This book contains the histories of
10 child survivors. Each survived in a different way. One was in Auschwitz, a
few were in various work camps, one was a hidden child in France, one ran
around Nazi-occupied Poland and Ukraine, one was 3 years old when she was
thrown over the concentration camp fence and later rescued by a Ukrainian
partisan, one fled with her family into the Soviet Union. We just didn’t write
their stories, we embedded their experiences in the history of what was going
on around them. We also started their stories before the war to show what they
lost and after the war to show how they rebuilt their lives.
In the first volume, Sam awakens in a cemetery with no memory of how he got there or his last name or past. He is soon impressed into a vicious military organization bent on the destruction of all life. He is made part of a squad of eight, one of whom is Sarah. They all have the same memory problems. The slightest infraction brings a severe beating, and any attempt to divert brings execution. When one of Sam’s squad members is being raped by some of the Sergeants who run this organization, Sarah leads Sam and George in an attack to save her. But that means they will be executed if they stay. Getting their other squad members, they raid the armory for weapons and take off, with one of their members dying in their final fight with some Sergeants and another being mortally wounded. As they flee into the unknown, they are pursued by the Sergeants. Sam becomes their unofficial leader and becomes close to Sarah. After fighting several actions, they escape, leaving behind a fatally wounded member who provides them with the time to flee. They still would have been caught if it weren’t for a brother and sister who rescue them and take them to a valley that the enemy has not been able to enter. Yet. They settle there but are always watching over their shoulders.
In the second volume, the enemy
enters their sanctuary, forcing this group to flee on a small sailing ship they
had built. They don’t know how seaworthy it is, but they had no choice. They
also have no idea where they are going or where they can find safety. To stay,
meant to die. And now Sam and Sarah have a daughter and another child on the
way, while another member of their group has a son. Driven away from one place
they sought refuge, their little ship is nearly destroyed in a gale in the
Atlantic. As they start running out of food and water, they are found by an
armed British fishing trawler. They are towed into an English port and turned
over to suspicious authorities. Eventually, they are accepted. Both are tested
on their skills. Despite having no memories of their past, Sam becomes an
officer in the Royal Marines while Sarah is licensed as a civil engineer and
made a reserve officer in the Royal Engineers. They discover that the
mysterious military forces that have destroyed much of the world cannot cross
large bodies of water. Places like Britian, Australia, Japan and the
Philippines escaped destruction. Sam goes on to lead raids into France. He
nearly dies when his Commando leader tries to abandon him and his company on a
raid. Sam is left behind and only reaches home by floating into the English
Channel on a barn door.
In the third volume, Sam, now a
brigadier, leads his Marines back onto the continent as the spearhead for an
invasion of France. The military force which has held the world in its grip has
started to fall apart, with soldiers dying of starvation. Sarah goes as a member
of a Royal Engineers Regiment in support of the Marines. Their oldest daughter
Judy is now an officer in the Marines. They fight in France, Italy and Norway.
In Italy they find survivors in a valley the enemy never entered. In Norway
they link up with Norwegians who have held off the enemy in the northern part
of that country. They then return to England for a period of refitting and
training before heading to Long Island, where another group of survivors has
built a thriving community. They use the island as a base to invade the
mainland.
Jake is a college student who is
deeply in love with Charlotte. One day on their way to campus, he is driving
when their car is it broadsided by a drunk driver who blew through a red light
to ram them at high speed. Charley dies. Sam blames himself and fights off a
recurring dream by drinking heavily every night. He is unable to maintain a
stable relationship with another woman. Katherine is a brilliant physics
graduate student who grew up in an abusive home. Her father saw women as only
fit to be wives, mothers and to cater to their husbands’ needs. That background
left her submissive to anyone who took control and especially to men. They meet
one night in a club frequented by students. Jake prevents another guy from
leaving with the blind drunk woman. He takes her home and puts her in his bed.
He sleeps in a chair. In the morning he wakes up when the door slams as she
runs out. She returns a few days later because her roommates want to know if
Jake is gay because he didn’t have sex with her. He refuses to tell her, saying she will have to hang out with
him and his friends if she wants to find out. After a time, she does. In their
developing relationship, Jake finds he no longer has the dream and does not
have to drink in order to sleep, while Kate—a nickname he gave her—finds the
strength to become free of her past. It is a story of how two people can heal
each other just by being together.
