Blog Tour Promo Post: Marvelous by Molly Greeley

1547: Pedro Gonzales, a young boy living on the island of Tenerife, understands that he is different from the other children in his village. He is mercilessly ridiculed for the hair covering his body from head to toe. When he is kidnapped off the beach near his home, he finds himself delivered by a slave broker into the dangerous and glamorous world of France’s royal court. There “Monsieur Sauvage,” as he is known, learns French, literature, and sword fighting, becoming an attendant to the French King Henri II and a particular favorite of his queen, the formidable Catherine de’ Medici. Queen Catherine considers herself a collector of unusual people and is fascinated by Pedro… and determined to find him a bride.

Catherine Raffelin is a beautiful seventeen-year-old girl whose merchant father has fallen on hard times and offers up his daughter to Queen Catherine. The queen will pay his debts, and his daughter will marry Monsieur Sauvage.

Catherine meets Pedro for the first time on their wedding day. Barely recovered from the shock of her father’s betrayal, she soon finds herself christened “Madame Sauvage” by the royal courtiers, and must learn to navigate this strange new world, and the unusual man who is now her husband.

A mesmerizing novel set in the French royal court of Catherine de’ Medici during the Renaissance, which recreates the touching and surprising true story behind the Beauty and the Beast legend, from the acclaimed author of The Clergyman’s Wife and The Heiress. Gorgeously written, heartbreaking and hopeful, Marvelous is the portrait of a marriage, the story of a remarkable, resilient family, and an unforgettable reimagining of one of the world’s most beloved fairy tales.

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Excerpted from the book MARVELOUS by Molly Greeley. Copyright © 2023 by Molly Greeley. From William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.


MARVELOUS
CAPODIMONTE, ITALY
1618

Catherine

It happens in the trembling time between night and day, long after the passing of midnight but well before the cock wakes to crow. The waiting hours. The witching hours. A fitting time for a man long assumed to be born of witchcraft to die.

Many years ago, Catherine spent these same hours with her newborn babes, all four of whom wakened without fail at the same gray and blurry time of morning-night, mouths opening and throats keening for the breast; and then, when their hunger was sated, their eyes opening too, looking around at the darkness. Though she is past sixty now, Catherine’s arms still remember the weight of each infant; the center of her back, the ache of rocking. Her ears and throat hold the memory of cradle songs passed down to her by her mother, which devolved into broken, tuneless humming as the hours passed, and still her children stayed awake and watchful, as if to keep their mother safe from monsters in the night. That frayed-string feeling of waiting for the sun to paint the horizon all the colors of peaches, when at last they consented to sleep again and she, too, could finally rest.

She does not want to rest now. She woke after a short sleep, as she has so often before, with a fragment of a dream ready on her lips, a fragment that unthreaded itself and slithered away when she saw how he exhaled, eyes closed, through his open mouth, and heard the great pauses between one breath and the next. And then she could not sleep at all, waiting with him through the hours for his final exhalation.

Her mind skims now from those early days of motherhood—days that lasted for years and years, when she sometimes hated the man beside her for the completeness of his sleep, his deep insensibility to the world while he dreamed—it skims from there to the early days of love, when they lay together and fought sleep just for joy of one another’s wakeful presence, and for irrational fear of the parting sleep would bring. Now it is only she who struggles to stay awake, though her body subtly shakes with weariness and her eyelids draw down and down, like those of a corpse being gently closed by loving fingers.

A little earlier, she pushed open the window curtains, and in the light of the moon Petrus lies stiller than he ever did in sleep, and ageless, the silver of moonbeams brightening the silver of all his hair. Catherine lies upon her side facing him, facing his stillness. Holds herself nearly as still.

Soon enough will come peach-tinted morning, and the necessity of announcing his leaving to their children and grandchildren. Madeleine and Henri, asleep now in their own homes, will wake and come to see their father, only to find instead the sealike sadness of his loss; and it will be Catherine who must comfort them. Then the washing of his body, and the wrapping. She will tuck bay leaves and rosemary sprigs between his body and his shroud to keep back the creeping scent of decay.

She is strangely aware of her fingers now, at their fleshy tips, a restless sensation. Instinctively, she reaches for Petrus to alleviate it, puts her hand over his where it rests at his side. Moves her whole hand lightly up and down the length of his, that she might feel the familiar whisper against her palm of the fine hairs that cover the backs of his hands and creep up the tops of his fingers. His nails have grown long and ragged, and guilt stuffs her throat with sand. She must trim them before anyone else sees.

MADELEINE IS PREDICTABLY WET in her grief when she arrives to find her parents hand-clasped, her father’s fingers growing stiff. With a wail she clutches at Catherine’s legs like the child she has not been for decades, and Catherine pulls herself from the muck of the sleep that must have closed over her despite her best efforts. She sits, releasing Petrus’s hand without thinking, gathers her daughter into her arms and onto her lap, where Madeleine’s full-grown weight is both burden and delight. Catherine presses their cheeks together, furrowed flesh to long soft hair, and lets her daughter cry.

But after a moment, she turns her head to look back at Petrus. Her own grief rushes up very suddenly from her chest, catching in the slender opening of her throat, and she makes a terrible strangled sound, and would reach for him again, would apologize for letting him go at all; but no—there is no need. For she can see, in the bright of morning: he is more obviously gone than he was while they lay together in the in-between.


