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How Angels Die is a highly dramatic novel with very strong female protagonists. The story is rife with action, conflict, and intrigue. Through it all, the characters struggle with devotion to family, country, cause, and oneself. The reader is effortlessly drawn along the storyline and feels the impact of the events surrounding the sisters. Compassion for the characters, German as well as French, runs deep and captures the imagination as coastal war-torn France comes alive on the pages.

More than a war story, How Angels Die (WGA registered/125K wds) compels its readers to face the decision-making processes that bring us to where we are and who we are. It also asks questions of the mind that expose prejudices and the eventual regret that follows.

In the darkest days of World War II, when France found itself at the mercy of a brutal dictator, the frontlines of resistance may just have been in the grasp of a few good women. In four fateful days, two remarkable sisters, Monique and Claire McCleash, battle the German occupation of their coastal French town in the early days of June 1944. While their mission is the same, their methods of upending the occupation are irreconcilably at odds. The strikingly beautiful Monique puts her body and wit to work for the Resistance by dating and sleeping with German officers, while her younger sister Claire elects instead to serve as an active combat guerilla fighter for the cause.

 

 Cherokee Talisman by David-Michael Harding Coming SOON!

An orphan boy, Totsuhwa, is taken under the wing of legendary Cherokee war chief Tsi’yugunsini, the Dragon. But even under a dragon’s wing isn’t safe when a covetous nation forms around them.

Amid the battles, Totsuhwa fights the reoccurring pain of loss until he meets Galegi, who becomes his wife. Trying to raise their son in a peace the new world won’t allow, they teach him the strictest Cherokee traditions while white assimilation, encroachment, and treachery grows. General Andrew Jackson wages war against tribes across the southeast and the toll is high. With his people gradually losing everything, Totsuhwa must find a way to save his family — and the Cherokee Nation — before all is lost.

Cherokee Talisman recreates the neglected history that existed when one nation was born and another almost died.

How Angels Die is historical fiction set in France over four days in early June 1944. The protagonists are two sisters, Monique & Claire McCleash, who are committed to the French Resistance. That commitment wears two distinct faces however – Monique dates German officers to gain military intelligence from whispered words on bedroom pillows. Claire is a machine gun totting active guerrilla fighter. The severe contrast of their approaches generates conflict between the sisters and fractures their love for each other. The fracture is widened by their parent’s positions which pit husband and wife against one another. The story is layered by other members of the Resistance as well as the German occupiers – each with wide flung agendas and their own loves and losses.

Cherokee Talisman mingles the history of the Cherokee Indian Nation with the fledgling United States between 1775 and 1821. The conflicts are plentiful when one nation is born at the expense of another. An orphaned Cherokee boy is taken under the wing of real-life legendary Cherokee War Chief, Dragging Canoe. Throughout a decades long maturity on the new nation’s frontier, the boy grows into a powerful priest whose goal is to protect and preserve his people as well as his young family. Despite his violent training, he strives to be a man of peace, but the turmoil of abandonment at the constant loss of those he loves takes him to the brink. Slave raiders push him over it and a race is on to preserve both nation and family.

Research, research, research – accuracy is imperative and also provides a hidden backdrop of education for readers

In person or generational interviews whenever possible. Read, read, read!

Eavesdropping on great characters. Create believable multi-layered people, drop them in a believable layered arena, step back and take notes as to what they do and say.

Empathy for characters – if readers don’t care about the characters, the most elaborate, thought-provoking story line will leave them wanting, empty and looking elsewhere.

Edu-tainment! History is intertwined with story (How Angels Die) in such a way the reader laughs and cries – is entertained and learns about women’s intrepid work for the French Resistance during WWII.

“I wasted all this time being against the thing I hate instead of being for the thing I love.” – Sean McCleash – Monique & Claire’s Irish father, from How Angels Die 

Mark Twain’s unfinished short story, “Conversations with Satan.” He left a wonderful door wide open!

David-Michael Harding is a life-long writer whose work has appeared in national publications and has been recognized by the international writing community for his piece, The Cats of Savone. Harding’s previous historical fiction work includesForever Beneath the Celtic Sea, detailing the perspective of the German submarine crew and the sinking of the ocean liner Lusitania. He is a former collegiate writing instructor and semi-professional football player. His experiences provide readers crushing fast-paced action.  Most of his days are spent writing from the cockpit of his sailboat, Pegasus, somewhere off the Nature Coast of Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. He is the proud parent of two grown daughters. This firsthand knowledge of the female psyche inspired the creation of sister protagonists in How Angels Die.