The Stuff of Nightmares - A Blast from the Past

This post was first published on October 13, 2020. WW2 Romance Author Eleri Grace can be counted on to write thrilling romantic stories that immerse her readers in the realities of llfe during WW2.

By Eleri Grace

I too don’t write horror, suspense, paranormal or another genre that might have a classic “scary scene.” I write WWII historical novels – what’s scary about that?

            Well, more than might be readily apparent. As Judith noted, real life presents plenty of scary situations, and war certainly amplifies dangerous situations.

            One of the scariest scenes I’ve written tracks along with what is a fairly common nightmare for many people. How many times have you jerked awake, heart pounding, with the sense that you are free falling? Probably at least a few times in your life, I would wager.

            Fairly early in my drafting process for my debut novel, I realized that my hero Jack Nielsen was afraid of heights. A common fear, sure, but Jack is a pilot. How can a pilot cope with a fear of heights? It seems counter-intuitive, and I was initially intrigued with whether that was too outlandish. So I googled “pilots fear of heights,” and it turns out that research shows that acrophobia is markedly, dramatically higher in the pilot population than among non-pilots. Some studies indicate up to 90% of pilots have a fear of heights. So I asked my teenage son, an avid flight simulator who wants to be a pilot and spends quite a bit of time with like-minded young adults: “Yes,” he nodded. “Most of us are afraid of heights.” It turns out that, as my son indicated, most pilots feel very in control in the cockpit, thus keeping their natural acrophobia at bay.

            But in combat? No, in combat, a pilot faces far more threats than usual to his or her ability to feel – and be -- in control of the plane. And that was the stuff of nightmares – both for Jack and for ME.

           

I read so many non-fiction accounts of WW2 bailout scenes that I woke up with that free fall sensation far more in that one year than at any other time in my life. But I knew that Jack would have to jump eventually, and I forced myself to write it, knowing his experience might yank me from sleep for many months or years to come.

 

    “No more time! Out!” Hank pushed him closer to the hatch.

    Jack froze. His stomach lurched and dropped to his ankles, and his heart thrumped in his throat like a staccato fusillade of artillery. He swayed and gripped a handle on the hatch door with his good hand. “Go ahead,” he yelled.

    Hank shook his head violently. “You gotta jump!” he screamed in Jack’s ear.

    Waves of dizziness roiled him. Jack’s legs were as numb as his injured hand. No. No way. There was absolutely no way he could jump out into the clouds.

    Hank pried at Jack’s fingers, locked around the hatch handle in a death grip. “Damn it, let go!” He pulled hard on Jack’s waist, and they stumbled back to the narrow catwalk of the bomb bay.

    Before Jack could clamp his hand around the handle again, Hank put the chute rip cord into Jack’s uninjured hand and closed his fingers around it. Then he shoved hard with both hands in the middle of Jack’s back.

    Jack was out, free-falling in the icy slipstream, tumbling end over end. Out of control, exactly as he had always dreaded in his imagination.

    The ground rushed toward him. Slow down, slow down, slow down!

    The ring. The ripcord D-ring. Hank had put it in his hand. Jack jerked his hand downward.

    The parachute burst out of the chest pack and opened above him with a resounding crack. His body jerked upward.

    A loud, sustained bang sounded behind him. Jack turned his head, horrified to see his trusty, much-loved ship exploding in mid-air, engulfed in fiery flames.

 

Being the hero, Jack does land safely. But does he connect up with Allied troops or the German forces who imprison him in a wretched POW camp? Does he encounter German civilians who might decide to exact vigilante justice against him as another terror flieger?

You can read more of his experiences and his love story with Red Cross Girl Vivian in my debut novel, Courage to be Counted.

As the bombs fall on Europe, their love affair must survive a deadly war…

Vivian Lambert wants to do her part. When she wins a coveted overseas post with the Red Cross, she focuses on her war service. Falling hard for a sexy pilot wasn't part of her plan.

Jack Nielsen has a mission. Motivated by patriotic duty and desire to avenge the death of his best friend, Jack commands a ten-man B-17 crew. Keeping himself and his men alive in the fire-filled skies over Europe will require Jack's full focus. Romancing a headstrong Red Cross Girl is a distraction he knows he shouldn't indulge.

While Vivian's work takes her across France and into the heart of Nazi Germany, mounting casualties drive Jack to confront his dwindling odds of survival. As Allied forces converge on all fronts, can Vivian and Jack's relationship withstand an excruciating battle between love and duty?

Courage to be Counted is the first book in the Clubmobile Girls series of sizzling hot historical romances. If you like brave military heroes, trailblazing heroines, and romance under fire, then you'll love Eleri Grace's page-turning tale.

 

 

Learn more about me and my writing on my website, and you can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. 

Wartime Friendships by Eleri Grace

 Our theme of relationships this month -- as it so often does each February -- brought me up short. I'm divorced and haven't even been on a date since before the pandemic. Sure, I could focus this blog on non-romantic relationships -- my relationships with my young adult children, with my wide circles of friends, with the larger writing community, and on and on. But I was not particularly inspired, nor sure how to tie those potential angles in with my writing. 

So I'm revisiting a theme from several years ago in February and putting a slightly new twist on it. In that blog, my focus was on how my Red Cross Girl heroines marched to the beat of a different drummer than their contemporaries in so many respects and how I, as a writer, have created novels that don't fully follow the standard tropes of historical romances or historical mainstream fiction. 

The Red Cross recruited extraordinary and accomplished women for overseas assignments. Marked not only by higher education and far more professional experience than most women of that era possessed, the Red Cross recruits possessed some or all of the following attributes in some measure: poise, charm, conversational skills, self-assurance, independence, ingenuity, adaptability, stamina, and creativity. Even in the earliest days of WWII, the Red Cross realized they needed self-starters who could draw on a range of varied life experiences to do unprecedented work. 

