Roberta Kagan - Michal's Destiny Series
Historical Fiction | epub, mobi | 2.8mb
About the Author: Excerpt from author's website. ~ "When I was a child my mother kept a black suitcase in our basement. She forbade me to look inside. Of course as we all know the way to spark a child's curiosity is to tell them they are forbidden to do or see a particular thing. One afternoon when my mother was out, I raced down stairs. Nobody was around so I opened the suitcase. Inside I found pictures and letters in a foreign language. Later that night I asked my mother what all of it meant. She told me that she was trying to protect me by keeping the suitcase out of my reach, but since I'd found it I might as well know that she and my father both lost their entire extended families in the Holocaust. So began my obsession with the Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe. Being that my father was Romany and my mother was Jewish, I had many aspects to research and much to learn. Finally, many years later...I wrote my first novel. It is set in this period. It comes to you, along with all of my work, from my heart, with love and hopes that someday there will be understanding and tolerance among all peoples. I thank you so much for your interest in my writing."
#1 - Michal's Destiny (2016)
Siberia 1919. In a Jewish settlement a young woman is about to embark upon her destiny. Her father has arranged a marriage for her and she must comply with his wishes. She has never seen her future husband and she knows nothing about him. Michal’s destiny lies in the hands of fate. On the night of her wedding she is terrified but her mother assures her that she will be alright. Her mother explains that it is her duty to be a good wife, to give her husband children and always to obey him. However, although her mother and her mother’s mother before her had lived this way, this was not to be Michal’s destiny. Terrible circumstances would force Michal to leave her home and travel to the city of Berlin during the Weimar period where she would see and experience things she could never have imagined. Having been a sheltered religious girl she found herself lost and afraid trying to survive in a world filled with contrasts. Weimar Berlin was a time in history when art and culture were exploding, but it was also a period of depravity and perversions. Fourteen tumultuous years passed before the tides began to turn for the young girl who had stood under the canopy and said “I do” to a perfect stranger. Michal was finally beginning to establish her life However, the year was 1933, and Michal was still living in Berlin. Little did she know that Adolf Hitler was about to be appointed Chancellor of Germany and that would change everything forever. (This book ends with a cliffhanger.)
#2 - A Family Shattered (2017)
Taavi Margolis is arrested on Kristallnacht when he races out of his apartment to protect his daughter’s fiancée, Benny, who is being attacked and killed by a gang of Nazi thugs as they pillage and destroy the streets of a little Jewish neighborhood in Berlin. Taavi’s wife, Michal and their two daughters stare in horror through the window as Benny is savagely murdered. Then, they watch helplessly as the gang turns their attention to Taavi. They beat him with clubs until he is on his knees and bleeding on the pavement. When the police arrive, instead of arresting the perpetrators, they force Taavi into the back of a black automobile and take him away. Michal, pulls her daughters close to her. No one speaks but all three of them have the same unspoken questions. Will they ever see their beloved husband and Papa again? They realize, after tonight, the Anti-Semitism that is growing like a cancer all around them can no longer be ignored. Their future is uncertain. What will become of this family, what will become of the Jews? This is the story of the struggle of one Jewish family, to survive against the unfathomable threat of the Third Reich.
#3 - Watch Over My Child (2017)
After her parents are arrested by the Nazi’s, twelve-year-old Gilde Margolis is sent away from her home, her sister, and everyone she knows and loves. Alone and afraid, Gilde boards a train through the Kinder-transport bound for Britain where she will stay with strangers, in London. Over the next seven years as Gilde is coming of age, the Nazi’s will grow in power and London will be thrust into a brutal war against Hitler. Severe rationing will be imposed upon the British, while air raids will instill terror, and bombs will all but destroy the city. Against all odds, and with no knowledge of what has happened to her family in Germany, Gilde will still keep a tiny flicker of hope buried deep in her heart, that someday she will be reunited with her loved ones.
#4 - Another Breath, Another Sunrise (2017)
It’s 1945. The Nazis surrender. Hitler is dead. But, the Third Reich has already left a bloody footprint on the soul of the world.
The Margoils family and their friends Lotti and Lev Glassman were torn apart by Hitler’s hatred of the Jewish people. Now that the Reich has fallen, the survivors of the Margolis and Glassman family’s find themselves searching to reconnect with those they love.
Lotti Strombeck- Glassman, is a German woman, living in Berlin. She had been a good friend to the Margolis family. Lotti had been married to Lev, a Jewish man, who was taken away by the Gestapo and never seen again. In 1945 the curtain comes down on Hitler. But, Stalin is pushing his army towards Germany’s capital city. There is an angry mob of Russian soldiers who are on their way to punish what’s left of Hitler’s Aryan race. They will take out all of their hatred for the Third Reich on the terrified women left behind in Berlin.
Alina Margolis escapes to America with her lover at the beginning of the war. Although she has been away from Germany, her life has not been easy. Alina is strugglilng to make her way in a foreign land that doesn’t welcome Jews or Jews of German decent.
At ten years old Gilde Margolis, along with a group of other children board a train out of Germany. They are headed for Britain on the Kindertransport. Alone and frightened, Gilde must leave everyone and everything she loves behind. She is taken in by a family in London. However, London is in the throes of war. Bombs rain down on the city. Food, clothing, even bath water is rationed. As air raid sirens blare and buildings are turned to rubble, Gilde Margolis comes of age. She learns to love, to sacrifice, but most of all to survive.
This is a story of ordinary people whose lives were shattered by the terrifying ambitions of Adolf Hitler… a true madman.
Enjoy and please SEED!!!