THE REST OF THE day is predictable, and predictably exhausting. Catherine prepares Petrus’s body with help from Madeleine, along with Girolama, her son Henri’s wife. Girolama is silent in the face of the weeping of her sister by marriage, Madeleine’s facial hair flattening against her cheeks as if she has been standing in a pour of rain.

Catherine clips her husband’s fingernails and toenails, washes and combs his body, listens to her daughter’s mournful wails, and feels detached from all of it, her earlier grief stuffed back down deep among her dark insides. Never before, in all the times she prepared someone she loved at death, has she felt so far away from her task, her hands working entirely on their own. She thinks of Maman, over whose body she wept as helplessly as Madeleine weeps now for her father. Of Ercole, whom she cradled in his shroud, swaying and singing to him as she had every night of his brief life, raising her voice in spikes of fury to drown the voices of anyone who tried to take him from her. Of Henri and Girolama’s dear Giacomo, dead before his second birthday, how terrible, how unnatural, it seemed to stitch his shroud closed over his round-faced sweetness. The feet, which carried him running before he was twelve months old, stilled; the voice, which was so joyfully raucous, silenced.

Every single time, a knife stab. But she was there in every instance. When it was Girolama who would not release her son, who stroked his softly furred back for hours as if he merely lay sleeping, it was Catherine who kept others from disturbing her. When it was her own child dead, she was present for every slicing wound. She honored them with her pain.

She pauses, palms pressed to the tall arches of Petrus’s feet, and breathes to anchor herself here, in these last moments with this well-known flesh, though already it begins to turn unfamiliar as death makes itself comfortable. She tries to feel, knowing that if she does not, she will wake in the night reaching for his toes with her own.

The last thing she does, once all the rest is finished, is to take up a sharp knife, the best of the kitchen knives, with its handle of bone and its blade whetted to a keen cutting edge. Petrus kept it so for her, knowing that it was her favorite knife, that it sliced through meat like a sword through an enemy. She takes the knife now, feels the familiar weight of it in her hand, and looks at him where he lies. Soon he will be stitched into a shroud, but now he is there for her to look at, and she takes her time choosing where to cut. His head, she decides at last; his head, as if he were any other man, as if it were the only possible place to do this. She moves to his head, looks not into his face but at the hair that grows so thickly from his scalp; takes a soft lock of it between her fingers; slices it off with the knife he sharpened for her when he sat there, just there beside the hearth, the grating sound of the whet stone, the calm concentration on his face. So many nights.

She puts the knife carefully away and ties the lock with a bit of ribbon, knotting it firmly, that not a single hair might escape.

CATHERINE LIES EASILY to the priest when he comes to sit with them in their grief. How terribly unfortunate, he says, gently admonishing that she was too stricken by shock and sadness to send for him in time to administer the last rites.

Yes, Catherine hears herself say. I should have, Padre.

In this one thing, she honors her husband. If she cannot manage tears or wailing, she has at least kept the church’s hand from his brow, though it would have given her some comfort to know he was blessed before passing on to whatever awaits the dead. Heaven, she still likes to think, though Petrus had reason to think otherwise. Wherever he is now, she imagines his quick, conspiratorial smile at her complicity in keeping the priest from him, and something bittersweet fills her mouth.

THE SUN FALLS IN a brilliant flare to sleep, and, together with Madeleine, Catherine sits beside her husband’s body. Untouched plates of white beans in herbs and oil sit congealing beside them both, left there by Girolama. Earlier, Henri came to sit beside his father, his face running with tears as easily as Madeleine’s. But he went away again to his own home, leaving the women alone with the body.

Her other daughter should be here, Catherine thinks. The thought is a little knife-stab of its own. Antoinette—

But she cannot think of her youngest girl just now. She will not.

Instead, she sings. Her voice is not what it once was, age stretching it thinner even than it was when she sang to their children, but Petrus would not mind. After a moment, Madeleine joins her, Madeleine who never sings, for embarrassment of how her voice cracks like plaster on both the highest and the lowest notes. The song is a ninnananna that Catherine’s mother used to sing to her when she was small, an old, old tune that must have soothed thousands of babes to sleep. The firelight flickers lower and lower, and they sing in deepening shadow until their voices grow hoarse, heedless of the rasping, with no one but themselves and the dead to hear it. When at last they fall silent, the creases of Catherine’s face are filled, like the many branches of a river, with wet.

“Another,” Madeleine says, and then begins without awaiting a reply, her voice straining to reach like a child wavering on her toes, fingers stretching toward the sugar on a high shelf. Catherine pauses a moment, listening. From far away, she almost hears something, sweet and improbable as songbirds after dark—the echoing voices of their collective lost. Even Petrus, in that instant, seems about to stir.

There! There is Antoinette, who shouted even when she meant to whisper; Giacomo’s trill; Maman’s hum. Papa, too, who never sang, only spoke, long and often; but whose voice in music Catherine knows all the same. All of them a distant, joyous, discordant racket.

Madeleine trips a little on a note, as if perhaps she can hear them, too.

SHE IS VEILED DURING the funeral Mass, pretending to watch and listen to the priest from behind a skim of gossamer black. This is to the good, for the film of it hides the wandering of her thoughts, which dart like startled sheep from one side of her mind to the other. Long ago, at the beginning of their marriage, she had clutched at the daily Mass, which all courtiers were expected to attend, as if it were a rope thrown as she slipped beneath a roiling sea. Those mornings the rituals and rhythms she had known since infanthood were soothing, as soothing as her mother’s songs when she was a child.