Because they were all so exceptional and at least somewhat out of step with the times, Red Cross Girls formed very strong bonds with one another. Fast friendships formed -- in the weeks of training stateside, on the voyage overseas or on location. One Red Cross Girl writing back to her training instructors from Europe noted: "Some fellas think we're brave, but we really don't know enough to be scared. Some think we'd be better off at home, where a woman's place used to be . . . about 200 years ago." I think most of us probably find it astonishing that a 1940s woman viewed the housewife trope to be an outdated norm. For some of these women, the war presented them with yet another opportunity to break free of strictures imposed back home. Based on many of the memoirs these amazing women wrote later in life, many of them went on to start or continue a successful career outside the home, whether they married or remained single. 

Yet, it took no small amount of courage to take such a leap of faith in signing on for destination unknown, duration unknown, and dangers unknown. The women frequently didn't know where they were assigned until they were out at sea (although they could make educated guesses based on whether they were shipping out from the east coast or the west coast). They didn't have a crystal ball to know the war would end in 1945. Most importantly, they had no idea what they would be called on to do or face in the course of their duties for the Red Cross, though most were smart enough to assume it would involve a lot more than serving coffee and doughnuts! 

Their unique qualities didn't shield them entirely from fear or from experiencing profound anxiety, stress, and war-weary despair. And in those times, they leaned on one another. The Red Cross friendships forged in wartime continued on after the war in many cases, with the women often remaining in touch for decades after their service. And like their male combat soldier counterparts, the women recalled their wartime service as the most significant years of their lives. The relationships they formed during those years, whether they continued on after the war or not, left their mark in so many important ways. 

You can find my Clubmobile Girls novels on Amazon, and you can learn more about me and my writing on my website or through my social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. 

I Could Write a Book by Eleri Grace

 

What's new for you in 2022? 

Well, as my title says, hopefully I'll write a(nother) book! 

The tune from Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1940 hit "Pal Joey" is a love song of course, but a few lines from the lyrics speak to my mindset:

But my busy mind is burning to use what learning I've got
I won't waste any time
I'll strike while the iron is hot

Those are my hopes for 2022: not wasting time and striking while the iron is hot so to speak. 

Maybe I would have developed writer's block anyway, who knows, but I can conveniently blame Covid-19 and its destructive siblings Alpha, Delta, and Omicron for my lack of output and motivation over much of 2020 and 2021. 

I'm once again using the Cultivate What Matters goal-setting system. Even though I wasn't filling out all the reflection work each month or quarter as the system urges one to do, I bought it again this year because my goals I had set were always in my mind, even if I wasn't always faithful about recording it all. My goals for 2022 are more similar to 2021 than not. This could be read as an indication that I failed 2021, that I didn't accomplish all that much. But the truth is that some of my goals don't lend themselves to being checked off or completed in full over the course of a single year. 

The one writing goal that could have been completed but wasn't is the publication of my third full Clubmobile Girls novel. My intention is to finish and publish it this year, come what may. But I'm celebrating that I learned how to write a novelette and published it in 2021 (and I now have the barebones start on 3 other novelettes to complete a quartet of stories). I've also got new branding in the form of new cover-art that will be released this year. I'm waiting until I can reveal the cover for Book 3 before then announcing the new cover-art for my first 2 novels -- but truthfully I'm so excited by the new look of my covers that I may not wait much longer. My hope is that these new covers will speak to a wider network of readers as they are more in keeping with the look and feel of other WWII fiction released in the last couple of years. Watch my social media and blog for my new cover-art reveals in the coming months! 

My goals for 2022 are varied, as Cultivate What Matters encourages people to evaluate many facets of their personal, working, and leisure lives. Whatever your goals are for 2022, I hope you find joy, peace, fulfillment, and pride in all that you do!

You can find my Clubmobile Girls series on Amazon. Learn more about me on my website, or on my social media accounts through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. 

It Might as Well be Spring by Eleri Grace

As we round the corner on another spring, having cycled now fully through all the seasons under pandemic conditions, I'm reminded of the hopeful 1945 song "It Might as Well be Spring." The hit song from the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical film "State Fair" really didn't have much to do with the impending end of WWII -- in fact the war was over by the time it was recorded and released as a single in the fall of 1945. Yet to my mind it is symbolic of the fresh new springtime start that the end of the war would bring for so many and could be equally meaningful in current times as we begin to climb out of the pandemic slowly but surely. 

I'm as busy as a spider spinning daydreams

I'm as giddy as a baby on a swing

I haven't seen a crocus or a rosebud or a robin on the wing

But I feel so gay in a melancholy way

That it might as well be Spring

One of the things I always keep in the forefront of my mind when writing my WWII era novels is that no one had a crystal ball. My Red Cross Girl heroines faced the prospect of "for the duration" along with the servicemen. When they were packing up at home and in Washington after completing their training, they had no idea how many seasons would come and go before they experienced the familiarity of a hometown seasonal change once again. Many served in a climate quite unlike what they had experienced in their lifetime up to that point.

The holidays that mark the passage of the seasons were something our forces overseas observed however possible. The Red Cross Girls quashed their own homesickness in order to put on a happy face for holiday parties and dances. They knew it was important that these seasonal rituals carry on -- it was a spot of normalcy in what were extraordinary times. 

And so it goes with us. I know we're not there yet. That was true for the men and women serving overseas in 1945 -- feeling happy and hopeful "in a melancholy way," for by then everyone knew it was a matter of time. It's a matter of time on this pandemic too. Spring is in the air -- let's remain vigilant but hopeful!

Learn more about me and my writing on my website or follow me on my social media accounts at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. 

You can find my Clubmobile Girls novels on Amazon.