Hosted by An Island Life

From An Island Life:
In Hawaii, Aloha Friday is the day that we take it easy and look forward to the weekend. So I thought that on Fridays I would take it easy on posting, too. Therefore, I’ll ask a simple question for you to answer. Nothing that requires a lengthy response.
If you’d like to participate, visit An Island Life answer the question and then post your own question on your blog and leave your link below. Don’t forget to visit the other participants! It’s a great way to make new bloggy friends!

MY QUESTION:
Do you watch a morning news show? If so, which one?

MY ANSWER:
The Today Show.

If you visit often, then you know, the ladies of WOW always stop by with the most amazing female authors.  Well today is no different.  Robyn is going to introduce us to another talented writer.  So I ask that you help me give them a warm welcome to CMash Reads!

SONIA KORN-GRIMANI

Sonia Korn-Grimani earned her doctorate in French literature and the teaching of foreign languages, and directed a multi-cultural language program at UNESCO. With her husband John, and their children Anthony and Renee, Sonia traveled and lived all over the world. She taught foreign languages at the university level, and performed frequently to the delight of audiences worldwide. In her album Cantos al Amor, Sonia sings in 16 languages.

In 1989, Dr. Korn-Grimani was knighted Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques, and in 1996 she was decorated Officier des Palmes Académiques. These decorations were awarded in recognition of her lifelong dedication to and promotion of French culture and language.

Sonia continues to sing regularly at UNESCO events inFrance, and is also frequently invited to share her Holocaust experiences as a guest speaker in high schools, universities, synagogues and churches.

GUEST POST

On the Power of Love and Forgiveness

 In the spring of 1961, shortly after we moved to Malaysia, UNESCO called my husband John to Paris. The prospect of visiting my mother, giving her time with baby Renee—her new grand-daughter, and sightseeing around Paris was too great a temptation to refuse. Those days in Paris are perhaps the happiest days of my life, walking around arm-in-arm with Mother.

We sit down at a café, and she tells me that she is planning to stay in Germany for a few months. Would Renee and I go with her? I want to be with her, but the thought of confronting our past of persecution and anguish, our lost youth, our lost family, makes me very anxious. So much is lost there—wouldn’t it be better to just leave it be?

Something in me wanted to go if only for mother’s sake. So we all went for a few days to Wuppertal-Elberfeld, the city from which we had to flee twenty-two years earlier, after my brother, mother and I were declared enemies of the German State. We walked the sunny streets and picnicked on potato-herring and meat salads in the parks, the parks which I remember well, before we were banned from them for being Jewish. We visit our street and our building—the last address in Germany before we were forced to leave. The building has aged, appearing grey and sad.

I have no desire to enter and do not wish to be confronted with our ex-Nazi neighbors, some of whom now remember their treatment of us altogether differently from how we experienced it. War and time have a way of altering memory. Some neighbors had now justified their treatment of Jews in general, and of us in particular to themselves, but now, twenty-two years later, the only person I would like to see is Frau Rohland, the only one of our neighbors who stayed friends with us until the end, who comforted us when mother was arrested; who had slipped us butter sandwiches that would sustain us all night long on our arduous journey on foot to the Belgian border. Alas, her family was away on vacation.

But we are close to Belgium, and I want to visit the orphanage where I had under a false identity for the second half of the war. Perhaps it was having my own children that made me want to revisit one more part of my past, to find closure with one more part of my life. I wanted to visit the one person whom I felt I could never forgive, Madame J.

She was the proprietress of the orphanage. I was 11 when I arrived with my brother at her doorstep, and Madame J took us in, but only after my mother had begged on her knees and agreed to have the resistance pay her twice times the amount she usually took in foodstuffs. Surely the separation from my mother was difficult, but Madame J.’s spartan guardianship of the children in her care did not make the adjustment any easier.

But there was another part of the story that I found out after almost two years of living at the orphanage. I had discovered that Madame J. hoarded food given to her by the resistance that was supposed to go for the orphan’s care—she was hiding the food in her bedroom and selling it on the black market, probably for a very hefty profit.

