Annette Spratte's Blog

To celebrate my first facebook live event, The Silent Maid is reduced to half price from June 11 to 14th!
You may enter the giveaway at Meet the Authors to win one of several fabulous books and ebooks.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/meett...

Join me and four fellow authors on Saturday, June 12th at 4 pm GMT, 3 pm UK time (no idea what time in the US, probably sometime in the morning on the East coast, sorry, folks!) or watch the recording later at your convenience.
We will be talking our books, our writing journeys, our lives and answer questions from viewers.

The Silent Maid

I'm happy to announce the new release of my first historical novel "The Silent Maid".
The Silent Maid

A long story is coming full circle with this release. When the idea popped into my head in the form of a bedraggled, silent girl with reddish curls and green eyes, I had just decided to focus on my German writing, because a publishing deal with one of the leading Christian publishers in Germany had opened doors I'd never dreamed of.
All the scenes playing out in my head surrounding this silent girl were in English, however. I told her to go away. She didn't. Instead, she pestered me for so long that I finally started to write. I felt bad about it, though, and the story showed it. The atmosphere was lacking.
Upon realizing what I was doing, I decided to try a different approach. I started over in German with the intent of handing it in to my publisher. Suddenly things clicked into place and the German version has been on the market for a year now and already entered a second edition.
Having retained the rights for the English translation, I did the whole thing over again in English and am finally able to present The Silent Maid to you.
It has given me immense joy to work on the print version of this book, which is decorated with handdrawn chapter headings.
The first reviews are coming in and show that this story has the same effect on English-speaking readers as it has on Germans: you read it in one go.
The book is available on Kindle Unlimited.
So if you feel you need to get away from it all and dive into 18th century England to experience some mystery, romance and horse lore, grab a copy and escape!

Unrelenting by Marion Kummerow

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Set in pre World War II Germany, this unusual love story is bound to fascinate, especially with the knowledge that it is based on real life experiences by the author's grandparents.
Meet Wilhelm Quedlin, Q for short, who has only one love in life: science. He is an inventor, works on gas masks and echo sound systems and would happily have continued to do so, if he hadn't been arrested for industrial espionage. Even though it turns out that the accusations were false, he loses his job and his life turns into a completely different direction. In the midst of Hitler's grab for power, he meets Hilde and all of a sudden there is more to life than science.
Written in a quiet and undramatic style, the author nevertheless unfolds the historic developments in a way that won't leave the reader untouched. The suffocating atmosphere in pre-war Germany is captured perfectly, while the reader hopes and fears with the young couple.
Their personal story is expertly interwoven with well-researched occurrences such as the burning of the Reichstag building or the Olympic Games in Berlin. The craziness of Hitler's racial laws and his tight grasp on the media will certainly get readers thinking and probably answer a few questions about how all of this could have happened.
In the light of a growing right wing movement in Germany using Nazi propaganda today, this book is an important work that might help to open a few eyes and avoid a repetition of history.
Being part one of a three book series, I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.



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This I Know by Eldonna Edwards

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This must be the most touching book I have read in a very long time. I used up any number of tissues, but I wouldn't say that the story is sad or devastating. It is full of the struggle we call life, seen from the eyes of a uniquely gifted girl.
Sure, Grace's fate isn't easy. She is one of four girls in a pastor's family but feels out of place. The shadow of her twin brother's death hovers over her and burdens not only the relationship to her mother, but also to her father who desperately hoped for a son and has a hard time dealing with the loss.
For Grace, Isaak isn't gone, though. She talks to him in the closet - so that her father won't hear. He is her haven, her source of guidance and her guardian angel, but nobody understands - in the same way as they don't understand how she comes to know things she couldn't possibly know. Like her sister's appendicitis, the true molester in town and the reason her mother slips deeper and deeper into depression.
'This I know' is a quiet tale, yet full of tension that keeps you hooked. Grace's thoughts and feelings are conveyed in a simple, rich language that often made me smile because of the beautiful pictures the author draws to make things clear (e.g.: She gathers Joy and Chas and Hope close, squeezing them together like a bouquet in a too-small vase.)
Every step Grace takes, the reader takes with her. Every new challenge she faces challenges the reader, too and every rejection and misunderstanding she lives through will echo in the readers heart, leaving traces.
Grace is a pastor's daughter and much of the book revolves around the question of faith. Her father can't handle the gift she has and walks a tight-rope between driving the demons out of her he thinks are responsible for her Knowing and believing her urgent pleas for action, thus repeatedly saving family members from disaster. Both Grace and her father deeply believe in and trust God, one on an emotional level, the other on an intellectual level. Needless to say, they clash time and again. In the midst of this, the reader is forced to find their own position.
The story is brilliantly written, never slacks in pace, the characters are vivid and deep and absolutely believable to a point where you either want to be their friend or make them leave. And this does not only go for the main characters. Even the side characters lack nothing in credibility. The pictures Edwards draws with her words are still with me long after turning the last page and the truths revealed in gentle doses have certainly found their way into my heart.



