Aliza in Naziland by Elyse Hoffman; Thought Provoking Graphic Holocaust Dark Fantasy Draws The Line Between Vengeance and Justice

 Aliza in Naziland by Elyse Hoffman; Thought Provoking Graphic WWII Dark Fantasy About Hatred, Revenge, and Drawing The Line Between Vengeance and Justice

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Elyse Hoffman’s previous books like The Book of Uriel weave the stark graphic reality of the Holocaust with fantastic elements borrowed from Old Testament scripture, Jewish folklore, and European myths and legends. These books use these fantastic and dark elements to comment on the challenging themes of mortality, prejudice, Antisemitism, courage, sacrifice, faith, maturity, despair, rebellion, anger, and hatred.

In what is probably her darkest volume yet, Aliza in Naziland, Hoffman takes that combination of Holocaust reality and dark fantasy up to eleven with a novel that asks questions about hatred, revenge, retribution, and punishment.

16 year old Aliza Aueman is a Holocaust survivor living in 1950’s Beth-Hadassa, Maryland with her adopted father and sisters. The family is trying to adjust to living in America and dealing with school, interests, and family dilemmas while also suffering from PTSD, Anxiety, and other problems manifested from their time in Europe. They also have to deal with hateful organizations like the Anti-Semitic Black Sun Brotherhood planning a demonstration. Aliza likes her new life better than the old one, but she still has problems with obeying authority, restraining herself from getting into fights, and feeling powerless. 

One day she receives a mysterious note and a visit from a suspicious looking stranger. He says that his name is Ha-Satan and he is “the Heavenly Prosecutor.” He has a proposition for Aliza. Because Hell has grown too big and there are way too many souls to punish, he has decided to separate Hell into different sections, called Zones, and has appointed random mortals to punish the souls within them. There are specific zones called Naziland. 

Aliza is appointed Master over Zone N-1, the most coveted Zone because it contains the souls of prominent Nazis like Herman Goring, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, and Hitler himself! All Aliza has to do is order something to happen to them, no matter how humiliating, torturous, painful, or destructive.The punishment is temporary and all she has to do is return every day to inflict it again. 

Aliza gets a thrill out of this chance to inflict pain on her one-time torturers and takes full advantage of this opportunity. But what starts out as fun and games, albeit violent fun and games, becomes more serious when other people get involved and the hatred of the outside world in Maryland bleeds into the inside world of Zone N-1. 

Aliza in Naziland is an interesting premise that asks a lot of tough questions. Questions like how far is too far when you want to seek vengeance? What is the line between justice and revenge? Do the truly hateful deserve everlasting torment and what gives one the right to inflict it? At what point does the victim and survivor become just as heartless and ruthless as their one time persecutor? 

This book doesn’t provide any easy answers so much that it asks the Readers to investigate their own feelings about the matter, and imagine what they would do if they were in this situation. It provides a scenario of what this traumatized troubled outspoken young girl did as she inflicts punishment but also weighs the consequences of that punishment to herself, her own psyche, her family, her community, and her victims.

Aliza is written as someone who has deeply suffered by the hands of the Nazis, of that there is no doubt. Her birth parents were murdered and she was sent to a concentration camp called Fox Farm. She had been tortured, abused, malnourished, and assaulted. Her memories of her birth parents diminished and were replaced by those of Nazis shouting, beating, and shooting prisoners. She can't even remember her life before the Holocaust because it seems so far away and remote. 

The only positive in Aliza’s life since then had been her new family. Her adopted father, Amos smuggled Jewish orphans out of Europe and adopted four girls, including Aliza, who lost their families. Amos looks after his young charges with firmness, kindness, humor, and strength becoming the father figure that they desperately needed. Aliza also formed a family with her newly adopted sisters, Ute, the quirky animal expert, Shaina the dedicated athlete, and Heidi the sweet tempered beauty with Aliza as the outspoken tomboy. 

Aliza and Heidi's relationship is particularly notable throughout the book. Unlike the other three girls who came from Jewish families and suffered persecution, Heidi's father was a Nazi. Her mother and sister were members of a resistance group and were arrested for treason. Heidi became a prisoner in Fox Farm abused by one time colleagues of her father's. While in Fox Farm, Aliza and Heidi bonded and declared themselves sisters even before Amos found them and made their relationship official. 

Heidi refuses to acknowledge her original family and identifies as Jewish, since she converted but there are many in the neighborhood who won't let her forget where she came from.