I remember when she coolly met my eyes after I had discovered her secret. Even though I was only thirteen at the time, I understood her game, and I also understood the dire consequences if I were to reveal her secret—all of us orphans hiding under her care would have been exposed. I concealed my anger and kept my emotions in check, but never in my life had I felt such revulsion, such sadness. We are all so hungry and some of us suffering from malnutrition, which we thought was because we were living during wartime, but there were boxes and boxes of food in her room, just sitting there!

All of these emotions were swirling in my head as baby Renee and I took the train to Ottignies, and made our way to the orphanage to see Madame J. I needed, more than anything, to find peace with what happened within myself, to find closure within my heart.

As I approach the orphanage, I remember my first arrival in 1942 as a young naive girl; I feel a similar anxiety, but for other reasons. All is too familiar. The sights of the past dredge up the feelings of the past.

I knock, just as I had knocked then, and am greeted by a smiling face and trembling hands. Madame J. sweeps me into her arms and seems truly moved to see me again.

“Come into my parlor, my darling Sonia. So nice that you have not forgotten me who was once your godmother! Come and sit down.”

I sit on the very same couch where my mother had sat during her first interview, that is, until she knelt to beg Madame J. to take my brother and me in and save our lives. I recoil at the thought and lean back into the couch for support.

“Would you like some tea or coffee?” Madame J. inquires pleasantly, oblivious to the pain I am feeling.

In a daze, I accept her offer; glad to have her occupied while I try to sort out my recollections, without being overpowered by their weight. Madame J. serves me on very delicate china. Her cakes are delicious.

She brings out photo albums and proudly shows me pictures of us. “How I enjoyed having you and the other Jewish children, all so refined, so bright, so obedient—particularly you, Sonia.”

I then remember how she had shown me albums of the Spanish War orphans who preceded us at Le Joli Coin, and how she had compared us unfavorably to them, offering them as intangible standard of an excellence we could not possibly attain.

I listen to her reluctantly. This is 1961! I feel like shouting. So much has happened in the intervening years and yet you are still fixated on the past. I remain mute.

She breaks into my reverie. “Would you like to visit the home? I am now taking care of a group of young delinquent, homeless boys.”

I follow her and see the familiar navy-blue uniformed, thin and pale bodies of her new charges. They look as forlorn as we had looked so many years before. Although the war is not even in their memories, it seems clear that Madame J. has not changed her tactics in dealing with this new group of children.

It took me years of reflection after this visit to come to terms with my desire to forgive her, and not being able to.  I remember watching Renee and my son Anthony, now an infant, as they played in the dappled sun of the coconut tree in our yard in Kuala Lumpur.

“She did save your life and at great personal risk, Sonia,” argued my husband John. “You might have perished during the war if it weren’t for her, so you need to recognize her for that.” And I do feel lucky to have survived the war at all.

When I think back to my discovery of the boxes in her room—I keenly remember my shock and certainty that she was hoarding food for her personal gain. As an adult, I cannot be certain. I try to be fair. Perhaps she used the contents, which were unavailable on the open market, to buy silence from people who would have otherwise exposed us.

And I try to live up to the nickname given to me at the orphanage: La Tourterelle Généreuse, the generous dove. “Yes, we went hungry. No, she was not a nurturing guardian. But she saved more than 20 children and several adults. Looking at it now, as an adult, I feel gratitude towards Madame J.”

I would never wish the experiences of living under her care in wartime, or the harrowing and constricted life we had before, on anyone. Yet Madame J. was an honorable person who despite the danger saved many lives. And just perhaps, the very trials of my youth forged that strength of character which has allowed me to sing—both literally and metaphorically—in my adult life.

And for the closure in my heart, I feel grateful. I watch Renee and Anthony giggle and play on the blanket in the warm sunshine, and I feel alive and happy in the present. Whatever has happened to you in your past for better or for worse, this has made you who are and gives you the strength to do what you are destined to do. When we harness the energy from love and not from anger and resentment or things we cannot change, we are capable of doing great things.

ABOUT THE BOOK

At the age of eight, little Sonia Korn is declared an enemy of theGermanState. She and her family are given a grim option; either find a way to disappear, or be rounded up and sent to certain death. After a perilous escape to the Belgian border, and becoming caught in the chaos and carnage of war-torn France and Belgium, Sonia finds that she must give up everything she knows and loves just to survive. This is the complex true story of one girl, who rises from war’s ashes to sing the songs of hope and love world-wide. A heart-wrenching and poignant memoir, by internationally renowned singer Sonia Korn-Grimani.