Now, she does not want to hear the priest’s intonations, does not want to think about the reason they are here; about Petrus’s death. She will dissolve if she does, all her bones turning liquid, her spine running in drips down the bench and making a murky pool on the floor.

She thinks instead of things that make her smile, safe, behind her veil, in the knowledge that no one can see her clearly. Petrus’s love of melon, eager as a little boy’s, though the juice ran sticky down his beard. How he taught her to read, long after their children were grown, in spite of her protests that there was no reason, no point; and how he kept his frustrations with her slowness at fifty tucked into his cheeks like a squirrel with a walnut, too big to be hidden, though he tried anyway. The way he slept, noisily, all rumbles—he made her think of a bear in its winter cave; though that was not a comparison he would have appreciated, and so she kept it safe inside herself. She liked his rumbles, once she knew him better, just as she learned to like, to treasure, the soft hairy bristle over his flesh and muscle and bone. Strange to think how two people can be such utter strangers to one another and then so intertwined, as threads of silk weave together to make cloth. The cloth of their life together has unraveled in the days since his death, and she’d have thought she would unravel, as well, all the fibrous parts of her pulling in opposite directions until there was nothing left. But here she still is.

Catherine looks down at her hands. They are still soft, though the skin now is lightly spotted, stretching thin as onionskins across the backs. She remembers when Petrus would not take her hands for fear of frightening her; remembers when she was frightened. It seems so long ago—another man, another woman. Another life entirely.

THE FUNERAL MASS GOES on and on, the warmth of the day bringing out the odors in people’s clothing. Or perhaps Catherine’s mind is drifting, perhaps she is gone from this place, gone away to someplace where time moves differently, where hours stretch slow and aching in the space of ten breaths here in the church. Under the concealing fall of her veil, she holds a little pouch of fawn leather, unadorned, the throat of it pulled tight by a darker leather thong. The lock of Petrus’s hair is inside, and she cups the bag between both palms, a prayer.

Also in the bag is a folded bit of paper, creased, the ink faded. She has nothing left of her mother but the thimble from her sewing kit; even the hair powder she had once used, one of the few things that escaped being sold after the sinking of Papa’s ship, is long gone. Catherine had brought that powder, which smelled so like her mother that it made her weep, with her to Château de Fontainebleau, to her wedding; she wore it in her hair until none of it was left. And though she made more powder, doing her best to reproduce her mother’s recipe, it never smelled quite the same.

But she does have this one bit of her father—this letter, this paper, his words, his slanted hand, his love in ink. When she cups the bag, she can hear the paper rustle, just a little. She inhales, breathing in again the bodily odors of all the people around her, and oh, how she longs suddenly to be small again, to have known no sorrow, to have her father smiling into her face, palms full of rose petals that would one day be turned into scents for women’s wrists and throats, into powder, like Maman’s, for their hair. Smell, ma petite belle. Breathe them in. Would your mother like them?

She rises at the end of the interminable Mass, all the words and rhythms that have comforted her all her life, and which she clung to so desperately for their familiarity in the midst of so much overwhelming strangeness when she arrived at court as a bride, sounding hollow now as poorly cast bells. Henri reaches her first from his seat a little down the bench, and offers her his arm; his wife remained behind at their home, laying out the food.

Catherine finds herself faltering a little as they walk, round stones in the dirt street catching under her feet. She tightens her grip on her son’s arm, and feels really old for the first time in her life. Madeleine detaches herself from her husband and takes Catherine’s other arm in a firm grip; together, her two children steer her toward the funeral feast.

The other mourners straggle out behind them, mumbling to keep their voices at an appropriate, funereal level. There are more of them than Catherine expected. Most, she suspects, will have come because Petrus enjoyed the patronage of the Duke of Parma, under whose protection the whole village rests. Only a few have come because they knew and loved Petrus himself; but then, he made himself difficult to know.

She finds herself looking back, as if her other children might have joined them—Ercole floating alongside from wherever it is the dead do go, Antoinette, grown now and richly dressed, following at a sedater pace than she would have set in childhood. Come from wherever she is now.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MOLLY GREELEY earned her bachelor’s degree in English, with a creative writing emphasis, from Michigan State University, where she was the recipient of the Louis B. Sudler Prize in the Arts for Creative Writing. She lives with her husband and three children in Traverse City, Michigan.

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HTP Winter Reads Blog Tour (Mystery & Thriller Edition) Promo Post: It's One of Us by J.T. Ellison

From the New York Times bestselling author comes this twisting, emotionally layered thriller about a marriage torn apart when the police arrive at an infertile couple’s door and reveal the husband’s son is the prime suspect in a murder. The perfect blend of exhilarating suspense and issue-driven book club fiction.

Everybody lies. Even the ones you think you know best of all . . .

Olivia Bender designs exquisite home interiors that satisfy the most demanding clients. But her own deepest desire can’t be fulfilled by marble counters or the perfect rug. She desperately wants to be a mother. Fertility treatments and IVF keep failing. And just when she feels she’s at her lowest point, the police deliver shocking news to Olivia and her husband, Park.

DNA results show that the prime suspect in a murder investigation is Park’s son. Olivia is relieved, knowing this is a mistake. Despite their desire, the Benders don’t have any children. Then comes the confession. Many years ago, Park donated sperm to a clinic. He has no idea how many times it was sold—or how many children he has sired.