The abuse in Aliza's past, the anxieties and trauma that the Aueman family still have to live with, the bullying that Heidi receives, and the arrival of Holocaust denying hate groups would make even the most devout pacifistic milquetoast person want to punish those who wronged them especially if they were truly as soulless and hateful as the Nazis. 

At first the punishment chapters are humorous in a dark comic way. Aliza tells the Nazis to shut up and their mouths are sealed. She makes Goebbels bite his tongue. Himmler holds his breath until he suffocates. Goring hangs himself by piano wire. Hitler bashes his head to the ground and breaks every bone in his body and Heydrich carves out his own heart with his knife. 

From this first example alone, we see Aliza has a dark twisted outlook and doesn't mind inflicting it on the Nazis that she is put in charge of. The more time that she spends in Zone N-1 the more grotesque, graphic, and painful the punishments become. She soon acquires a sadistic delight in torturing the men who caused great suffering and whose actions made her miserable after all these years. 

However, Aliza’s conscience gets the better of her at times. She dials back on punishments concerning the Nazi’s families. She doesn't want to put their children through that mental anguish because they had terrible fathers and were often too young, brainwashed, or victimized to fight back. She remembers Heidi's past and doesn't want them to suffer guilt by association.

Aliza begins to question her role in Hell when a classmate reveals that they are also a Zone Master and their punishments are too severe even for her to contemplate. The turning point occurs when she learns that there is a personal connection between one of the tortured Nazis and her own family. Suddenly, things like humanity, compassion, remorse, and real justice occur as she has to weigh the consequences of their actions and her own.

It is important to note that this character evolution is granted to Aliza and not the Nazis themselves. They made their choices in life and are now simmering in their own vile hatred. They are incapable of change becoming vile and pathetic as they cling to their racist and Antisemitic views. They are the defeated bullies who can't do anything else but whine in retreat and insist that they were right.

Aliza herself has to go through this change. She has to know when enough is enough. She is the one in danger of losing herself to hatred and revenge. She has to remember her own humanity and to emerge as a better person who doesn't get swallowed up by the hatred that poisoned her enemies. 

German But Not German by J.C. Berger; The Parallels Between Past and Present

 German But Not German by J.C. Berger; The Parallels Between Past and Present 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: For obvious current Presidential Administration-sized reasons, many people are reading and studying various times of dictatorships, how those under them rebelled and fought the system, the ways and means that the ideals and values that propel such action are spread, and most crucially of all how the dictatorships were overthrown and the important steps to be taken afterwards to rebuild the country and not make the same mistakes of the past and fall under the spell of another dictator.

One of the most obvious examples because it has been shouted out so frequently lately is The Holocaust under the genocidal tyranny of Adolf Hitler. One of the books that illustrates what life was like under that tyranny is J.C. Berger’s German But Not German about a German-Jewish family whose world implodes because of the reign of a former paperhanger and failed art student with a destructive and fatal vision for the continent in which he lived.

Inge Schoenberg is raised in Germany in the 1920’s-’30’s by her frivolous mother, distant father, bickering but charming uncles, and her stern but loving grandparents. Their internal conflicts of changed jobs, school worries, and a frequently absent and eventually estranged wife and mother become minimal as Hitler begins his reign of terror. Many Jewish families are stripped of their rights, detained in mass arrests, forced to obey dehumanizing laws, and are deported somewhere never to be seen again. The Schoenbergs are left with a very important decision, should they remain and stick things out or should they emigrate.

Let's get the elephant in the review out of the way first. Yes, there are a lot of eerie comparisons between what is happening in the book to what is happening right now. Berger not only gives us a deeply personal story about the Holocaust, he expands it by showing how Hitler got his reign started and how it quickly engulfed the entire country, continent of Europe, and threatened to destroy the entire planet. 

Throughout the book, we are given updates about what is going on in a historical context throughout the book. Berger offers not only the historical dry facts, but the perspectives that many had at the time. For example, the publication of Mein Kampf concerned some with the Antisemitic rhetoric but many simply saw it as the ravings of a lunatic, a nobody, someone that no one can or should take seriously. They were wilfully ignorant of what Mein Kampf really was: Hitler's biases for his hatred, goals that he wanted the country to do, and most importantly a master plan of how he wanted the country to accomplish this. It was not the rantings of a madman, it was a cold methodical plan of a hateful person who studied the character of others, knew what buttons to press and what to say to influence them, and a willingness to use other people to carry out those desires. Dare I say it, it was the work of an evil genius that was only recognized as such in hindsight. 

