Sometimes, you love books enough that you’ve just got to “download” all the thoughts about them. Well, I’ve been promising to give my take on Stephanie Landsem’s 1930s novels and today is the day. So get comfy and listen in for a spoiler-filled gush about In a Far-Off Land and Code Name Edelweiss.
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Why Did I Love These Two 1930s Novels Set in Hollywood?
I interviewed Stephanie Landsem last summer about In a Far-Off Land HERE.
In a Far-Off Land by Stephanie Landsem
It’s 1931 in Hollywood, and Minerva Sinclaire is on the run for a murder she didn’t commit.
As the Great Depression hits the Midwest, Minerva Sinclaire runs away to Hollywood, determined to make it big and save the family farm. But beauty and moxie don’t pay the bills in Tinseltown, and she’s caught in a downward spiral of poverty, desperation, and compromise. Finally, she’s about to sign with a major studio and make up for it all. Instead, she wakes up next to a dead film star and is on the run for a murder she didn’t commit.
Only two unwilling men?Oscar, a Mexican gardener in danger of deportation, and Max, a too-handsome agent battling his own demons?can help Mina escape corrupt police on the take and the studio big shots trying to frame her. But even her quick thinking and grit can’t protect her from herself. Alone, penniless, and carrying a shameful secret, Mina faces the consequences of the heartbreaking choices that brought her to ruin . . . and just might bring her back to where she belongs.
and Code Name Edelweiss HERE.
Code Name Edelweiss by Stephanie Landsem
“What I am looking for, what I desperately need, Mrs. Weiss, is a spy.”
Adolf Hitler is still a distant rumble on the horizon, but a Jewish spymaster and his courageous spies uncover a storm of Nazi terror in their own backyard.
In the summer of 1933, a man named Adolf Hitler is the new and powerful anti-Semitic chancellor of Germany. But in Los Angeles, no-nonsense secretary Liesl Weiss has concerns much closer to home. The Great Depression is tightening its grip and Liesl is the sole supporter of two children, an opinionated mother, and a troubled brother.
Leon Lewis is a Jewish lawyer who has watched Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and the increase in anti-Semitism in America, with growing alarm. He believes Nazi agents are working to seize control of Hollywood, the greatest propaganda machine the world has ever known. The trouble is, authorities scoff at his dire warnings.
When Liesl loses her job at MGM, her only choice is to work with Leon Lewis and the mysterious Agent Thirteen to spy on her friends and neighbors in her German American community. What Leon Lewis and his spies find is more chilling and more dangerous than any of them suspected.
Code Name Edelweiss is based on a true story, unknown until recent years: How a lone Jewish lawyer and a handful of amateur spies discovered and foiled Adolf Hitler’s plan to take over Hollywood.
Don’t forget to go to Stephanie’s WEBSITE for more information about her and her books (and to bug her about another Hollywood book about Mina and Leisel… right?
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