The Sixth Day of Christmas

On the sixth day of Christmas,

This author offered me

Six quotes from Rescue

Five Giveaways!

Four Christmas wishes,

Three Rescues,

Two Free Zoom Visits, and

A title for book five series…

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Okay first, I know there are a couple of days left on Day five’s giveaway contest, but seriously? You all totally made me cry. Like actual tears on my cheeks!

I wasn’t sure what you would think about that challenge, whether you would do it or not, so to see you take it on so enthusiastically, and THEN to read your responses of what it did for YOU – this kindness that wasn’t supposed to be about you at all – I think for many of you, those simple acts returned much greater than what you gave.

If you haven’t read the comments from Day 5, you should. All of them.

Anyway….wiping eyes….

I hope these quotes will be a nice preview for RESCUE, my next historical to release on March 2nd.

#1

I hadn’t seen my father for 657 days. From this exact moment, that is one year, nine months, two weeks, four days, and one hour. That’s how long it had been since I had not waved goodbye. In 657 days, we had not heard anything about him, or . . . from him.

#2

I lowered my shovel. “Maybe you are a spy. That blood doesn’t look a bit real.”

He said nothing to that, only laid his head back down on the straw. “What’s your name?”

“Sophie.”

He closed his eyes, accepting my lie as easily as I’d told it. “Corn syrup, cornstarch, food coloring. How many of those ingredients do you have?

I shrugged. “Cornstarch, I think. You can’t get the other items during the war.”

“Nor can I. And I’d need a lot of it to create fake blood, so without that option, I just had to use my own.”

#3

With every passing minute, I became increasingly worried. My mother had never, never been gone this long. Even if she really had been on errands, it was the end of the workday and shops were closing. Where was she?

I tried to focus on Captain Stewart’s code. Anything to keep from thinking about my mother.

The letters were written out in a long string.

Q M F B T F C S J O H N F T P N F X B U F S

#4

“What about—” I began, but Maman shushed me.

Her eyes had wandered to the window behind me. She took a sharp breath as moving lights swept across the wall, briefly highlighting her face. I heard the sound of an engine and my heart stopped.

Maman’s hands balled into fists. “They’re here, Meggie. The Nazis have come.”

#5

Seconds later, we heard the sound of a truck slowly approaching. I glanced up long enough to see a German Opel Blitz park directly in front of where we had just been. The canvas fabric over the truck bed parted and at least ten Nazis jumped out.

“Oh no.” Albert groaned.

We all looked over at Albert, who was quietly patting his pockets. As the Nazis filled the clearing directly in front of us, he whispered, “I believe that I dropped my glasses.”

#6

I wanted to keep thinking about Papa’s code, but I was so tired, I fell asleep almost immediately. There was no time that night for dreams. We could not have been sleeping for very long before the first bomb fell on Boulogne-Billancourt.

Coming tomorrow…the seventh day of Christmas, and my hopes and plans for 2021!