I'm sure many might feel the same about Project 2025, and let's be honest with ourselves, Art of the Deal. Readers didn't take them seriously. They dismissed them. They thought the detractors were exaggerating or part of some conspiracy meant to make the preparers and fans look bad. They didn't want to admit that Art of the Deal point blank explains Trump's behaviors and justifications for his later behavior as a President, someone filled with avarice and heartlessness who only looks at gain for themselves, never apologizes or accepts blame, attacks the critics and accuses others of what he himself is doing, thinks that everything is for sale, and never takes no for an answer. 

These are traits that Trump still inhabits and is often surrounded by Elon Musk and others who also exhibit those traits. We saw and read for ourselves what Trump was really like and instead of seeing Trump as a potential dictator and autocrat, we simply just saw him as an example of 80’s excess. Someone who had power for a time but is now outdated. Others actually took him to be a savvy businessman and thought that his views were admirable. But we didn't see the long term implications that those characteristics that he extolled for business were later used in politics to shape, transform, and change the country to his liking.

Project 2025 was the blueprint for what Trump and his cronies, particularly The Heritage Foundation wanted to accomplish. Many of us read it, recognized it for the plan for dictatorship that it was, and warned people. We highlighted the passages that were particularly problematic and sent messages through social media. We endorsed Harris and other politicians, even Republican ones like Liz Cheney who spoke out against it. We helped people register to vote and made them recognize the importance of voting. We talked about it, warned about it, made videos about it, shared it, and voted against it. 

Unfortunately, we became Cassandra in Greek mythology, gifted with the power of prophecy but unable to make opposing forces listen to or believe us. Most people didn't want to believe it. They told themselves that checks and balances would prevent it. They told themselves that we survived Trump's first term (though not everyone did), so how bad could it be? Maybe some wanted it to happen to gain power for themselves by dehumanizing and criminalizing others. Instead of investigating for themselves, understanding our fears, and working towards keeping it from happening, they chose willful ignorance and the whole country is paying the price. If you don't believe me, then I challenge everyone reading this review to read Project 2025’s manifest for themselves and point by point match their goals and what has already been accomplished. You will see that not only is the Trump Administration following it, it is already looking to exceed the Heritage Foundation's initial expectations. Keep in mind, this is only February, the second full month of the current Administration.

There are other obvious parallels as well. The dehumanization and mass arrests of Jews during the Holocaust can be seen in the dehumanization and mass arrests of immigrants. DOGE’s closures of departments is similar to the Nazi Party reshaping the central German government to make their actions possible without accountability. That also can be parallel to the legislative and judicial branches having a Republican majority to make Executive Orders easier to enforce. Trump chose a Cabinet and advisors that are inexperienced sycophants with criminal and unethical reputations like Hitler chose his inner circle. There are comparisons between the Beer Hall Putsch and January 6 and their aftermaths in which the leaders became convicted felons but served little to no time and still became leaders. Even some parallels between the Reichstag Fire and the Gleiwitz Incident resonate alongside the assassination attempt on Trump. Unfortunately, history runs in cycles and we can either learn from it or make the same mistakes. 

Because of this parallel situation between the past and present, it is very easy for Readers to identify with and understand Inge’s plight. Sure, we may have had familial problems as she did, or other issues related to work or relationships. but they were our individual problems. Under the weight of the traumatic stress of living in a dictatorship, those issues are often cast aside for larger political concerns. 

It is easy to see the confusion, terror, and anxiety when everything around you from schools, to stores, to media, to arts and entertainment sources, to friends and family change to fit the new normal. You don't recognize the world anymore and feel like somehow you landed in some other world. There's a lot of denial and a lack of acceptance clinging to the hope that it will be over soon.

It's also perfectly understandable why it takes so long for Inge and her family to decide to emigrate and for Inge to become proactive in the fight against the Nazis. It's easy to stand on the outside thinking “If it's so bad why don't you just leave.” But then other factors have to be considered like cost, obtaining paperwork and passports, finding employment, living in a new country and getting used to its culture and language, keeping from being stranded in this new place, trying to make new friends, and reuniting with friends and family. They also have to weigh the possibility of whether it's better to remain and fight on the inside, trying to find and retain the values that they once held, even if it means facing prison, institutionalization, sent to a concentration camp, or death. 

