Saving Amelie

Saving Amelie was inspired by a trip to Oberammergau, a Bavarian village high in the Alps, that produces the world’s longest-running Passion Play every ten years—since 1634! I wondered, after attending the 2010 Passion Play, how it was that a Passion Play produced in Germany had received Hitler’s endorsement when the Nazis displayed anything but the love of Jesus Christ. About the same time, I learned of the vast eugenics movement popular in the 1930s and 40s in Germany and around the world, including the U.S.—a movement intent on promoting certain bloodlines and eliminating others. So many questions, so many secrets, so much to discover . . .

Saving Amelie

One letter . . . one request . . . will challenge everything she believes.

Summer, 1939

Rachel Kramer is visiting Germany when a cryptic letter from her estranged friend, begging Rachel for help, upends her world. Married to SS officer Gerhardt Schlick, Kristine sees the dark tides turning and fears her husband views their daughter—deaf since birth—as a blight on his Aryan bloodline.

Once courted by Schlick, Rachel knows he’s as dangerous as the swastikas that now hang like ebony spiders across Berlin. She fears her father, an eminent eugenics scientist, may know about Hitler’s plans for others, like Amelie, whom the regime deems unworthy of life. But when she risks searching his classified documents, she also uncovers shocking secrets about her own history and a family she’s never known.

Hunted by the SS, Rachel turns to Jason Young, a driven American journalist whose connections to the resistance help Rachel and Amelie escape the city. Forced to hide in the Bavarian village of the Passion Play, Rachel’s every ideal is challenged as she and Jason walk a knife’s edge, risking their lives—and asking others to do the same—for those they barely know but come to love.

Saving Amelie was my fifth novel and my most challenging one to write—uncovering history and well-kept secrets, separating propaganda, fantasy and fiction from fact, and untangling timelines. I worked as a sleuth into the past, never expecting to find history so relevant to today. This book began my writing journey into WWII history and stories—one I have yet to complete.

I hope you enjoy Saving Amelie if you have not already read it. You can order it online or wherever books are sold.

Until next time, enjoy these brilliant autumn days. God bless you, and happy reading!

Cathy