Andrea is a doctoral candidate in
clinical psychology. She has been hired by a billionaire to share a house with
his daughter and to help her stay in college. On Andrea’s way home one night
she is kidnapped by two men who mistake her for the roommate. She is put into
the storage seat on an RV they stole and driven into a remote area of the
mountains in December. When they discover they have the wrong woman—the
billionaire offers a reward for the capture of the people who tried to kidnap
his daughter—they decide they have to get rid of Andrea. One of them who has
become infatuated with her does not want to kill her. So they leave her
blindfolded and tied to a tree, letting nature kill her for them. The problem they have is that the heavy rain
from the day before was snow at higher elevations. The only pass out of the
valley is blocked by 20-foot drifts. They don’t discover this until they try to
leave. As for Andrea, she starts to wonder whether the cold or wolves will kill
her. As she fights to stay awake, she hears animals sniffing around her. She
braces for the inevitable attack. Instead, a while later, a man, alerted by one
of his dogs, frees her and takes her to his cabin. Ed is a writer, and dog
trainer and breeder who spends his winters in the valley because of its
isolation. Andrea is fearful of him at first, especially when he tells her he
has no communications with the outside world and no way to get out of the
valley. Eventually she comes to trust him and unhappily accepts her situation.
Then the kidnapper who is infatuated with her sees her. Ed, armed with a rifle,
takes one of the dogs and tracks him. He gets into a gunfight with the other,
killing him, and captures Freddie. Freddie becomes their unwanted house guest,
kept in line by Ed’s three German shepherds. That doesn’t stop him from
repeatedly trying to woo Andrea and trying to kill her several times. When the
snow melts, they leave the valley. Freddie is turned over to law enforcement
and Ed takes Andrea home. He has fallen in love with her, but she’s not sure
its genuine. Finally, she does and they reconnect.
Jasar is recruited by a friend to
pose as her fiance. She is a lesbian and engaged to a woman. But her parents
are extremely rich bigots who she doesn’t think will accept her sexual
orientation. She gets Jaz to go on a cruise on their large yacht. He thinks
she’s nuts but goes along with the charade. She thinks freaking her parents out
with a Moslem American boyfriend will make the truth easier for them to accept.
During the cruise, the yacht is attacked by pirates who throw everyone
overboard and then throw life jackets after them. As people swim for the
jackets, the pirates open fire, killing everyone but Jaz. He is left floating
in the Caribbean. He is picked up the next day by a woman who is sailing solo
in a sailboat of her design. Becky designs sail boats for a living. She takes
him to Miami where he is questioned by the Coast Guard. He stays in her guest
room until he can go back to his home in New York City. A few months later, his
brother, an Army Ranger, tells him that they are going after the pirates.
Authorities think they know who they are but have no evidence to arrest them.
The idea is that they lure them out and then either capture or kill them. He has
recruited five other soldiers to go with them. All they need is a boat. They go
to Miami to ask Becky. She agrees provided she goes along, since none of them
know how to sail. They reluctantly agree and with the other soldiers and weapons
on board they head for the latest sightings of the suspected pirates. They
finally find them in a bar in Jamaica. Jaz, who has a black belt in martial
arts, Becky, who has no training, and L’Toya, a hand-to-hand combat specialist,
run into them in a bar. When one of the men goes after Becky, Jaz and L’Toya
intervene. After beating their attackers, they flee back to the boat where they
meet Jaz’s brother and the other soldiers and head out to sea. As dawn breaks
the next day, the pirates catch up to them expecting an easy kill. During the
ensuing fight, the pirate’s boat blows up and Jaz is badly wounded. He is flown
to a hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Becky, who has fallen in love with him,
won’t leave him, sleeping in his hospital room. When his parents arrive, his
mother is horrified to find a non-Moslem in his room with him. Jaz’s brother
and sister come to the defense of their relationship, which the mother is
ultimately forced to accept.
Maria and Rob are Army veterans who met while deployed in Afghanistan. Maria was a bomb disposal expert while Rob’s infantry squad was assigned to guard her engineers. After they fell in love, they decided to leave the Army and live quietly. Maria becomes a third-grade teacher while Rob is now a structural engineer. They have three children. When a suspected bomb is seen in the underground parking garage at the local college’s administration building, the town’s police chief asks Maria to check it out because no one else is available for hours. She goes and discovers that the van parked along the north wall of the garage has a fake bomb. Before she can leave, the real bomb in a car in the center of the garage goes off, bringing down the building and trapping Maria. Everyone assumes she’s dead except for Rob. He goes to the site, figures out about where she would be and gets ready to dig there. No one thinks he will find her alive, but no one is ready to stop him. The exception is a high state official who wants to control everything, and a wildcat dig is not on his permission list. He tries to have Rob arrested, but with the help of the police chief and his officers, Rob keeps on digging. In the garage, an injured Maria wakes up to find herself in a void created by a large slab of concrete with one side resting on the garage wall and the other on the fake bomb vehicle. She is determined to dig her way out. With no water, no food, a variety of injuries and no tools, she starts clawing her way to the surface. It’s slow work. She has to repeatedly stop to rest and to deal with rubble falling on her and sometimes pushing her back down. She is near the surface but can go no further. Rob reaches the void, and after a false start, finds where Maria has been digging. He digs after her and finally finds her. He manages to contact the police chief who organizes a rescue and they are both taken to the hospital, with Maria in critical condition. During all this, the guy for the state keeps on interfering with Rob’s effort to rescue Maria and then tries to have both of them arrested. There are other twists and turns in this story.