MADAME REBELLE
Amber Leigh Williams
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GENRE: Historical Romance
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BLURB:
Rebel. Smuggler. Spy.
Champagne, France 1943
Meet Madame Rebelle. Edmee Guillon is a smuggler. She hides people from the German troops surrounding her ancestral home. When a dying man in a German uniform seeks refuge at Maison Boutet, Edmee struggles to believe his claims that he is French. Her life, the maison and the people she loves are already at stake. Can she take the chance that this mysterious spy is who he says he is? And which side of this war is he really on?
Christian Vovk has been betrayed by someone inside his resistance organization. He knows asking the striking young war widow to hide him will put her in certain danger. However, Christian can help Edmee save as many refugees as she can. Falling in love with her will hinder his duty to the operation that brought him to her doorstep in the first place. When love and duty become inevitably tangled, will Christian sacrifice one for the other?
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Excerpt:
“Go home, Edmée. Do not come back to this part of the woods.”
As the soldier moved away, Edmée couldn’t believe it. They were letting her go?
Just like that?
Her feet tripped over one another as she moved into the trees. That was far easier than it should have been. They hadn’t asked to search her bags. They hadn’t asked what she was doing in the woods in the dark after curfew.
They’d only asked her name.
It made no sense.
She fled, her hands locked around the handles of the suitcases.
She didn’t risk taking her usual path back to Maison Boutet. She weaved and wandered for a while through brambles that caught her clothes and mud that sucked at the bottoms of her boots.
It felt like minutes…or maybe hours before she was back at her uncle’s vineyard.
The cases dangled weightily at the ends of her arms. Her knuckles had been white around them for so long, she could no longer feel them.
The maison was so dark, she failed to distinguish it from the landscape.
She looked at her muddy shoes, her trousers soaked past the ankles. The suitcases would have to be hidden, half of the contents destroyed…
She rushed into the heart of the rows. Her beacon was now the limestone mound with its rough-hewn back to the sky, the entrance to the hidden network of caves underneath the estate.
She wedged past the rocky entrance and stumbled down the steps toward the light.
At the bottom, the barrel of a pistol greeted her.
Her heart slammed into her ribs. Her knees threatened to fold.
She gaped at the man behind the gun.
Christian’s face was red and sweat-sheened. In the lantern’s low throbbing light, his features looked harsh. Moisture cloaked his bare chest like a second skin.
She’d searched him—his clothes, his personal effects… How did he get a gun?
Her lips trembled. She lifted her chin, regardless. The words were rough against her throat. “Are you going to shoot me?”
Topic: Things That Inspire You and Why
The thing that inspires me most when writing historical fiction or historical romance is women's stories – particularly those in history that were covered up or those that remain hidden.
When I first set out to write the first version of Madame Rebelle twenty years ago, I was frustrated by the lack of primary sources from women in World War II. Due to the popularity of World War II stories in the last decade, more and more women’s stories from this period have come to light or been declassified. These include the accounts of women spies of Britain's Special Operations Executive, or SOE.
Over time, these extraordinary women were all but forgotten by history or their actions were covered up to protect those who organized the SOE from criticism for sending mothers and daughters behind enemy lines. When SOE disbanded shortly after World War II, many files were destroyed. The government put a lid on a majority of SOE's activities and the male-dominated society during the post World War II period further minimized women's roles in the war.
Even France's leader, Charles de Gaulle, sought to erase SOE's presence in German-occupied France and their extraordinary efforts to encourage resistance among French citizens or build an army of maquis fighters by supplying weapons and training on the ground. While celebrating the patriotic efforts and sacrifices of his countrymen, de Gaulle threw his weight into erasing the SOE's work altogether, further silencing the voices of those who parachuted into France from British planes under the cover of night to help change the tide of war.
Due to the tireless effort of modern historians and people like SOE's own intelligence officer Vera Atkins who visited France and Germany after the war to investigate the fate of her missing agents, we now know their stories. Today, London's National Portrait Gallery recognizes SOE’s women operatives and displays their faces and their stories. The relatives of SOE’s women have seen their loved ones celebrated on an international stage for their bravery and commitment to freedom.
Whether male or female, spies captured by the Nazis during World War II were not treated as military personnel. Therefore, they were not sent to prisoner of war camps. Instead, they suffered inhumane treatment. Though they were recruited by the British government and reported directly to a branch of government created by prime minister Winston Churchill, until recent years, the British military did not distinguish SOE operatives with military status or honors.
Posthumously, some have now received the Military Cross for bravery and leadership in the field of battle as well as the Distinguished Service Order, France's Croix de Guerre, and America's Medal of Freedom. SOE agents who were killed during the war are memorialized in Westminster Abbey and Brookwood Military Cemetery. SOE agent Odette Sanson is now recognized as the most decorated spy of World War II.
It was these women's stories and more that encouraged me to write Madame Rebelle. I hope I have done the French and British women who threw off their oppressors on the ground in France in the 1940s justice.
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Amber Leigh Williams writes pulse-pounding romantic suspense, historical fiction, and contemporary romance. When she’s not writing, she enjoys traveling and being outdoors with her family and dogs. She is fluent in sarcasm and is known to hoard books like the book dragon she is. An advocate for literacy, she is an ardent supporter of libraries and the constitutional right to read.
Website: https://amberleighwilliams.com
Instagram: https://instagram.com/amberleighwilliams
Facebook: https://facebook.com/amberleighwilliamsbooks
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0030VZW2C?ccs_id=972a6661-be68-4275-b311-8f8e0b259f83
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2713894.Amber_Leigh_Williams
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/amber-leigh-williams
Madame Rebelle - Purchase Links
Amazon Ebook: https://a.co/d/b7e849S
Amazon Paperback: https://a.co/d/cIS1iOp
Amber’s Website: https://amberleighwilliams.com/madame-rebelle
Giveaway:
https://kingsumo.com/g/1kn2jy1/madame-rebelle
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