As the murder investigation goes deeper, more terrible truths come to light. With every revelation, Olivia must face the unthinkable. The man she married has fathered a killer. But can she hold that against him when she keeps such dark secrets of her own?

This twisting, emotionally layered thriller explores the lies we tell to keep a marriage together--or break each other apart . . .

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1

THE WIFE

There is blood again.

Olivia forces away the threatening tears. She will not collapse. She will not cry. She will stand up, square her shoulders and flush the toilet, whispering small words of benediction toward the life that was, that wasn’t, that could have been.

She will not linger; she will not acknowledge the sudden sense of emptiness consuming her body. She will not give this moment more than it deserves. It’s happened before, too many times now. It will happen again, her mind unhelpfully provides.

There is relief in this pain, some sort of primitive biological response to help ease her heavy heart. Olivia has never lied to herself about her feelings about having a child. She wants this, she’s sure of it. Wants the experience, wants to be able to speak the same language as her sisters in the fertility arts, her friends who’ve already birthed their own. And she loves the idea of being pregnant. Loves the feelings of that early flush of success—the soreness and tingling in her breasts, the spotty nausea, the excitement, the fatigue. Loves remembering that moment when she realized she was pregnant the first time.

She’d known even before she took the test. She could feel the life growing inside her. Feel the quickening pulse. A secret she held in her heart, managing several hours with just the two of them, alone in their nascent lives. Every room of the house looked new, fresh, dangerous. Sharp corners and glass coffee tables, no, no, those would have to be tempered, replaced. The sun glancing off the breakfast table—too bright here, the spot on the opposite side would be best for a high chair. The cat, snoozing in the window seat—how was she going to take an interloper? The plans. The plans.

After a carefully arranged lunch, fresh fruit and no soft cheeses, she’d driven to the bookstore for a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting, accepted the sweet congratulations of the bookseller—think, a complete stranger knew more than her family, her husband. She tied the plastic stick with its beautiful double pink lines inside two elaborate bows—one pink, one blue—and gave it to Park after an elegant dinner.

The look on his face—pride and fear and terror and joy, all mingled with desire—when he realized what she was saying. He’d been struck dumb, could only grin ear to ear and pat her leg for the first twenty minutes.

So much joy between them. So much possibility.

Olivia replayed that moment, over and over, every time she got pregnant. It helped chase away the furrowing, the angles and planes of Park’s forehead, cheek, chin, as they collapsed into sorrow when she’d miscarried the first time. And the next. And the next. Every time she lost their children, it was the same, all played out on Park’s handsome face: exaltation, fear, sorrow. Pity.

No, the being pregnant part was idyllic for her, albeit terribly brief. It’s only that she doesn’t know how she feels about what happens ten months hence, and the lifetime that follows. The stranger that comes into being. But that’s normal—at least, that’s what everyone tells her. All women feel nervous about what comes next. Her ambivalence isn’t what’s killing her babies. She can’t help but feel it’s her fault for not being certain to her marrow what she wants. That God is punishing her for being cavalier.

Of course, this internal conversation is moot. There is blood. Again.

She hastily makes her repairs—the materials are never far away. If she stashed the pads and tampons away in the hall cabinet, it would be bad luck. Too optimistic.

Not like they’re having any luck anyway. Six pregnancies. Six miscarriages. IUIs and IVF. Needles and hormones and pain, so much pain. More than anyone should have to bear.

With a momentary glance at the crime scene in the toilet, she depresses the handle.

“Goodbye,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

Olivia brushes her teeth, then pulls a comb through her glossy, prenatal-enriched locks, rehearsing the breakfast conversation she must now have.

How does she tell Park she’s failed, yet again, to hold the tiny life inside her?

Downstairs, it is now just another morning, no different from any over the past several years. Just the two of them, getting ready for the day.

The television is on in the kitchen, tuned to the local morning show. Park whistles as he whisks eggs in a bright red bowl. Park’s breakfasts are legendary. Savory omelets, buckwheat blueberry pancakes, veggie frittatas, yogurts and homemade granola—you name it, he makes it. Olivia handles dinner. If she cooks three nights out of seven, she considers that a success. They eat like kings in the morning and paupers at night, and they love it.

She pauses at the door, watching him bustle around. He is already dressed for work, jeans and a button-down, black lace-up brogues. His “office” is in the backyard, in a shed Olivia converted for his use. A former—reformed—English professor on a semipermanent sabbatical, Park has launched a second career ghostwriting psychological thrillers. He claims to love the anonymity of it, that he can work so close to home, and the money is good. Enough. Not obscene, but enough. They’ve been able to afford four rounds of IUI and two in vitros so far. And as he says, writing is the perfect career for a man who wants to be a stay-at-home dad. There’s no reason for him to go back to teaching. Not now.

A pang in her heart, echoed by a sharp cramp in her stomach. They are throwing everything away. She is throwing everything away. This round of IVF, she only produced a few retrievable eggs, and this was their last embryo.

My God, she’s gotten clinical. She’s gotten cold. Babies. Not embryos. There are no more frozen babies. Which means she’ll have to do it all again, the weeks-long scientific process of creating a child: the suppression drugs, the early morning blood tests, the shots, the trigger, the surgery, the implantation. The rage and fear and pain. Again.

The money. It costs so, so much.

She has frozen at the edge of the kitchen, thoughts roiling, and Park senses her there, turns with a wide smile. The whisk clicks against the bowl in time with her heartbeat.