Emigration and outright rebellion are not easy decisions to make and this book explores those options. Inge and her family are put through tremendous stress and trauma and some members don't make it. Some have a hard time adjusting to the changing world around them, even when they are safe in another country. They still stand out and have high levels of anxiety and PTSD. Also the older characters are often set in their ways and don't want to adapt. They can only hold onto old times and a nostalgic past while younger characters, like Inge, at least try to find a new path in their current home. In adapting, Inge finds the anger to strike out at those who hurt her family and former country and the courage to serve in the RAF and take a real blow towards those who perverted the world in which she lived.

In reading about the past, Readers can find parallels with the present, recognize the warning signs, learn how to live under such a system, and most importantly become inspired to find ways to fight and rebel against it. I found my way through reading and writing. Now it's time for you to find yours. 

Girl in A Smart Uniform by Gill James; The Pumpkin King and Other Tales of Horror by R. David Fulcher; We Aren't Who We Are How to Become by Dustin Ogle; Traeger Grill & Smoker Cookbook: 1000 Days of Delicious Recipes with Images, Tips, and Techniques for Perfecting Your BBQ Game by Dr Esther

 Girl in A Smart Uniform by Gill James; The Pumpkin King and Other Tales of Horror by R. David Fulcher; We Aren't Who We Are How to Become by Dustin Ogle; Traeger Grill & Smoker Cookbook: 1000 Days of Delicious Recipes with Images, Tips, and Techniques for Perfecting Your BBQ Game by Dr Esther

Girl in a Smart Uniform by Gill James

A longer version of this review is on LitPick

It's important to know why and how a person would become part of a truly evil and cruel group and contribute to actions that further that group’s agenda. Everyone is susceptible to groupthink and propaganda. Girl in a Smart Uniform shows how easily a person with good intentions and ideals could fall into that situation and become an active participant

In 1930’s Germany, Gisela joins the Bund Deutsche Madel, or the BDM (The League of German Girls). At first she enjoys being a member but after a while she begins to question their tactics and policies. When people around her and eventually she herself become potential targets, she sees Hitler and the Nazi Party for the evil that they really are.

Gisela is far from likable at first but her journey from ignorance, to participant, to empathy, to self awareness is an interesting one.

She feels structure, belonging, and a sense of purpose after she joins the BDM. She has close friends whom she accompanies to meetings and outings. If she starts to feel remorseful about the way Jews and other people are treated under Hitler's reign, she silences that conscience with a jingoistic reminder.

Gisela becomes harder to like when she sinks into the Nazi mindset and even her narration becomes militant, arrogant, and Antisemitic. At times she is so willfully ignorant and delusional that Readers might want to reach through the pages and slap her to make her see reality. 

There are three particular moments that transform Gisela’s role from participant in evil to a fighter against it. 

The first is the birth of her half-brother, Jens, who is born developmentally disabled. The second is the realization that those closest to her like her oldest brother and a schoolmate are helping Jewish people. 

 

The final moment is more personal for Gisela. It's her growing awareness of her love for other women, particularly a fellow BDM member, Trudi. Gisela’s love for Trudi is what finally pulls her from embracing Authoritarianism and Fascism to embracing Democracy and Freedom. She finally is able to take action, help others, and free herself.

Girl in a Smart Uniform is a stirring tale of how someone can stumble into hate groups and their propaganda. But it is also a compelling heroic journey about someone who finds the inner strength and character to get out

The Pumpkin King and Other Tales of Horror by R. David Fulcher 

R. David Fulcher’s anthology, The Pumpkin King and Other Tales of Terror is an experiment on minimalist horror.

Each story is extremely short. The longest are less than ten pages and most are only two or three. In those brief times, Fulcher only has time to scare us and he does it well.

Fulcher contrasts with other short story horror authors such as Miles Watson or Michael Reyes. They create detailed settings and manage to squeeze in some exposition and world building in the brief time that they have been given. The results often are that the horror is often part of a larger picture that contributes to the fear factor that we are given. It's a grim ominous energy that awaits for some truly supernatural cosmic event to erupt.

Fulcher ignores the large picture and focuses on the immediate situation. He just sets up a scene, gives us a lead character, and puts them into a terrifying experience with a twist that makes it scarier. The stories don't have time to give details when they concentrate more on the shocks and scares that engulf the final pages.

This anthology offers some great stories designed to keep Reader’s adrenaline racing and their sleep patterns very short. The best are:

“The Pumpkin King”-The title story gives a fine atmospheric macabre Halloween setting that builds on the old pagan origins of the famous holiday. The Narrator opts out of decorating his house on Halloween night. 

He particularly refuses to leave a Jack O’Lantern outside his house and comes afoul of a visitor who makes their disappointment known in a gruesome way that illustrates the original need for placing pumpkins outside the door on that night.

