I was thrilled to receive my first advance copy of Stolen Child in the mail yesterday. It was an emotional roller coaster to write this novel. It was inspired by my late mother-in-law’s WWII memories in Ukraine.
The novel will be coming out on Feb 1, 2010.
Here’s a bit more about the book:
In an effort to boost the birth rate of the master race, the Nazis instituted a frightening program called Lebensborn (the Fount of Life). SS soldiers were encouraged to breed with females deemed to be of racially valuable stock. Some were German, others were women and girls of captive nations and in 1942, an even more sinister aspect of the Lebensborn program was established. The Nazis believed that there were lost seeds of the Aryan nation amidst the Slavs. In an effort to reclaim these supposed lost Germans, children were stolen from their parents and shipped to Lebensborn homes for further testing and brainwashing.
In Stolen Child, Marsha Skrypuch imagines the story of twelve-year-old Nadia Krawchuk, who has immigrated with her parents to Canada, but her re-location triggers disturbing dreams and ultimately vivid memories of another family and a girl she recalls as Gretchen. This is a powerful, moving and disturbing tale of one of the lesser known horrors of Hitler’s racial obsession.
And an excerpt:
Dark shadows dance on the scuffed white walls. Someone else’s fingernail scratches are etched around the glass doorknob and there are tiny splinters of wood fraying from the door itself. For a few trembling moments I look out at the dirt-trampled snow far below my window. Why am I a prisoner in this house?
My throat is raw from screaming, and my fingernails are bloodied from scrabbling at the doorknob. I lie on the wooden floor and stare up at the bare lightbulb. I can hear nothing but my own gasping breaths.
Shuffling. A struggle. A child screams down the hallway. A door slams shut.
Another stolen child.