“How are my darlings feeling this morning? Mama and bebe hungry?”

She is saved from blurting out the truth—mama no more, bebe is dead—by the ringing of the doorbell.

Park frowns. “Who is here so early? Watch the eggs, will you?”

Even chickens can do what she cannot.

It’s infuriating. House cats escape into the woods and sixty days later purge themselves of tiny blind beings. Insects, birds, rats, rabbits, deer, reproduce without thought or hindrance.

Nearly four million women a year—a year!—manage to give birth.

But not her.

She’s not depressed, really, she’s not. She’s come to terms with this. It happens. Today will be a bad day, tomorrow will be better. They will try again. It will all be okay.

Mechanically, Olivia moves to the stove, accepts the wooden spatula. Park disappears toward the foyer, shoulders broad and waist nearly as trim as the day she met him. She will never get over his handsomeness, his winning personality. Everyone loves Park. How could you not? He is perfect. He is everything Olivia is not.

The television is blaring a breaking news alert, and she turns her attention to it, grateful for something, anything, to focus on beside the intransigent nature of her womb and the fear her husband will abandon her. The anchor is new, from Mississippi, with a voice soft as honey. Tupelo? No, Oxford, Olivia remembers; Park took her to a quaint bookstore there on the square one summer, long ago.

“Sad news this morning, as it has been confirmed the body found in Davidson County earlier this week belongs to young mother Beverly Cooke. Cooke has been missing for three months, after she was last seen going for a hike at Radnor Lake. Her car was found in the parking lot, with her purse and phone inside. Metro Nashville Police spokesperson Vanda Priory tells Channel Four Metro is working with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and Forensic Medical to determine her cause of death. The Cooke family released a statement a few minutes ago. ‘Thank you to everyone who has helped bring Beverly home. We will have more information on her burial soon. We ask for privacy during this difficult time.’ Metro now turns their attention to identifying a suspect. In this morning’s briefing, Homicide Detective William Osley stated that Metro has a lead and will be pursuing it vigorously. Next up, time to break into the cedar closet, it’s finally sweater weather!”

Olivia sighs in regret. That poor woman. Like everyone in Nashville, Olivia has followed the case religiously. To have a young mother—the kind of woman she’s so desperate to mold herself into— disappear into thin air from a safe, regularly traveled, popular spot, one Olivia herself hikes on occasion, has been terrifying. She knows Beverly Cooke, too, albeit peripherally. They were in a book club together a few years ago. Beverly was fun. Loud. Drank white wine in the kitchen of the house and gossiped about the neighbors. Never read the book.

Olivia stopped going after a few meetings. It was right before she’d started her first official fertility treatments, had two miscarriages behind her, was hopped up on Clomid and aspirin, and all anyone could do was talk babies. Beverly had just weaned her first and was drunk for the first time in two years. She alternated between complaining and cooing about the trials and joys of motherhood. Olivia couldn’t take it, this flagrant flaunting of the woman’s success. She stood stock still in the clubhouse kitchen, fingers clenching a glass of Chardonnay, envisioning the myriad ways she could murder Beverly. Cracking the glass on the counter’s edge and swiping it across Beverly’s pale stalk of a neck seemed the most expedient.

Honestly, she wanted to murder them all, the sycophantic breeders who took their ability to procreate for granted. They had no idea what she was going through. How she was tearing apart inside, month after month. How she felt the embryos detach and knew it was over. How Park’s face went from joy to disdain every time.

Some people wear their scars on the outside.

Some hide them deep, and never let anyone in to see them.

Olivia is still staring at the screen, which is blaring a commercial for car insurance, processing, remembering, fists balled so tightly she can feel her nails cutting the skin, when she hears her husband calling her name.

“Olivia?” His voice is pitched higher than normal, as if he’s excited, or scared.

Park enters the kitchen from the hall between the dining room and the butler’s pantry.

“Honey, they found Beverly—” she starts. But her words die in her throat when she sees two strangers, a man and a woman, standing behind him, people she knows immediately are police officers just by their wary bearing and shifting eyes that take in the whole room in a moment, then settle on her appraisingly.

“I know,” Park says, coming to her side, shutting off the gas. She’s burned the eggs; a sulfurous stench emanates from the gold-encrusted pan. He takes the spatula from her carefully. “It’s been on the news all morning. Liv, these detectives need to talk to us.”

“About?”

The man—stocky, slick smoky-lensed gold glasses, perfectly worn-in cowboy boots and a leather jacket over a button-down—takes a small step forward and removes his sunglasses. His eyes are the deepest espresso and hold something indefinable, between pity and accusation. It’s as if he knows what she is thinking, knows her uncharitable thoughts toward poor dead Beverly.

“Detective Osley, ma’am. My partner, Detective Moore. We’ve been working Beverly Cooke’s case. I understand you knew her? Our condolences for your loss.”

Olivia cuts her eyes at Park. What the hell has he been saying to them?

“I don’t know her. Didn’t. Not well. We were in a book club together, years ago. I don’t know what happened to her. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.”

“Oh, we understand. That’s not why we’re here.” Osley glances at his partner. The woman is taller than he is, graceful in the way of ex–ballet dancers even in her street clothes, with a long, supple neck, hooded green eyes devoid of makeup and blond hair twisted into a thick no-nonsense bun worn low, brushing the collar of her shirt.

“Why are you here, exactly?” Olivia asks.