“A Matter of Taste”-This is one of many “Face to Face With Death” stories that this anthology produces and is also a chilling “Deal with the Devil.”

Mary McKeldin wants her comatose son to heal so she agrees to Satan’s terms. The terms themselves are graphic as are the notions of sin and atonement that surround the act. The final pages call Mary to task for her actions, and her intent on whether it was to genuinely save her son or inflict revenge on another person. She ends up paying a final bloody price and an eternity of regret for the act.

“My Days with Mahalia”-War can produce its fair amount of monstrosities and this story is a definite example. The Narrator is one of a group of pilots who loves, really loves their plane, a sleek black flying fort. The men personify their flying mistress as she takes them on air raids and protects them with an almost human-like defense. They name her Mahalia after the Hindu goddess of time. 

Humanizing a vehicle, particularly one used for war, proves to have a downside especially when Mahalia’s men begin dying at an alarming rate. The Narrator realizes that this plane has more than a mind of her own and has a potentially fatal hold on the pilots who ride inside of her.

“Merry Are We of the Lake”-Ah Christmas, the perfect time for revisiting the old hometown, reuniting with friends, having drinks and engaging in ritualistic murder. You know the usual things that people do on the holidays.

The festive setting offers a great ironic punch to the awful deeds that are happening at the forefront as a group of old high school friends engage in a ghoulish ritual. The apparition that they appeal to is the perfect blend of otherworldly attractiveness and eerie omniscience that is both captivating and terrifying at the same time. This story is like a modern day version of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” where tradition and religious devotion stand in the way of morality, legality, empathy, and common sense.

“Extra! Extra!”-Thanks in large part to a certain Disney animated series from the 90’s, gargoyles are often now placed alongside other noted creatures of the night like vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and the like. This story gives those grotesque stone waterspouts some attention. Slade, a tabloid reporter, agrees to interview a witness to recent gargoyle attacks and gets more than an up close and personal exclusive. 

There is a savage undercurrent as the world of tabloid journalism is darkly mocked as are the strange outlandish tales that are spread through such outlets and social media. This modern humor contrasts with a centuries old spirit that has seen much, fought against and survived more, and knows exactly how to capture and kill its unwilling prey.

“The Watcher's Web”-This story combines a Crime Thriller with a Supernatural Horror by giving us what seems to be a perfect crime only to meet some definitely unexpected interference.

Rizzo, a professional thief, aspires to rob a museum exhibit only to encounter a very determined night watchman who has a few surprises of his own.

Rizzo is written as the consummate thief who has everything planned and observed. He is calculating and able to find ways around the obstacles that he would usually encounter like security systems and the police. However, his conflict with the night watchman opens himself up to something that he is completely unprepared for, something ancient and unknown, and leaves him vulnerable and defenseless.

“Dreaming, The Copper City”-Fulcher takes a brief detour into Science Fiction and plays around within another familiar fictional landscape. Carter, one of many residents on the Moon, sees a mysterious object land on the lunar surface. He approaches and hears a mysterious voice calling, “Yog-Sothoth.”

Fans of the Cthulhu Mythos will recognize that name as one of the Outer Gods and the progenitor of such deities as Hastur the Unspeakable and Cthulhu himself. Carter becomes drawn to the voice and an accompanying vision of a copper city. He becomes obsessed with the vision to the point of forgetting about life. 

This story presents the cosmic horror that is present in these horror tales. It's not enough that Earth is full of supernatural and human scares but the entire universe can present the unknowable fear. The type of fear also brings obsession, addiction, and insanity. Carter's obsessive pursuit of the copper city and the voice calling Yog-Sothoth reminds us that some things are better left unknown and unexplored if the cost is one's mind and life.

“The Faerie Lights”-We had a detour into Science Fiction, why not one into Dark Fantasy that involves those ruthless terrifying creatures: faeries?

Many think that faeries are harmless cute and sometimes mischievous creatures but anyone who has studied folk tales beyond cutesy animated films and TV shows knows that faeries are actually powerful malevolent spirits that you do not want to mess with.

In this story, the Narrator tells his tale of a late night encounter with the Fair Folk. The beginning plays on the more poetic beautiful images that fairies convey as they seduce and entice the Narrator. However, their true being and intentions lie underneath the surface reminding us that you can dress up and defang a powerful magical being all you want. But a great power lies underneath, one that is incomprehensible and demands to be feared and respected.