THANKS TO AUTHOR, SONIA KORN-GRIMANI, I HAVE ONE (1) SIGNED
COPY OF THIS MEMOIR TO GIVE AWAY.    INTERNATIONAL.

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So thrilled!! A very special day here at CMash Reads.  My good friend Lori, from Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book is stopping by today with her amazing friend and author, Kim Tews.!  So I ask that you help me in giving them a warm welcome!!

KIM TEWS

Kim Tews was raised in Madison, Wisconsin and attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, majoring in Economics. She and husband, Randy, pursued careers in real estate before beginning mission work together in Ecuador, South America in 2001. In 2005 they established the 501 (c) 3 non-profit Outreach for World Hope to save the lives of starving children in eastern Guatemala. The couple lives in Verona, Wisconsin with their three children, traveling back and forth to Guatemala frequently to facilitate the ongoing programs of Outreach for World Hope.
You can visit the author at her webpage, book page and Facebook.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Tears Water the Seeds of Hope is the inspiring true story of Kim and Randy Tews, a Midwest husband and wife that become disenchanted with the relentless pursuit of the “American Dream” and embark on a journey that spans six countries and redefines their hearts and lives. The story begins in a small town in America’s heartland and weaves its way through South and Central America as the couple gathers an army of supporters, and eventually establishes a 501(c) 3 organization to save the lives of children in the end stages of starvation in eastern Guatemala. The narrative is filled with action-packed adventure and heart-warming victories as the characters face incredible odds and seemingly hopeless situations, while hundreds of volunteers join mission teams to offer help and hope through the programs of the ministry. Readers of all ages will enjoy the roller coaster ride of emotions—from laughter, to tears, to sheer joy—as they realize that it is possible for ordinary people to make a difference, one life at a time.

Read an excerpt:

Purchase links:   Amazon   B&N    

DISCLAIMER
No items that I receive
are ever sold…they are kept by me,
or given to family and/or friends.
ADDENDUM
I do not have any affiliation with Amazon.com or
Barnes & Noble. I am an IndieBound affliate.
I am providing link(s) solely for visitors
that may be interested in purchasing this Book/EBook.

When author and friend, Melissa Foster, a frequent visitor here at CMash Reads, asks to showcase a fellow author, I always honor that request.  So today, we get to meet one of her peers as he stops by and visits.  So without further ado, Mr. Russell Blake!!

RUSSELL BLAKE 

Russell Blake is the acclaimed author of Fatal Exchange, The Geronimo Breach, Zero Sum,The Delphi Chronicle trilogy, Night of the Assassin, King of Swords, Revenge of the Assassin,Return of the Assassin, The Voynich Cypher, An Angel With Fur, How To Sell A Gazillion eBooks In No Time (even if drunk, high or incarcerated), Silver Justice and JET. He lives on the Pacific coast of Mexico and enjoys his dogs, writing, tequila and battling world domination by clowns. His thoughts, such as they are, can be found at his blog:http://RussellBlake.com  Follow Russell on Twitter: @Blakebooks

GUEST POST

JET – A Different Kind of Action Hero

 Thanks for having me – it’s a sincere pleasure.

I’m so excited about my new series, JET. I really can’t say enough about it. I am launching two books on Oct. 5 – JET, and JET II – Betrayal. Both are full-length novels, and feature the trials and tribulations of Jet, the twenty-eight year old ex-Mossad operative who faked her own death to get out of that life, but whose life has come back to haunt her in a big and ugly way.

Jet is a different kind of novel for me. It was inspired by a few simple ideas. First, I got to thinking, “Wouldn’t it be cool to write a female action lead that was a kind of a cross between James Bond and Jack Bauer, from 24?” From that, I next went to, “And wouldn’t it be even cooler if the books started with lightning action, and then accelerated from there? Like a literary version of a film like Kill Bill?”

That was the idea – a larger-than-life, overblown female heroine who kicked #ss and took no prisoners, but who did so reluctantly – she’d tried to end that existence, but then enemies from her past came after her, forcing her to put everything on the line.