Park frowns at her tone. She’s come across too sharp, but my God, what she’s already handled this morning would break a lesser woman.

“It’s about our suspect in the Cooke case. Can we sit down?”

Olivia reigns in her self-loathing fury and turns on the charm. The consummate hostess act always works. Park has taught her that. “Oh, of course. Can I get you some coffee? Tea? We were making breakfast. Can we offer you some eggs, or a muffin? I have a fresh pan here—”

“No, ma’am, we’re fine,” Moore demurs. “Let’s sit down and have a chat.”

Olivia has a moment of sheer freak-out. Was it Park? Had he killed Beverly Cooke? Was that why they wanted to talk, because he was a suspect? If he was a suspect, would the police sit down with them casually in the kitchen? Wouldn’t they want something more official? Take him to the station? Did they need to call a lawyer? Her mind was going fifty thousand miles an hour, and Park was already convicted and in prison, and she was so alone in the big house, so lonely, before she reached a hand to pull out the chair.

She needs to knock off the true crime podcasts. Her husband is not a murderer. He is incapable of that kind of deceit.

Isn’t he?

Sometimes she wonders.

“Nice kitchen,” Osley says.

“Thank you.”

Olivia loves her kitchen. It is the model for all her signature looks. Airy, open, white cabinets with iron pulls, leathered white marble counters. A black granite–topped island just the right size for chopping and serving, light spilling in from the big bay window. A white oak French country table with elegant cane-backed chairs. It was the heart of her home, the heart of her life with Park.

Now, though, it is simply the site of his greatest betrayal. Forevermore, from this morning—with the burned eggs and the somber police and Park’s face whiter than bone—until the end of her tenure here, and even then, in remembrance, she would look at this precious place with fury and sadness for what could have been. The ghosts of the life they were supposed to have clung to her, suckled her spirit like a babe at her breast never would. Everywhere she looked were echoes of the shadow existence she was supposed to be living. Here, a frazzled mother, smiling despite her fatigue at the children she’d created. There, a loving father, always ready to lend a hand tossing a ball or helping with homework. And look, a trio of towheaded boys and a soft blonde princess girl, the teasing and laughter of their mealtimes. How the table would seem to grow smaller as the boys got older and took up more space. The girlfriends came, the boyfriends. The emptiness when it was just the two of them again, the children grown with their own lives, the table bursting at holidays only. The grandchildren, happiness and racket, the noise and the joy creeping out from the woodwork again.

She is alone. She will always be alone. She will not have this life. She will not have this dream.

Park made it so.

As the detectives continue to speak, softly, without rancor, and her world splinters, Olivia hardens, compresses, shrinks. She watches her husband and holds on to one small thought.

I have the power to destroy you, too. Dear God, give me the chance.

Excerpted from It’s One of Us @ 2023 by JT Ellison, used with permission by MIRA Books.

About the Author

Photo Credit: Kidtee Hello Photography

J.T. Ellison is the NYT and USA Today bestselling author of more than 20 novels, and the EMMY-award winning co-host of A WORD ON WORDS, Nashville's premier literary show. With millions of books in print, her work has won critical acclaim, prestigious awards, and has been published in 26 countries. Ellison lives in Nashville with her husband and twin kittens.

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HTP Winter Reads Blog Tour (Rom-Com Edition) Promo Post: End of Story by Kylie Scott

Fans of bestsellers like In Five Years will fall for this unexpected love story about a woman and her contractor who discover a divorce decree with their names on it … dated ten years in the future.

When Susie inherits a charming fixer-upper from her aunt, she’s excited to start living her best HGTV-life. But when she opens the door to find that her contractor is none other than her ex’s (very good looking) best friend Lars—the same man who witnessed their humiliating public break-up 6 months ago—she isn’t exactly eager to have him around. But, beggars can't be choosers and the sooner the repairs are done, the sooner she can get back to grudgingly accepting the single life.

Things go from awkward to unbelievable when Lars knocks down a bedroom wall and finds a divorce certificate dated ten years from now…with both their names on it. It couldn’t possibly be real...could it? As Susie and Lars try to unravel the document’s origins, the impossibility of a spark between them suddenly doesn’t seem so far-fetched. But is any kind of relationship between them doomed before it’s ever begun.

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CHAPTER ONE

“This is awkward.”

The big blond man standing on my doorstep blinked.

“How are you, Lars?” I gave him my very best fake smile. “Nice to see you.”

“Susie. It’s been what…five, six months?” Setting down his toolbox, he gave me an uneasy smile. It was more of a wince, really. Because the last time we saw each other was not a good night. Not for me, at least.

“Something like that,” I said.

“This your new place?” He nodded at the battered arts and crafts cottage. “The office said you had some water damage you wanted to start with?”

“Yeah, about that. I was told Mateo would be doing the work.”

“Family emergency.”

“Oh.”

He gazed down at me with dismay. The man was your basic urban Viking marauder, as his name suggested. Longish blonde hair, white skin, blue eyes, short beard, tall and built. I was average height and he managed to loom over me just fine. In his mid-thirties and more than a little rough around the edges. Nothing like his sleek and slick bestie. An asshole whose continued existence I’d prefer to be reminded of never. But we don’t always get what we want.

I took a deep breath and pulled myself together. “Why don’t you come in and I’ll show you…”

“Okay.”

“Don’t worry about taking your boots off. The shag carpet isn’t staying.”

