Hadamar: The House of Shudders ~ Book Blog Tour Excerpt & Giveaway!

HADAMAR

The House of Shudders

BY JASON K. FOSTER

Young Adult / Historical Fiction

Based on true events

Published: June 1, 2019

Publisher:  Big Sky Publishing

Pages: 370 pages

SYNOPSIS

Nazi Germany is ruled by Hitler’s barbaric policies of racial cleansing. Ingrid Marchand’s only sin was to be born black. Horrifying institutions like Hadamar are where the undesirables – including the mentally and physically disabled and children – are systematically tortured, gassed and executed. It is where Ingrid is humiliated and brutalized and will encounter a depth of hatred the world has never seen before.

On the brink of starvation, can Ingrid survive the horrors of her incarceration and help bring her tormentors to justice?

Hadamar is a gripping tale of survival in a world of hatred, horror and insanity.

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EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER FIVE

‘Raus, into the showers,’ the tall SS doctor ordered.

Two enormous steel doors, each of which had a circular window in the centre, clanged shut behind us. I turned around at the loud banging of a metal bar as it was dropped into the lock. The other girls clung to each other for comfort but I stood alone, circling around as I examined my surroundings. Above the door was a line of black electrical wires. Next to them was a white cylindrical pipe leading directly to a window with two doors, almost square in shape except for a slight rise on the top. Beyond them were two steel poles that extended from wall to wall like parallel bars.

The other girls were now huddled tightly together, their scrawny bodies entwined like sickly trees. The end of the pipe I had seen the men outside feeding through the frosted, cross-hatched window lay on the floor beneath them. It had a series of holes along it. The walls were covered in white tiles. There was a water pipe running along the join between the ceiling and the furthest white-tiled wall until it turned at right-angles to form an L-shape. At the base of the L-shape was a black shower head. There was a pipe running across the centre of the roof, connecting to a network of pipes. Along each pipe were two smaller shower nozzles.

I looked down at the floor. It was black-and-white checked, like a huge chessboard. A buzzing, tapping noise started, which sounded like the bus engines starting again. The lights were switched off. The girls panicked and screamed. I stumbled away from them, towards the door through which we had come. I stared through the windows. I wanted the last thing they saw to be the hatred in my eyes. The doctors, the SS men and the Kripo man had their faces pressed up against the glass, peering through as if we were nothing more than animals in a zoo.

Another loud click. Then another. My thoughts turned to Mutti, Vati, Sarah, Fräulein Rothenberg. I wondered what Heaven might be like as I tried to take one last deep breath. It was impossible. The air was too thin. The other girls’ screams turned to gargles as they gasped for air. Some collapsed to the floor, their mouths wide open, their chests heaving from the effort of trying to force air into their lungs. The sound of another generator starting echoed through the room. More girls collapsed to the floor.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jason K. Foster is an author, poet, freelance journalist and high school teacher. He holds a Bachelor of Art (Communications) and Graduate Diploma in Teaching from WSU as well as a Master of Arts (History) from Macquarie University and a Diploma in Spanish from Macquarie University.

Jason is widely traveled having spent time in five continents and over fifty countries. He has taught in Australia, the United Kingdom, Spain and Argentina -- experiences that bring a distinct range and unique world view to his writing.

He has published ten books in the true crime and historical narratives genres. He has also been published the world over with his work appearing in a range of mediums from history magazines in the United States to Australian travel magazines to poetry anthologies in the United Kingdom. 

Facebook  Website

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The Company Files: 1. The Good Man ~ ~ Blog Tour, Review, & Giveaway!

The Company Files: 1. The Good Man

by Gabriel Valjan
Category: Adult Fiction, 251 pages
Genre: Thriller, Historical Fiction, Crime Fiction, Espionage
Publisher: Winter Goose Publishing
Release date: December 2017
Content Rating: PG + M

(No bad language but there is an attempted rape scene and some violence.)

SCROLL DOWN FOR GIVEAWAY!

Book Description:  In 1948, Vienna was divided among four powers: France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Jack Marshall had served with Walker during the war, and now, working together for The Company, they are tasked to do the inconceivable. Could former Nazis really be recruited to assist the U.S. in the atomic race? As their team moves forward, they quickly discover they are not the only ones looking for these men. And the others in the search may just have the objective of murder.

