Shedding light on a little-known aspect of the Nazi regime, this is a heartfelt, emotional novel of friendship, love, and secrets that is sure to resonate with historical fiction fans.
THE SUNFLOWER HOUSE
by Adriana Allegri
St. Martin’s Press, September 2024
In a sleepy German village, Allina Gottlieb’s life is idyllic: she works at the bookshop with her uncle, makes strudel with her aunt, and spends the weekends with her friends and fiancé. But it’s 1939, and on one fateful night, her life changes forever.
THE SUNFLOWER HOUSE is a meticulously-researched debut historical novel set at Hochland Home, part of the notorious Lebensborn Program in Nazi Germany—a real-life Handmaid’s Tale. Women of “pure” blood resided there for the sole purpose of perpetuating the Aryan population, giving birth to hundreds of babies who were then raised—and neglected—in this state-run baby factory.
With her life on the line, Allina is forced to work as a nurse in Hochland Home. Her Jewish identity must remain a secret in order for her to survive, but when she discovers the neglect occurring within the home, she is determined not only to save herself, but also the children in her care. When Allina meets Karl, a high-ranking SS officer with secrets of his own, the two must decide how much they are willing to share with each other—and how much they can stand to risk. The threads of this poignant and heartrending novel weave a tale of loss and love, friendship and betrayal, and the secrets we bury in order to save ourselves.
As a first-generation American with parents who lived in Europe during World War II, Adriana Allegri grew up on stories about how small acts of compassion and kindness saved lives. That theme shows up in everything she writes, regardless of genre. She has worked in education, as a high school teacher and program administrator; as a writer/project manager for a leading data analytics company, and as an author. 2015 was her Big Risk Year, as she left her corporate job to concentrate on writing. THE SUNFLOWER HOUSE is her first novel.
Almost every adolescent has said to parents, “You JUST don’t understand.” In THE BREAKTHROUGH YEARS, Galinsky explains why that is so often true. Galinsky’s seven-year inquiry into the adolescent brain and behavior, including conducting original studies—uniquely informed by the questions adolescents have about their own development—shows why our understanding of adolescence is out of step with the latest research and how to correct it. In this book, Galinsky identifies the most important adolescent developmental needs—including belonging, developing competence, and building an identity; presents the life skills that are emerging rapidly during adolescence—like learning to be resilient and taking on challenges; and introduces Solutions Mindset and Shared Solutions—a problem-solving mindset and process that parents and others can use to help create solutions to their adolescent’s challenging problems. This book will help parents and those who work with teens to understand adolescence not as the “I hope we can get through these years” but as the breakthrough years that they truly can be.
In 1993, five young queer kids, whose parents want them “fixed,” find themselves thrown together at a secretive “tough love” camp deep in the Utah desert. Tormented and worked to the point of collapse by hardline religious zealots intent on straightening them out, they slowly become aware that something in the mountains north of the camp is speaking to them in their dreams and that the children who return home to their families aren’t the ones they sent away.
It’s 1999 in Southeast Texas and the Evans women, owners of the only funeral parlor in town, are keeping steady with…normal business. The dead die. You bury them. End of story. That’s how Ducey Evans has done it for the last eighty years, and her progeny—Lenore the experimenter and Grace, Lenore’s soft-hearted daughter—have run Evans Funeral Parlor for the last fifteen years without drama. Ever since That Godawful Mess that left two bodies in the ground and Grace raising her infant daughter, Luna, alone. But when town gossip Mina Jean Murphy’s body is brought in for a regular burial and she rises from the dead instead, it’s clear that the Strigoi—the original vampire—are back. And the Evans women are the ones who need to fight back to protect their town. As more folks in town turn up dead, and Deputy Roger Taylor begins asking way too many questions, Ducey, Lenore, Grace, and now Luna, must take up their blades and figure out who is behind the Strigoi’s return. As the saying goes, what rises up, must go back down. But as unspoken secrets and revelations spill from the past into the present, the Evans family must face that sometimes the dead aren’t the only things you want to keep buried. A crackling mystery-horror novel with big-hearted characters and blood-soaked Southern charm, Bless Your Heart is a gasp-worthy delight from start to finish.