MUSE MONDAY
Please welcome my guest, Joan Leotta who has a most interesting post. I'm hooked! Read on.
My
friend Julia told me the story of how she and her husband met and married in
the mid 1950s. Her tale of going toWashington, DC to marry her then-fiancé,
John started it all. He met her train and when she put her foot on the top of
the set of metal steps leading from her car to the platform, he reached up and
swept her around and down onto the platform. Once her feet touched the ground
he pulled her close and sealed her arrival greeting with a kiss. That story and
an interest in history grew into a book on WWII in Wilmington, NC which became
book one of my Legacy of Honor Quartet.
So,
I had the romance, but what about the rest of the story? World War II work
posters always talked about loose lips, the possibility of spies trying to
sabotage war work, so it was a natural for me to create a villain who was a
spy. My spy was a Nazi. I gave him the very ordinary name of Herbert and
characteristics that were ordinary as well. He was a lonely sort of guy, whose
goal was to sabotage the key elements of the shipyard—the part developing
secret equipment—which is where Giulia worked (of course!). The ins and outs of
defeating the spy's efforts are what give the plot its action elements and of
course, are one more way I bring Giulia and John closer together.
I
did a lot of research using original resources—newspapers, magazines, records
of people who lived through the era. The book is sprinkled with details about
life in Wilmington, NC during WWII. Some of my favorite are descriptions of the
dances at the USO center, now known as the Hannah Block Center.
There
were spies on the east coast, but nothing has ever been disclosed about any
activity in the Wilmington shipyard. There are records of a U-boat attempting
to land on the NC coast, a bomb and more, but up the coast from Wilmington. I
merely moved the entire activity down the coast so the action could be a part
of my story.
The
book is about 35,000 words, a novella. All of this came from a simple
conversation that started my imagination rolling. I kept it powered with
interviews from folks who lived through the various eras, research in libraries
and the simple question, "What if?"
Here
is a small excerpt from Giulia Goes to War, the first book
in the Legacy of Honor quartet. This section is from one of the chapters
dealing with Giulia's work in the shipyard.
"Giulia had
just shown the guard at the door her pass and was entering the Quonset hut when
the boom shook the ground. The sound started her ears ringing and sent a flash
of heat and light throughout the area. The young guard who had just cleared
Giulia to enter the room, pushed her inside and threw himself on top of her.
She heard him gasp as a piece of wooden plank implanted itself in his arm.
She could hardly
hear now because of the ringing in her ears, but she thought she heard John
calling to her as though from very far away. "Giulia! Giulia!" It was John! He grabbed her and the guard and
pulled them inside the Quonset hut. Before John could assess the situation he
heard the shipyard’s alarms wailing.
Giulia's immediate
supervisor appeared in the hallway where they were all huddled a few seconds
later. "Everyone all right here?"
Check
out my FB page, Joan Leotta, Author and Story Performer
Please
Take a Look at my Blog, Recipes for Success, www.joanleotta.wordpress.com
Giulia goes to War
Desert
Breeze Publishing Volume I in the Legacy of Honor series
ISBN-10: 161252639X
ISBN-13: 978-1612526393
Buy link to Giulia
https://www.amazon.com/Giulia-Goes-War-Legacy-Honor/dp/161252639X
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