they hardly ever held leading positions within the Resistance. Generally confined to underground roles in the network, top positions in the movement’s hierarchy weren’t carved out for them. They may have been on the board of this group or that clandestine newspaper, but they were hardly the flamboyant article writers for one of the four underground media Défense de la France, Résistance, Combat and Libération.

Neither did women lead a maquis (guerrilla group) or a Liberation Committee, were installed as a Commissioner within the Provisional Government of the Republic of France or a Minister of the Liberation.

Today this is hard to understand as much has changed for women in the 2nd half of the twentieth century. Is it enough? Women are still the minority in leading positions in 2021!

A limited number of French women took part in the armed battles. In countries such as Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia and the occupied USSR there were typically more female partisan fighters, as feared and as numerous as the men, but in the French maquis their numbers were low. Though still higher than in many Northern European countries.

There are always exceptions…

Marie-Madeleine Fourcade (11 Aug 1909- 20 July 1989)

Only one woman, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, headed a network but even then the British were led to believe that the true head of the “Alliance” network was actually a man.

Fourcade worked with Navarre on his magazine L'ordre national, an espionage publication. He recruited Fourcade for a network of spies when she was 30. Her first mission for Navarre was to create sections of unoccupied France, then recruit and assign an agent to these sections. This network became the “Alliance” (later called “Noah's Ark”).

In July 1941, Navarre was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison. Fourcade became the official leader at that point.

When the Vichy-governed part of France was also occupied by Germany, Fourcade spent months on the run as she moved from city-to-city to avoid detection. During this time, she gave birth to her third child. The child, a son, had to be hidden at a safe-house. In July 1943, she left for London, where she worked with British intelligence, particularly via her friend Cmdr. Kenneth Cohen, an MI6 officer in charge of French intelligence. While she wanted to head back to France, she was forced by her control officers to stay in England until July 1944, when she eventually was allowed to returned to France to join her agents in the field and managed to avoid capture.

.

So what did these courageous women do?

They organized demonstrations of housewives in 1940, were active in the comités populaires of the clandestine Communist Party, and helped strikers with encouragement and material aid, and supported the maquis. Women were indispensable as typists, and as liaison agents—in part because the Germans distrusted women less, and also because the numerous identification controls against resistors of the Service du travail obligatoire (STO) did not apply to them. It was in fact the strategy of the Resistance to put women into missions that required visibility, since they were less exposed to repression by the Vichy government of occupied France. For example, the Germans weren’t allowed to fire on French women demanding food for their children.

We simply have to give tribute to all these women who did stand up, where they could have ducked and kept their heads down, or worse collaborate with the oppressor.

The question always is: what would I have done?

Snippet from The Parisian Spy

The Parisian Spy is now on preorder and will be released on 20 July.

Here’s a snippet of Chapter 17. The main character Océane Bell meets her opponent Gestapo leader Dieter von Stein for the first time.

Without even having to look over her shoulder she knew General von Stein had come into the room and had caught her red-handed rummaging through his files. Death sentence, torture, labor camp in Germany. All the options clicked through her mind as metal bullets. She stood still as a corpse. Whatever would come down on her, she was now in the same situation as the man she’d tried to save.

His after-shave heady and too flowery for a man wafted into her nostrils. A sickening ball sank into her stomach. She couldn’t gag. Not now.

“Turn around.”

It was an order but not as infuriated or threatening as she’d expected. It was still an order. She did as she was told, her arms hanging limply alongside her body, head bowed, trying hard to stop the trembling of her hands. The smart dress and shoes would not help her now.

“What are you doing?” He repeated his question, but she couldn’t answer.

Didn’t dare to look at him, felt like her whole life was just a crumpled piece of paper in his hand. Without a warning from her body, she burst out in tears, first softly but soon all the tension and all the fear erupted from her slight frame, taking it over. Her shoulders shook and long sobs escaped her mouth. It was impossible to answer him now, though she knew she must. He was waiting for an explanation when there was none. None that would satisfy him.

To her surprise he walked around his desk and sat down. He ignored her and her crying, pulled a stack of papers towards him and started reading. Not her note. He didn’t glance at the brown bottle with pills either. He just acted as if she wasn’t there at all.

“I’m sorry,” she finally managed to bring out, “I couldn’t help myself.”