I sort of had a mental image of Kate B in Underworld, but half Japanese, half Dominican – born in Israel, of those two ethnicities, but left a ward of the state early on. I wanted her to have had a painful, horrific past that she triumphed against, emerging stronger. That is sort of a recurring theme in the JET books. She’s like a Phoenix, rising from the ashes, and no matter what gets thrown at her, she comes through it better for the experience.

What’s truly exciting for me about the series is that, for whatever reason, it’s not just a shoot-em-up romp, although there’s enough of that to fill 10 books. No, what happened is that the writing turned out to be almost, and I hesitate to say this, literary fiction. Which was unintentional, but just what happened. So we have this Lamborghini on black ice, out of control roller-coaster of a book, with unexpected characterization, description and prose. I know it sounds odd, but I think it works pretty well. I honestly can’t think of another book like it. And with the number out there, that says something – either that I don’t read much, or that this is truly something different.

I think fans who are a little tired of the genre, and who think they’ve seen everything, should give JET a whirl. I think it will surprise at a number of levels. I know the character is overblown, but she’s overblown in an unapologetic way that is ultimately endearing – at least to me. It’s rare when I get done with a book and can’t wait to write the next one, but JET had that effect on me, so I immediately wrote JET II, which releases the same day. That’s unusual as well, but I don’t want readers to have to wait to find out what happens next, and the words were just waiting, so I figured might as well get em down on paper.

Thanks so much for the opportunity to come on and chat. I think my final thought would be that if you’ve never read anything by me before, just read JET. If you want to know what makes a Russell Blake book different, read JET, and there won’t be any more questions.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Jet. The code name of an ex-Mossad operative who faked her own death to get out of the game – but whose brutal past has come back to haunt her. When her new life on a tranquil island is shattered by an assassination team targeting her for execution, Jet must return to a savage life she’d thought she’d buried forever to save herself and those she loves. A gritty, unflinching roller-coaster of unexpected twists and shocking turns, Jet features a new kind of protagonist that breaks the mold. Fans of Lizbeth Sanders, SALT or the Bourne trilogy will find themselves carried along at Lamborghini speed by a story whose conclusion is as jarring and surprising as its heroine is unconventional.

DISCLAIMER
No items that I receive
are ever sold…they are kept by me,
or given to family and/or friends.

..of Blogfest 2012

$10.00 Amazon GC

101 Maria Smith Leave a Blog Post Comment

An email has been sent to the winner and she has 48 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen.  Thank you to all that stopped by and entered!

THIS IS A STICKY POST

DAILY POSTS BELOW

HOSTED BY MICHELLE AT THE TRUE BOOK ADDICT 
AND SEASONS OF READING

I signed up to participate in this Read-A-Thon during the summer and am hoping it will get me back on track, since I have been in a slump, reading only 1 book during September.  

My goal is to set some time aside each day to read and get away from my computer.  However, I am also behind in my blog to-dos being extremely busy with Partners In Crime Tours and Providence Book Promotions.

My daily progress will be posted here:
MONDAY:
    Pages read:  0
    Book:
TUESDAY:
    Pages read: 0
    Book:
Unfortunately I have not been able to open a book because of work.  However, on Tuesday night, I got to meet, face to face  an author, that a friendship developed after being a Guest Author on my blog.  She flew in to attend a conference and we had dinner.  More details to come in Sunday’s Salon.  I will tell you that she is absolutely beautiful, inside and out!!!
WEDNESDAY:
    Pages read:  0
    Book:
THURSDAY:
What better way to end my reading slump, but to read a new novel by a favorite author. And it did the trick!!!
    Pages read:  16%  (Kindle)
    Book:  The Disappearance of Grace by Vincent Zandri
FRIDAY:
    Pages read:  50%  (Kindle)
    Book:  The Disappearance of Grace by Vincent Zandri
SATURDAY:
    Pages read:  24% Kindle
    Book:  The Disappearance of Grace by Vincent Zandri
SUNDAY:
    Pages read:
    Book:
WRAP UP:  This is exactly what I needed.  After being in a reading slump for approximately a month,  I feel that this week was successful.  Thank you Michelle for hosting!!!
TOTAL PAGES READ  100% Kindle +20 pages
BOOK(S):  Finished The Disappearance of Grace by Vincent Zandri and picked up Low Pressure by Sandra Brown