We Aren't Who We Are How to Become by Dustin Ogle 

Dustin Ogle’s Self-Help book is an interesting guide on how Readers can use their skills, increase their knowledge and learning, and activate those abilities to their fullest.

Ogle describes these abilities as “super powers.” They seem natural and normal to the person who has them but makes them stand out and be recognized and honored by others. The metaphor of comparing these abilities to super powers or magic gives Readers the understanding that they can use those abilities to help and assist others.

One of the ways that Readers can use those abilities to their fullest advantage is by changing thought patterns to become more empathetic and understanding. Sometimes we are too fixated on our own perspectives and points of view that we don't think of others whose experiences may be entirely different from our own. We fall into echo chambers and listen only to those in our specific groups.

Ogle suggests that a way to combat that echo chamber is to gain fresh perspectives through learning. If you come across something that you don't understand, make an effort to learn about it. Obtain new information and experiences to add onto what you already know. Even acknowledging that one can never really know everything and are willing to add to one's store of knowledge gives them a chance to increase their own gifts and use them to benefit others. Knowledge about a situation also increases empathy and allows people to connect on an emotional level. Those talents can be used to benefit not just the person who has them or the specific person that they are trying to help, but in some small part these powers can contribute to the community and society that surrounds them.

We Aren't Who We Are is not just a passive book offering suggestions and personal anecdotes. It also encourages active participation. There are many writing exercises and opportunities for journaling thoughts and experiences relevant to the topics in discussion.

Among the most important topics that encourage interaction is that of mindfulness. This book is filled with suggestions on meditation and visualization exercises to help clear the head and live in the present. These activities allow the brain to make a clear path between those talents and how to use them.

One of the most important activities is creating a vision. Once those special gifts are recognized and acknowledged, it is important to plan on how to use them. With their special powers, a person can be a leader, a performer, an educator, anything. Imagine what the ultimate goal that those gifts could deliver for oneself and others and the benefits that such a success could bring. Once that vision is made, then the Reader can take the concrete steps to develop, use, and promote those talents.

We all have the potential to be the heroes of our own stories. Ogle’s book gives us the tools to become that hero.

Traeger Grill & Smoker Cookbook: 1000 Days of Delicious Recipes with Images, Tips, and Techniques for Perfecting Your BBQ Game by Dr Esther

Barbecuing and outdoor cooking is a frequent pastime during the spring and summer seasons. The Traeger Grill & Smoker Cookbook offers some great recipes to try on your grill or smoker as well as some good advice on troubleshooting and how to make the most of an outdoor meal.

The recipes feature suggestions for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They include “Traeger Grilled French Toast, “Smoked BBQ Chicken Sandwiches,” and “Wood-Fired Honey Mustard Glazed Salmon.” Unlike other Traeger cookbooks, this one also covers recipes for snacks like “Smoked Buffalo Chicken Dip with Tortilla Chips” and appetizers like “Wood-Fired Buffalo Chicken Dip Stuffed Peppers.” The variety of food suggests that grilling can be used for any meal beyond the usual hamburgers and hot dogs that frequently mark such occasions.

The introduction to the book includes tips and techniques to master the art of grilling and smoking. Such tips like choosing the right wood such as hickory or mesquite to provide seasoning and flavor help elevate the outdoor cooking experience. There are also suggestions for when difficulties arise like how to make sure the meat isn’t too dry or tough. This advice provides Readers with much needed assistance to overcome any flaws and mistakes.

The Traeger Grill & Smoker Cookbook is highly recommended for those who want to cook, eat, and enjoy a meal in the great outdoors.

New Book Alert: A Shadow Upon His Soul (The WW2 Hidden Lives Series-Book One) by Ophelie Caton; Bleak and Passionate Look at Male Homosexuality During World War II

 

New Book Alert: A Shadow Upon His Soul (The WW2 Hidden Lives Series-Book One) by Ophelie Caton; Bleak and Passionate Look at Male Homosexuality During World War II

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

I apologize for being so errant with this blog lately. I had a host of personal issues and limited Internet time so I have a lot of catching up to do.

Spoilers: Ophelie Caton's World War II novel A Shadow Upon Its Soul knows how to capture the shadows in wartime: the shadows of family separation, PTSD, hatred, violence, and of hiding one's real identity and sexuality behind societal standards and unjust prejudicial laws.

Karl, a 17 year old Dane has gone into exile to escape the Nazis who will force him to enlist or be sent to a concentration camp.