“Sit!” Through her tears she saw he pointed to the chair on the other side of his desk. “Go!” Von Stein ordered to the commandant who knocked on the door and came in. “Wait. Bring us two strong coffees. No phone calls or interruptions.”

Oh no, what’s going to happen now, Océane thought desperately.

Von Stein picked up her scribbled note and inspected the pills. When the coffee arrived on a tray, he poured her a cup himself. It was real coffee. The smell made her both ravenous and sick.

“Cream, sugar?”

“Just black, please.”

She ventured to look at him, wondering what this was all about, whether this was a set up for the torture that would for sure soon begin, but he seemed to be concentrating on stirring his coffee. With cluttering teeth, she put the cup to her mouth and tried to drink without spilling the contents on her.

As if she’d not just been snooping around in the Sicherheitsdienst secret documents, he asked, “So why do you recommend these pills, Madame? I told you I was perfectly healthy.”

Returning with all her might to her position as medic, she stammered, “That’s what I wrote on the note, Herr General; you don’t have to use Digoxin, but I brought the pills just in case you feel unwell again. They are perfectly harmless, made from the foxglove plant, Digitalis Iatana.”

She knew they could be quite high risk, especially when the dose was not accurate, but there was no way she could tell him that. It would undermine her.

“Aha, I see,” he said in a strange, syrupy voice, “and why do you care to bring them to me when I told you in no uncertain words that I wouldn’t take medication. It strikes me as rather strange that you would care so much for your ex-patients, Madame, that you go all the way, distributing unwanted pills around Paris.” 

He tapped his thin, white fingers together and stared at her with ice-cold, blue eyes. It then dawned on her that he was playing a game with her, a cruel game and that she very likely would be the one who got the short stick. Still, she clung to the thin thread of hope he’d not bring up her nosing around and would continue to enjoy provoking her with this not-being-ill game.        

“Because I care about my patients, Herr General, and although you don’t want to believe it, it would be better for you to carry these pills with you, just in case.”

He put his cup carefully back on the saucer, seemingly contemplating this. “You know, Madame Bell, I would almost be humored into believing your true sentiment if it hadn’t come to my attention that you are looking for someone.” The light-blue eyes fixed on her as orbs of burning suns as she sat as transfixed in her chair.

He knew, of course, he knew!

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The Parisian Spy is on Pre-order!

So happy to announce The Parisian Spy is on its way to you!

This has been a monster project for me. I started writing the 3rd book in The Resistance Girl Series in September 2020 but had to leave it for a while in January 2021 because I wasn’t sure where I was going with the book.

Now it’s done except for the Epilogue and with my editor. Both a huge relief and some pride. I think The Parisian Spy will do its job! Please keep your fingers crossed for me.

More on content and research later! For now just the pre-order link in case you like the blurb. Available on Amazon!

Preorder Link

Miss Agnès Free for 5 days

Celebrating the publication of Doctor Agnès. Miss Agnès is free! Yeah!! Promotion time for Miss Agnès!

Last week I published the 2nd part of The Agnès Duet: Doctor Agnès and for that reason book 1 is FREE from Thursday 20 till Tuesday 24 May! Download Miss Agnès NOW!!

Don’t miss this opportunity to read this tender coming- of-age novella set in 1908. And go on to read the much more gruesome part 2 during World War 1.

Here’s a 5* review from for Miss Agnès

Lovely Prequel

The author paints a scene beautifully with words. The book is a pleasure to read and it's easy for the reader to envision the locations and characters to an incredible degree.

This prequel book takes place in 1908 and introduces Agnes and some of the other characters and locations that are so vividly presented in "In Picardy's Fields," a book that takes place during WWI.*

In this book, Agnes is young and sheltered. She meets Elle and Jacques, the twins who live in Chateau de Dragancourt. They are anxious to befriend her, but because their upbringing is so different from hers, they upset her and her sensibilities. They are unruly and do not conform to the social rules that Agnes is comfortable following.

This is a quick reading book that introduces the characters and their backgrounds. I look forward to reading the next book in the series and to seeing how these young people start to grow into the young adults that I loved in the earlier book (that takes place at a later time).

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fictionalized historical events.

* yes, the reviewer refers here to another book in The Resistance Girl Series about WW1, In Picardy’s Fields. Also reduced in price at the moment!

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