Jennifer A. Nielsen's Blog, page 19
July 26, 2018
RESISTANCE Quote 5 (Again)
For some reason, the post on RESISTANCE quote 5 disappeared, so I’ll try it again here! It’s exactly the same as the post that went up last Sunday (but I hope this one sticks around longer!)
Thanks to those of you who commented last week. The winner of the giveaway is: Shannon Rose. Congratulations!
I should have details soon of my public events this fall, BUT if you think you might be purchasing a copy of RESISTANCE anyway, would you consider pre-ordering your copy? Pre-orders make a huge difference for authors in terms of how books are shelved and promoted. You can always request a copy through your library, of course, but if you want your own copy and are interested, links are below.
In the meantime, here is this week’s quote. Chaya and her companion, Esther, are hiding among vines on a wall while a German officer searches for them. I love the intensity of this scene.
I pressed deeper against the wall and prayed he couldn’t get at any better angle with that rifle. If he did, I’d grab the stock and pull him over the railing. I’d likely lose my own balance in the vines to do it, though, so for both our sakes, I hoped that wouldn’t be necessary.
He gave up on the vines, then fired a spray of automatic bullets into the grasses below. If Ester and I had had five seconds longer to hide, that’s where we would’ve been.
We’d have been there if Ester had been a faster runner.
That thought sent a shudder straight through me.
Thank you for checking in on this blog. I’ve got so much exciting news that I hope to be able to talk about soon. Fingers crossed!
If you want a personalized copy of this book, or any of my books, you can order them through my local indie, The King’s English. In the notes at checkout, let them know how you’d like the book to be signed.
July 22, 2018
RESISTANCE Quote 5
Thanks to those of you who commented last week. The winner of the giveaway is: Shannon Rose. Congratulations!
I should have details soon of my public events this fall, BUT if you think you might be purchasing a copy of RESISTANCE anyway, would you consider pre-ordering your copy? Pre-orders make a huge difference for authors in terms of how books are shelved and promoted. You can always request a copy through your library, of course, but if you want your own copy and are interested, links are below.
In the meantime, here is this week’s quote. Chaya and her companion, Esther, are hiding among vines on a wall while a German officer searches for them. I love the intensity of this scene.
I pressed deeper against the wall and prayed he couldn’t get at any better angle with that rifle. If he did, I’d grab the stock and pull him over the railing. I’d likely lose my own balance in the vines to do it, though, so for both our sakes, I hoped that wouldn’t be necessary.
He gave up on the vines, then fired a spray of automatic bullets into the grasses below. If Ester and I had had five seconds longer to hide, that’s where we would’ve been.
We’d have been there if Ester had been a faster runner.
That thought sent a shudder straight through me.
Thank you for checking in on this blog. I’ve got so much exciting news that I hope to be able to talk about soon. Fingers crossed!
If you want a personalized copy of this book, or any of my books, you can order them through my local indie, The King’s English. In the notes at checkout, let them know how you’d like the book to be signed.
July 15, 2018
RESISTANCE Quote 4 (and a giveaway)
The winner of the ARC is: Allison Antolik. Congratulations!
Thanks also for all of your thoughts from last week’s post. I must say, I feel more hope for humanity after reading them, that there are still so many wonderful people in the world with courage and good hearts.
This week’s quote comes from a scene in which this young resistance movement, known as Akiva, sneaks aboard a train carrying Nazi military supplies with the intent of stealing as much as they can to help in their cause. Rubin and Meriam are two of Chaya’s friends, though Chaya is the one who has to jump from the train.
“Are you all right?” Rubin asked, helping me to sit up.
“You said it’d be easy if I rolled,” I told him. “You said the ground would be soft.”
“Are you all right?” Meriam echoed.
“That depends.” My smile at them was hopeful. “What did we get from that train?”
“What did we get?” Meriam laughed. “My friend, we have one crate of canned stew, two crates of potatoes, and some military field supplies that should fetch a good price on the black market.”
I leaned back against the slope and tried to do the math. It was enough food for the residents of a single building in the ghetto for a single night. The field supplies might provide bribe money to obtain twenty blank identification papers, or to smuggle two or three children out of the ghettos.
“It isn’t enough.” I stood, determined to ignore the first aches of oncoming bruises. “When is the next raid?”
For the giveaway, this week’s question is: If you were organizing a resistance against the Nazis, aside from weapons, what is the one item you would find most valuable to steal?
The winner’s name will be posted here next Sunday at this same time. International entries are okay.
July 8, 2018
RESISTANCE Quote 3 (and a giveaway)!
If you follow me on Instagram (Nielsenwriter), you can see behind-the-scenes snapshots of a book trailer we are making for RESISTANCE (such as this live cover shot in front of a green screen). I think the final product will be amazing, but if you like the background pics too, check out my account there!