Kar then finds himself in England where he is taken in by the Hopkins, a kindly couple whose home hosts other borders and exiles. He becomes fast friends with the Hopkins and their son, Paul but his eye is caught by George, a bad-tempered boarder who has problems of his own.

Emotions run rampant in this book and in a stressful time that is to be expected. Karl is an outsider in many ways, even in Denmark. While it appeared to be a happy home that he left, there were hints that suggested otherwise. Later in the book, we learn that his home life was not a pleasant one. It may be a home that should the war end, he may not be able to return to anyway.

This isolation increases when Karl goes to England and spends most of the book trapped by the language barrier. Since he speaks very little English and they know very little Danish, it's hard for Karl to make his basic wants known. Little by little, he begins to understand his host language and communicates in broken English.

Karl finds a surrogate family with the Hopkins Family, new parents and a surrogate brother in Paul. He also finds a temporary rival in George. At first, George is not happy sharing a room and bed with this foreigner. He acts very nasty and rude towards Karl to keep him at arm's length. He is someone who is angry at life because he is estranged from his family and the only person that he ever loved is miles away and in potential danger.

Karl and George's relationship begins when both are at their most vulnerable. George receives devastating news and Karl is confused about his own feelings to this boarder who alternately hates and loves him. They both suffer from pangs of their pasts and those pains are finally laid open for the other to see. Here they are at their most naked and honest towards each other with all defenses down.

Once they open themselves to a real relationship, Karl and George's problems don't magically go away. In fact, they get worse. Karl has to weigh his options about what he wants to do and realizes that the home that he once knew is no longer a home. George's depression continues while Karl temporarily relieved him of that grief. 

Theirs is not a relationship that is built to last but it is one that is meant to change them and bring each other to another level. Karl in particular begins to redefine what the words "home" and "love" really mean.

New Book Alert: Eli's Promise by Ronald H. Balson; Tense and Moving Novel About Death, War Crimes, and Revenge

New Book Alert: Eli's Promise by Ronald H Balson; Tense and Moving Novel About Death, War Crimes, and Revenge

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews





Spoilers: Surely many have it right from the French Revolutionaries to the Klingon Empire that revenge is really a dish best served cold. Though sometimes that cold dish is not served by choice. Sometimes the recipient of that revenge slips away leaving the accusor to spend many years, even decades, of hunting down the person that they hold responsible.


The cold dish of revenge and belated justice is the main theme behind Ronald H. Balson's Eli's Promise, a tense, gripping, andstrong novel. It takes the Reader from 1940's Poland to 1960's Chicago covering twenty-five years, a Polish town, a temporary displaced person's camp, various American businesses and high rises, and two wars before said justice and revenge are finally carried out.

Eli Rosen is a construction worker in Lublin, Poland when the Nazis come blasting their way in. Suddenly, the life he knows is turned around on its head. Jews are moved to a ghetto. Women like his wife are forced to work as seamstresses at a factory. Place names are changed to reflect the new order. Then many people disappear under mysterious circumstances and certain words like "resettlement", "special handling", and "labor camps" carry extremely ominous overtones.


Eli's family including his wife, Esther, father, Jacob, and son, Isaak are under the dubious protection of one Maximilian Poleski, an opportunist and war profiteer. He claims to protect the Rosen Family but only so they serve his purpose. Eli and his brother work under his now proprietorship. Max makes arrangements for favors such as Esther to work in the factory in exchange for money and obtainining young girls. If possible, Maximilian is less likeable than the Nazis. He is a character who is seemingly charming but is really nothing more than a snake looking out for number one.

Eli and his family reluctantly work and barely survive under Maximilian's so-called protection until Eli is temporarily separated from his family. He returns to find his father beaten and his wife and son missing. He is eventually reunited with Isaak but Esther remains missing. It doesn't take much for Eli to realize that Maximilian arranged Esther's departure and even though Eli and Isaak are put into a concentration camp until the end of the war and then placed in a temporary holding place for displaced persons afterwards, Eli never lets go of his desire to reunite with Esther and get retribution towards the man that he considers the author of his misery: Maximilian.


Eli is an extremely heroic character. The more unlikeable that Maximilian is, the more we are rooting for Eli to take him down. We are also rooting for Eli to find his own place and to get his life back together. In the DP camp, Eli shows leadership capabilities by helping the other refugees, ultimately becoming the leader of their community. He is also a devoted single father to Isaak. He soothes the boy's fears, nurses him through Illness, encourages his talents in music and athletics, and tries to heal his trauma. Even though Eli makes a female friend, Esther is not far from his mind. When by chance, he learns that Maximilian is not only still around but up to his old tricks by selling forged U.S. visas, Eli is determined to confront his old foe and find out the truth of Esther's whereabouts.