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The Renegade Spy by Mark O'Neill

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Do you like James Bond? Lots of action, espionage, organized crime and top agents who always get into trouble with their superiors because they break every available rule?

You're going to love Sophie Decker. She's a German intelligence captain about to be fired, when a top-ranking official puts out his hand and gives her a job that will push her to the far edge of her professional skills.

The Skorpion, ruthless and faceless assassin, has been hired to murder the German chancellor and Decker has to stop him.

The story has everything a thriller needs: fast-moving plot, twists and turns, a cruel bad guy, an unruly heroine and a good bit of humor. By switching his point of view from assassin to Decker and back, Mark O'Neill manages to draw the reader in and feel with both of them, friend and foe alike. His characters have their flaws and edges, their strengths and their weaknesses, which makes them solid and believable.

The action is - just like James Bond - not always quite believable, but that doesn't really matter. Even though I know a single explosion will not ignite a chain reaction destroying an entire street in real life, the scene is nevertheless well-written and exciting and fits right into the story.

I'm looking forward to further adventures with Sophie Decker!



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Safe Cages: A Challenged Faith Novel by Michelle Bolanger

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


‘Safe Cages’ is an emotional roller coaster ride. No matter what your thoughts on homosexuality are, Bolanger is going to grab you with her sensitive descriptions of two human beings desperately in love with each other.
I would never have picked up this book if the story hadn’t included a Christian angle. Knowing the controversial discussions coursing through all denominations of churches all over the world, I was extremely curious what the author would make of this topic. What she made of it was an honestly raw glimpse into the hearts and souls of two men who not only face the judgmental hostility of many church-goers, but who also struggle with their own identity in the eyes of a God who clearly claims two contradictory things: Homosexuality is a sin and He loves every human being exactly the way he or she is.
Bolanger’s writing is powerful and emotional; she had me in tears more than once, aching with her protagonists. I wish more Christians had the courage to live a non-judgmental attitude like supporting character Drew and truly accept people just the way they are instead of slamming church doors in the faces of human beings who need help and support. I hope this book will be read by many people, no matter whether they are gay or straight, Christian or not, married or single or anything in between, because there is a lot of wisdom about relationships in its pages.
This book is a must-read!




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Visiting Lilly by Toni Allen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Visiting Lilly is not your average whodunit, which is to be expected when there is no body and the person accused of murder dabbles in astral travel.
So, is there a murder? While some people are deeply convinced there is, DI Jake Talbot starts snooping around and soon bumps into restrictions. Not one to be told off, he only digs harder. And what he uncovers is a plot bordering on the supernatural.
Rarely have I met a character in a book who gave me so much food for thought. He is not easily placed, this Jake Talbot. Highly sensitive to every mood around him, he snaps at people quite out of proportion with the situation. It made me wonder if he suffers from some male form of PMS. And then again he is empathic and patient when one would expect him to blow up. No, he is not a straight character, but full of contradictions resulting from his own personal pain. It’s what makes him vulnerable as well as likeable as he manoeuvres through the pits and traps twisting the plot every which way.
The touch of the supernatural lends this story a fascinating depth, making the reader wonder if such things as ghosts are what we believe them to be and if travelling outside of your body is really possible.

Toni Allen kept me turning the pages, unwilling to put the book aside. When I had to, my thoughts were chewing on the puzzles like a dog on a bone, making me hurry through my chores to get back to the story.