Now to this week’s quote. First, some background:
When the Nazi occupation began, they didn’t start with death camps for those who would become their victims. They started with humiliation, name-calling, and propaganda that suggested Jewish people, homosexuals, the disabled, and others were somehow less than human.
Here is this week’s quote from RESISTANCE.
Papa and I were on the streets one day when I happened to look down at a man cleaning out sewage from a broken pipe.
“That’s our rabbi!” I whispered.
Papa took my hand and quickly pulled me along. “Don’t look,” he whispered. “Learn not to see anything, or to be seen.”
I did learn, better than he could have imagined. There were ways to move about the streets so as not to draw attention to oneself. Those who did it well got home safely each night. I perfected it.
Which was important, because I’d also learned that the Nazis held us in particular contempt. They wanted the Poles to see that if we were given the work of animals, we would do the work of animals. They wanted the world to think that we were less than human.
At first, I thought it would be impossible for any civilized person to believe such absurdities, such ugliness. But that was only the beginning . . .
The giveaway question for the day is this:
In a world where we too often see name-calling, bullying, and poor treatment of others, what is something you can do to prove that love is the resistance?
This is a random drawing which will end at midnight EST on Sunday, July 15. International entries are okay.
If you want to pre-order your copy of RESISTANCE today (and I think that’s a great idea!), please choose your local indie bookstore first. It will be released on August 28th.
July 1, 2018
RESISTANCE Quote 2
Thanks to all those who entered last week’s giveaway, and for your kind and generous words about my writing, my books, or reading in general. I’ll do another giveaway in the next week or two, but this week’s winner is:
*** Cheryl Josie ***
This is Quote #2 from RESISTANCE. This is Chaya speaking. The younger generations were the first to accept the reality of the Nazi plans, and most of those who chose to resist were in their teens and twenties.
It was different this time. The German plan was not to divide us from the population. It was to eliminate us from the population. To exterminate us.
The ghettos played a key role in their plans, suspending my people in a halfway point to everything. Half-starved, treated as much like animals as humans. Existing halfway between hope and despair.
Halfway between life and death. The one became the other in the ghettos.
And I was doing everything I could to stop it.
It began with smuggling. I’d become creative about how I brought things in: weapons baked into loaves of bread; fake identification papers sewn into the linings of my coat; or, occasionally, the smuggled object might make my bust appear larger than it really was. Whatever else I was secretly carrying, I always brought information to the residents of these sealed ghettos about what was happening elsewhere, and then learned everything I could to warn the next ghetto.
But that was only the beginning. My mission today was bolder than usual, and I was nervous.
RESISTANCE will be released on August 28, 2018. If you want to pre-order a copy now, please buy at your local indie bookstore first, or online.
June 24, 2018
RESISTANCE Quote 1 (and a giveaway)!
RESISTANCE, Quote #1
For the past three months, I’d worked as a courier for a resistance movement known as Akiva. My job was to break through that isolation, to warn the people, and to help them survive, if I could. But we were increasingly aware that time was running out. We’d seen people being lured onto the trains with promises of bread and jam, pacified into thinking they were being relocated to labor camps. Then they were crammed into cattle cars without water or space to move. And their destination was never to a labor camp.
They were headed for death camps, designed to kill hundreds or even thousands of people a day. I’d seen them. Been sickened by them. Had my heart shattered by them.
The Nazis called these camps their solution to the so-called “Jewish Problem.”
Yes, I very much intended to be their problem.
Chaya Lindner, a courier for the Akiva resistance movement, is probably the toughest character I’ve ever written, because she has to be. What other traits do you think a resistance fighter would need to have in order to face her enemies?
Leave your comments below! I’ll give away an ARC of RESISTANCE to a random entry. The contest closes at midnight EST on July 1. International entries are okay.
Or you can always pre-order your copy now! RESISTANCE will be released on August 28th.
June 18, 2018
Current Projects
In the last couple of weeks, I asked about projects I should do. Now let me update you on what I am doing…
Pay attention to RESISTANCE – giveaways begin on it next week!
RESISTANCE
Historical
Releases on 8/28/18
Based on the true story of the Jewish teenagers who fought back against the Nazis. I’ll follow Chaya Lindner, an experienced Jewish courier and resistance fighter, and her new companion, Ester Karolinski, from the ghettos in Krakow up to Warsaw in time for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a civilian battle that lasted longer against the Nazis than the entire country of Poland lasted against the Nazis.
THE DECEIVER’S HEART
YA Fantasy
Releases on 2/26/19
Book two of THE TRAITOR’S GAME series. Kestra Dallisor’s attempts to fulfill her quest are complicated by an unexpected trick of the evil Lord Endrick. There may be an escape from her new troubles, but it carries an almost certain consequence: separating her and Simon forever.