The plot takes a unique twist into the 1960's just as America's involvement in the Vietnam War begins to escalate. Mimi, an intrepid young journalist from Chicago becomes curious about her suave new boarder, guess who, Eli Rosen. Turns out Eli now works for the State Department and is investigating a corrupt Congressman who also happens to be the father of Mimi's best friend, Christine. Even though this case is half a world and twenty five years away, it puts Eli right in the path of his old arch enemy. The private war between two men that represented the opposite sides of the Holocaust becomes a very public war when it also involves others including Mimi, Christine, their friends and family, and eventually the United States government.

Eli's Promise is a nail biting suspenseful novel as Eli strives to capture Maximilian and or learn the truth only for him to slither away because of his contacts, influence, and charm. It becomes a victorious climax when the two are reunited once more and Maximilian is deprived of any means of escape and Eli finally is able to get justice rained down on the slime.


Eli's Promise is the kind of book that shows that revenge and justice can take awhile, but when they do, they are that much sweeter.

Monthly Reader: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay By Michael Chabon: Classic Historical Novel Takes Us Into The History of Comic Books

Monthly Reader:
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay By Michael Chabon: Classic Historical Novel Takes Us Into The History of Comic Books

By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
For right now I am reducing my Weekly Readers to once a month,  Monthly Reader instead. Mostly because I have been getting plenty of New Book Alerts so it's kind of hard for now to put others in. So I am doing one Classics Corner, one Monthly Reader and possibly one Forgotten Favorite for now anyway

Here is the first Monthly Reader: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay one of my all-time favorite novels. 
When 17 year old, Sammy Klayman, later Clay, meets his Czech cousin Josef Kavalier, for the first time in 1939 Long Island, it's a match made in comic book heaven. Recently escaped from Prague during the Nazi oppression, Josef finds an immediate friend in Sammy as the two share mutual interests in common such as a love of magic and escape artists like Harry Houdini and an interest in drawing. The love of drawing turns into a career in the comic books industry as Sammy talks his way into getting the two a job in a novelty products-turned-comic book company. 

The boys ultimately revitalize the comics industry with their characters The Escapist, a mysterious individual who with his group, The Sacred Golden Key conspire to help people escape from Nazi Germany and Luna Moth, a female librarian turned superhero. The two reach success but not without the usual problems and difficulties. 

Josef falls in love with Rosa Saks a bohemian artist (and the inspiration for Luna Moth), while trying to help get his family out of Prague. Sammy meanwhile is struggling through the ashes of a failed literary career and discovers his own sexuality after falling in love with radio actor, Tracy Bacon. 

This story is a superb work of historical fiction combining a history of the Golden Age of Comics with the harsh difficulties of WWII- Europe and America, and the comfortable ennui of post-War suburbia in the later chapters. Of particular notice in the book is the history of the Comic Books industry. All of the high points are there including the 1938 creation of Superman which was followed by various other superheroes many of whom like Supes are still around to this day to the 1954 Kefauver Senate Hearings in which comic books and graphic novels were cited as reasons for juvenile delinquincy. Any comic book fan would delight in the references and cameos by some of the Golden Age greats as Jerry Siegal, Jack Kirby, Bob Kane, Stan Lee and many others. Joe and Sammy are themselves possible stand-ins for Superman's creators, Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster. Like Joe and Sammy they too were young Jewish teenagers when they created a character that had instant success and just like their fictional counterparts, they were swindled into selling the rights to their characters and being deprived of its residuals and royalties. 

Joe and Sammy are wonderful characters throughout the book and their many struggles which make The Escapist's fights against Fascism seem minor by comparison. Joe is driven by his hatred of the Nazis and his motivation to rescue his family. The chapter when he discovers his little brother's fate and the chapters that follow are moving as they show a man who has reached his breaking point and teeters on the edge of sanity as he withdraws further into his fantasy world of magic and daring escapes.

Sammy too comes across as a strong character, particularly in his romantic scenes with Tracy Bacon. He is alternately flirtatious and charming with his lover and fearful of the consequences of being a homosexual, as in a striking scene when Sammy is a witness to an FBI raid at a gay club. This incident leads to years of self-denial and bitterness as he attempts to build a typical suburban life with Rosa leading only to frustration and despair. 

Kavalier and Clay is the type of book that describes both a world of fantasy and a world of reality and describes them both very well.