Heavy footsteps followed me through the living room and into the dining room where we turned left to enter the small hallway. From this point we had two options, the bathroom or the back bedroom. We headed for the latter.

“The water was getting in through a crack in the window for who knows how long,” I explained. “I only inherited the place recently. There were all these boxes piled up in here. No one could even see it was an issue.”

He grunted.

“I spent the first month just sorting through things and clearing the place out.”

Beneath the window frame, a large stain spread across the golden-flecked wallpaper. As if it weren’t ugly enough to begin with. That was the thing about my aunt Susan; she wasn’t a big fan of change. The two-bedroom cottage had belonged to her parents and everything had pretty much been left untouched after they passed. Apart from the addition of Susan’s junk. Which meant that while the wallpaper and carpet were from the 1970’s, the bathroom was from the 1940’s, and the kitchen cabinets from the 1930’s. At least, that’s what I’d been told. The place was like an ode to 20th century interior design. The good, and the bad.

He got down on one knee, inspecting the damage. “The bottom of this window frame is warped and needs replacing.”

“Can you do that?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I need to have a look behind here. You attached to the wallpaper?”

“Heck no.”

He almost smiled.

“The sooner I can repaint and get new flooring down, the better.”

Nothing from him. A knife appeared from the tool box, sharp-pointed with jagged teeth. He punched the blade through the drywall with ease and started cutting into the wall.

“How is he?” I asked the dreaded question. Curiosity was the worst. “Enjoying London?”

“Yeah,” was all he said.

“And how’s Jane?”

“We’re not together anymore.”

Not a surprise. Lars went through various girlfriends during the year I’d been with what’s-his-face. Neither he nor his friend were down with commitment. Which was fine if you just wanted to have fun. But Jane was a keeper, smart with a wicked sense of humor. Lars definitely had a type. All of his girlfriends were petite, perfect dolls who behaved in a ladylike manner. The opposite of buxom, loudmouthed me.

He pried a square of drywall loose. “You thinking of living here permanently or flipping and selling the place, or what?”

“Haven’t decided.”

“Great location. A bit of work and it’d probably be worth a lot of money,” he said, keeping the conversation on the business at hand. As was good and right.

Using the flashlight on his phone, he inspected the cavity. The man was all handyman chic. Big ass boots, jeans, and a faded black tee. All of it well-worn. And the way his blue jeans conformed to his thick thighs and the curves of his ass was something. Something I hadn’t meant to notice, but oh well, these things happened. Maybe it was the way his tool belt framed that particular part of his anatomy. For a moment, I couldn’t look away. I was butt struck. Which was both wrong and bad. It would not be smart for me to notice this man in the sexual sense. Though it was nice to know my thirst meter wasn’t broken.

I don’t know if Lars and I were ever really friends. We had, however, been friendly. Though that was romantic relationships for you. One moment you had all of these awesome extra people in your life and the next moment they’re gone.

I tugged on the end of my dark ponytail. An old nervous habit.

“At this stage, it looks like the damage is only superficial,” Lars said. “These two sections of drywall have to go. Once I’ve done that, I’ll have a better idea of what we’re dealing with.”

“Okay.”

“But it wouldn’t surprise me if some or all of that one needs replacing too.” He pointed to the wall the bedroom shared with the bathroom. “See how there’s bubbling along the joins of the wallpaper there?”

“Right.”

“Do I have your approval to get started?”

I nodded.

None of this was exactly unexpected. Old buildings might have soul, but they could also have heavy upkeep. Renovations cost big bucks. While my savings were meagre, lucky for this hundred year old house, my aunt left me some money. Which was a point of contention for a few of my family members. Like any of them had time for Aunt Susan when she was alive. Besides being my namesake, she was also the black sheep of the family. A little too weird for some, I guess. But weird has always been a trait that I admired.

“I’m going to make myself coffee,” I said. “Would you like some?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“How do you take it?”

“White. No sugar.”

“You’re sweet enough, huh?” And the moment those words were out of my mouth, I knew I’d made a mistake. Talk about awkward.

He snorted, then said, “Something like that.”

*

Lars didn’t mess around. By the time I returned, he’d removed the first two panels of drywall. Hands on hips, he stood staring at the interior of the wall with the problematic window. Mostly it looked like a lot of dust and a couple of cobwebs. But then, I’m not a builder. When I handed over his mug, he gave me a brief smile before taking a sip.

“How is it looking?” I asked.

“Your house has good bones.”

“Great.”

“As long as the damage on that wall is due to the moisture spreading from the window and not a leaky bathroom pipe, this should be pretty straightforward,” he said.

I’d taken over the main bedroom, but this room still held a lot of sentimental value for me. Whenever Mom and Dad were busy or needed a break from us kids, my brother would stay at a friend’s house and I’d be packed off to Aunt Susan’s—to this bedroom in particular. Which was fine with me. Andrew was an outgoing jock while I’d been kind of awkward. In this house, I was accepted for who I was. A nice change. With my parents divorced, growing up between three households and living mostly out of a school bag sucked. But Aunt Susan gave me the security that was lacking elsewhere.

“Is the floor okay?”

“Let’s pull up some carpet and see.” He set his coffee on the windowsill. Then, knife back in hand, he got busy with the shag. It was impressive how the tool became a part of him. An extension of his body. “You’ve got good solid hardwood under here.”

“Ooh, let me see.”

He tugged the tattered underlay back further. “Oak, by the look of it.”