I am about to begin on the third book of the series. If you have not yet read THE TRAITOR’S GAME, then please check it out now!
THE BOOK SMUGGLER
Historical
Releases fall 2019
All that I can tell you now is this is the story of how the fight to save a country’s books ended up saving the country itself. I’ll be talking more about this book in another year or so.
SUPER SECRET PROJECT
Super Secret
Releases…?
Until the status shifts only to “secret project,” I cannot say anything more. Just know it exists, and that I’m very excited about it…
June 10, 2018
FB Winners + RESISTANCE Background
Thanks to those who commented on my Facebook author page. For those who are curious, the question I asked was, “I’m still hard at work on THE TRAITOR’S GAME series and other projects, but after that, what would you hope I write next?” The vote tally worked out like this:
That gives me a lot to think about. We also have three winners from the week! They are:
K Camp A Jenkins M Hoskins
Now…about RESISTANCE…
A month ago, I described HERE how I happened to stumble upon the story of the Jewish resistance in Krakow, but now it’s time to tell you more about it. This week, I’ll give you some background.
World War 2 began on September 1, 1939 when the Nazi armies rolled into Poland with a Blitzkrieg, a massive ground and air assault. By September 27, the country surrendered. Germany chose Krakow as the new capital of its conquered territory and immediately began to institute restrictions on the Jewish population.
Part of that was to create a ghetto in the Podgorze district of Krakow where fifteen thousand Jews would be allowed to settle, roughly three families to each apartment. All others had to leave the city.
Many of those who were expelled were teenagers – those who were old enough to take care of themselves but not as old as the adults who needed the few available jobs. On their own for the first time in the countryside, many of these teenagers ended up on a farm near the village of Kopaliny run by their former Jewish Scout leaders, Shimshon and Gusta Draenger.
Soon after, the Podgorze Ghetto was sealed – no Jewish person allowed in or out except for on work duties. That’s when the aktionsbegan – random line-ups of civilians to be targets of demonstrations of the Nazi power, often by firing squads. There were deportations, disappearances, and a rapid spread of hunger and disease, nearly unavoidable in such tight quarters.
From their perspective outside the ghetto, and reports coming in from friends elsewhere in the country, it became obvious that the ghettos were not about isolation, but preparing the race for extermination.
One evening, the Draengers gathered the teenagers together and told them how serious the situation was, then gave them a choice. They could wait where they were, and it was only a matter of time before the Nazis would come for them too.
Or they could fight back.
You already know what they chose.
RESISTANCE will be released on August 28, 2018. Pre-order your copy now!
June 4, 2018
Giveaway for my Facebook Fans!
This week, I’m celebrating +2000 likes on my author page on Facebook. To thank my fans there, I’m offering a giveaway of one of my books of the winner’s choice, including an arc of RESISTANCE.
And the best part is that to win, you get to give me your opinion on a most important question. I’ll tease it here, but remember, the only way to enter the contest is to answer the question in the comments on my author page HERE.
Question:I’m still hard at work on THE TRAITOR’S GAME series and other projects, but after that, what would you hope I write next?
Another book in the Ascendance Trilogy (THE FALSE PRINCE)
Another book in the MARK OF THE THIEF series
Another historical like A NIGHT DIVIDED or RESISTANCE
Something totally new that you haven’t seen from me yet
Remember, you can only enter by giving comments on Facebook, but here’s the extra bonus – for every 50 likes I add to my page before this contest ends, I will choose another winner! So if you haven’t liked the page yet, or if you have any friends who might want to like it, that may boost your odds of getting a signed book!
The contest ends on June 10that midnight EST. International entries are allowed.
May 27, 2018
Cover and Title Reveal for Book 2 of THE TRAITOR’S GAME Series!
In book 1, THE TRAITOR’S GAME, Kestra Dallisor is forced into treason by the Corack rebellion, requiring her to find the one weapon capable of killing her king, Lord Endrick. Her initial plan to bring down the rebellion instead changes as she begins to understand why they believe what they do. As her heart turns toward a young Corack named Simon Hatch, perhaps she will become a traitor, after all…
The consequences of her actions bring us to THE DECEIVER’S HEART, book 2 of the series. Kestra is about to embark upon a quest, one that only she can do. But she may not be prepared for the extent of Lord Endrick’s powers, nor the depth of his evil. She may have a weapon capable of killing Endrick, but what if he can turn her into a weapon capable of destroying everyone who stands in opposition to his reign…including Simon?
Especially Simon.
Because Endrick knows the secret Simon is hiding.
What he doesn’t know is how far Simon will go in an attempt to save her.
What Simon doesn’t know is that love might not be enough. Saving Kestra might ultimately seal her fate.
THE DECEIVER’S HEART will be released on February 26, 2019, but you can see the cover now by clicking HERE.