In this tale of historical noir, of corruption and deceit, no one is who they say they are. Who is The Good Man in a world where an enemy may be a friend, an ally may be the enemy, and governments deny everything?

To read reviews, please visit Gabriel Valjan's Page on iRead Book Tours.

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HALL WAYS REVIEW: ✪✪✪✪✪  It’s 1948 Vienna, a city trying to redefine itself but having a hard time of it with a population infiltrated with Russians, Nazis, British, Americans, war criminals and war heroes, the innocent and the guilty, and opportunists abounding. Revenge and retribution and international superiority are strong motives in a place that’s grim and where the sometimes-shiny surface is best left undisturbed for what ugliness might lie beneath. The powers of multiple countries each have reasons to find Nazis, but for the Americans and the British, they want to recruit the Nazi scientists to further their countrys' own research and interests. As one Russian notes: “Today’s hero becomes tomorrow’s villain and, in the future, rehabilitated icon.”

Author Gabriel Valjan does an outstanding job with the setting of The Good Man, the first book in The Company Files series. Not only does he create a tangible mood, but his descriptions add to the authenticity. He includes a variety of what I assume to be real places in Vienna -- streets, neighborhoods, buildings, monuments -- and organically incorporates historical tidbits for reference and insight. I learned a lot about a place and a fascinating period that I have not yet explored.

The Good Man is told from three different characters’ points of view: Americans Walker and Jack (who work for The Company) and Russian Sheldon. Each brings a unique perspective to the story, but all are products of their experiences in the war. Walker is defined most clearly, but Jack and Sheldon are a bit murkier. I really like Walker’s reliance on routine, procedure, and the familiar to calm and re-focus himself. He’s quirky, but I get him. The grammarian in me loves when Walker is deliberating with himself about the case, and his conclusion is, “That was a lot of subjunctives.” Perfectly shows his quiet intelligence and again, the methodology around which he works. And Walker is complex: he can drop a person without a second thought yet is charitable and visits children’s hospitals on the sly.

Jack is more difficult to read. Even when Jack narrates, readers don’t get the full picture of what’s going on in his brain. The same is true for Sheldon, plus readers are missing a sizable chunk of his backstory between his time in the concentration camps and where he is currently. Valjan includes some scenes and actions that drop hints there is MUCH more to Sheldon than meets the eye.  I look forward to learning more about both he and Jack (and others) in future books in the series. (Side note about other characters: even the secondary characters are fleshed-out very well, are complex, and some will evoke a visceral response in readers.)

The story is raw and gritty and violent – reflective of the underside of the world in Vienna and beyond. Death comes often and often comes unnaturally and while Valjan is detailed in his descriptions, they aren’t overly graphic – they are horrific by deed, but much is left to the readers’ imagination, which I appreciate. This is no cozy mystery.

“Not bad for a snake built like a moose with a frog’s reflexes.”

Valjan writes intelligently and he’s clever in his wording. The dialogue is perfectly balanced with expository writing, and natural -- and Valjan does a great job of projecting meaning beyond the words and innuendo by including characters’ gestures and expressions. The plot is intricate, and it’s unique in that where most books in this sub-genre are action-packed and fast-paced, the stories in The Good Man are slower to unfold, and it is the attention to detail that kept me firmly planted in the story. There are a scattered few typos and some comma errors, but though I noticed them, I doubt most will notice or be distracted by them.

The Good Man is a solid noir espionage novel that kept me engaged and on my toes with plot twists and turns-of-events that conclude with a very satisfying ending.  After the conclusion of the story is a sample of book two, The Naming Game to whet readers' appetites for more -- plus there are descriptions of Gabriel Valjan’s five books in his Roma Series (now added to the ever-toppling TBR pile).

Thank you to iRead Book Tours for providing me a print copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion – the only kind I give. 

Meet the Author: Gabriel Valjan is the author of The Roma Series from Winter Goose Publishing. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts, where he enjoys the local restaurants, and his two cats, Squeak and Squawk, keep him honest to the story on the screen.

Connect with the Author: 

Website ~ Twitter ~ Pinterest

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