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With Angel's Wings by Stephanie A. Collins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


How do you review a memoir? It feels wrong to apply the same criteria I would apply to fiction. This isn’t a story someone has written to entertain the reader. This is someone’s life.
“With angel’s wings” is the brutally honest account of life with two handicapped children – one of them often closer to death than alive – and the resulting fight on many different fronts. Family, doctors, authorities, friends – there is no area of life unaffected.
If this was fiction, I would criticize the fact that problems are brought up in the course of the story which are not resolved satisfactorily. For example, one moment the situation with the children’s father escalates seemingly beyond repair and in the next moment his older daughter spends the weekend with him. How was the problem solved? I don’t know. But I do know that life is crazy; that other, more pressing things come up. While a fiction author has time to spend on happily resolving problems to make the story perfect, a special needs mom is simply glad she doesn’t have to worry about one thing anymore while five others hit her in the face. That’s what this book mirrors.
You do not read it to enjoy carefully composed literature. You read it because you want to know how anyone can survive such an ordeal. You want to know what a true hero looks like – and how deep the emotional pit is she has to crawl out of over and over again.
It will touch you, unless you have a heart of stone.




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Death Sentence! by J.A. Willoughby

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


What a crazy idea! Death Sentence is a TV show which is recorded live. The topic is rather gruesome: Executions – live as they happened! The production crew is transported back through time to the executions and they report the events to the audience at home.
I read this story half laughing, half crying. I totally got a kick out of the backstage view of a TV production doing anything at all to please the audience. And the audience is pleased by death, horror and violence. You doubt it? Well, switch on your TV and tell me I’m wrong. And that is the reason why I half cried – it is so plausible that if show people could make this happen, they would. This story spotlights the harsh and ugly truth about media, sales and advertisement.
But then there’s the season finale – the crucifixion of Christ.
I bow to the author for the courage to touch such a sensitive subject and to deal with it in such a sensitive manner. He cleverly includes the moral dilemma involved with anything to do with faith into the story while he walks the tightrope himself. Even if I do not agree with him in the end, the story is nevertheless brilliantly written.





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Hi Folks!
To celebrate the release of the Kindle edition of "The Way of Life" (and the affordable paperback version), I have done an interview with Josie and Jim, protagonists of the novel. Enjoy!

Welcome, you two! I’m so glad you could join me for this little interview. The story of your love is rather spectacular. Are you nervous about it being released to any number of people?

Jim coughs and blushes.
Josie: A bit, yes. Of course it’s very personal. But I hope that it will encourage people who have gone through troubled times like I have. I want them to know that there is hope and it’s worth it to fight your way back and not let the bad things eat you up.

Jim, you don’t seem so comfortable.
Jim: No. But I agree with Josie. People might benefit.

It was something like love at first sight for the two of you. What were your thoughts about each other after you’d met?

Jim (big grin on his face): I just knew she’s the one. I can’t even tell you why, I just knew it.
Josie (smiles at him): I wasn’t so sure at the start. I mean, I could feel he’s special, but I wasn’t ready to make a commitment. I didn’t even know if I wanted a relationship at that point. But he kept showing up and I kept wanting to see him and it was as if things were decided for me and there was nothing I could do about it. I guess he’s just irresistible.

There was a time, though, when things didn’t look so good between you.
(Strong reaction from both)
Josie: Don’t remind me of that!
Jim: It was awful. I felt like a zombie without her.
Both simultaneously: I’m so glad that’s over! (Laughter)

Your friends and family had a lot to do with it, didn’t they?
Josie: I had never before met people like that. They are so supportive and loving. They just take you at face value and don’t judge you. Meeting them was like being wrapped in a warm blanket after being out in the cold for hours. Stacey is a friend for life, truly! And Jim’s dad is one in a million, too.

And yet you didn’t let them in on your relationship for a very long time. How come?
Jim: I wasn’t sure if it would hold up. My dad and my brother have always been nagging me about girls, which was a very sore spot. I wanted to be sure before telling them. It took a while.
Josie: It was his choice. What surprised me, though, was that Lisa didn’t get wind of it. I still wonder how she could have missed it!
Jim: Yeah, my sister isn’t very perceptive. She only sees what she believes. It can be trying at times.

She was really mad at you when she found out. How’s your relationship now?
Both look sad.
Josie: She’s not really talking to either of us. I tried to make up with her, but it didn’t work. I really hope she’ll come around eventually.
Jim: I’m just glad that she behaves herself at family meetings. It would be terrible on my parents if we had an open confrontation every time we met. But she’s putting on her best face to keep the family peace.

So, what are your plans for the future?
Josie: Uh, well… (blushes)
Jim only grins.

Well?
Josie: No comment.
Jim: Well, you know, I’d love to raise a family, but I suppose I’ll have to wait a bit, yet. The lady isn’t convinced, yet. (The lady boxes his arm.)

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me.
The Way of Life