“Wow. Imagine covering that beauty up with butt ugly brown carpet.”

“No sign of water damage. You were lucky.”

I smiled. “That is excellent news.”

“Now let’s see what’s behind this.”

I took a step back so he could start removing the next section of drywall. He had such big capable hands. Watching him work was pure competence porn. . As a mature and well-adjusted thirty year old woman, I definitely knew better than to have sexy times thoughts again. The best friend of my ex is not my friend. Confucius probably said that.

“Looks like there’s something back here,” he said, setting a panel of drywall aside.

“Something good or something bad?” I winced as a big hairy spider scurried out of the cavity. “Ew.”

“It’s just a wolf spider. Nothing dangerous.”

“But there might be more.”

Without further comment, he reached down and picked up a piece of paper. It looked old. Which made sense. Lord only knew how long it had been in the wall. It was kind of like opening a time capsule.

“What is it?” I asked, more than a little curious.

His gaze narrowed as he read, his forehead furrowing. Next his brows rose and his lips thinned. His expression quickly changed from disbelief to fury as he shoved the piece of paper at me. The open hostility in his eyes was a lot coming from a man of his size. “Susie, what the fuck?”

“Huh?”

“Is this your idea of a joke?”

“No. I…” The paper was soft with age and the writing was faded but legible. Mostly. Superior Court of Washington, County of King was written at the top. There was also a date stamp. This was followed by a bunch of numbers and the words Final Divorce Order. “Wait. Is this a divorce certificate?”

“Yeah,” he said. “For you and me. Dated a decade from now.”

I scrunched up my nose and ever so slightly shrieked, “What? Hold on. You think I put this in there?”

“No,” he said, getting all up in my face. “I know you put it in there, Susie.”

“Take a step back, please,” I said, pushing a hand against his hard chest.

He did as I asked, some of the anger leaching from his face. Then he grumbled, “Sorry.”

“Thank you.”

“Why would you do that? Actually, it doesn’t matter. Find someone else for the job,” he said, gathering up his tools. “I’m out of here.”

“Can you just wait a second?”

Apparently the answer was no. Because the man started moving even faster. “I don’t know what game you’re playing. But I’m not interested in finding out.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I did not put this in the wall, Lars. Think about it. You’re a builder. Had any of the wallpaper or drywall been disturbed in the last forty or fifty years?”

“You could have accessed it from the other side. I don’t know.”

“I didn’t even know you were coming here today.”

He grunted. “Only got your word for that.”

“And I’ve only got your word that you didn’t put this in in the wall for some stupid reason,” I said, thinking it over. How did that not occur to me? “Of course you put it there. I wasn’t the first one to have access to that space. You were. A quick sleight of hand is all it would have taken. This is so unprofessional.”

“Very nice. I’m sure you prepared that speech at the same time you planted it, knowing I’d inevitably be the one who first touched it.”

“And I’m sure you prepared that speech at the same time you planted it, knowing I’d suspect you.”

He glared at me. “Why the hell would I, Susie?”

“Why the hell would I, Lars?” I bellowed. “This is ridiculous. I just want my house fixed. That’s all. And I specifically asked who would be doing the job because I didn’t feel the need to see you again.”

With his back to me, he paused.

“No offense. But I knew it would be wildly uncomfortable.”

“Why’d you use the company I work for then?”

“Because I know they’re reputable and do good work. You yourself said that’s one of the main reasons why you’ve stuck with them. Because they don’t encourage you to cut corners or use shoddy materials and they treat their staff well. Also, they pretty much do everything. These things matter.” I raised a finger. (No. Not that one.) “Take car repairs for instance. Because I know little to nothing about cars, I get ripped off by repair shops—I’m sure of it. I didn’t want that to happen here.”

Another grunt. What an animal.

“I wish neither to marry nor divorce you, Lars. And I’m pretty sure the feeling’s mutual. So this piece of paper I’m holding in no way benefits me. Look at me. Am I laughing? No, I’m not. Nor am I enjoying all this drama. Confrontation stresses me the fuck out,” I said, my shoulders slumped. “I don’t know what else to say. This is ridiculous.”

“You already said that.”

“It’s worth repeating.”

He gave me a look over his shoulder. “If you’re messing with me…”

“I’m not. Are you messing with me?”

“No.”

“Then what the hell is going on?” I asked the universe.

Without another word, he got to his feet and strode out of the room, heading straight into the bathroom next door. There he made quick work of checking everything. The tiling and paintwork, around the white pedestal basin, inside the mirrored cabinet set into the wall, and the end of the claw foot bath tub. Then he turned around, face set to cranky. “Access point for the attic?”

“Hallway.”

In no time flat, he had the ceiling hatch open and the ladder down. Then up into the darkness he went. His cell phone doubled as a flash light again.

“Lot of stuff up here,” he commented.

“That does not surprise me. My aunt was kind of a hoarder. Not as bad as the people on those TV shows, but…yeah.”

He sneezed. “A lot of dust, too.”

“Bless you. I haven’t even been up there yet,” I said. “Cleaning and clearing space out down here has taken all of my time.”

His big boots disappeared up the last rungs of the ladder while I waited below. After all, I’d only be in the way. It had absolutely nothing to do with my fear of creepy crawlies. Someone had to wait below with the weird ass document. The sounds of him stomping about and things being shifted came next. Something heavy was pushed aside. Something else fell and glass broke.

“Sorry,” Lars called.

“I’m sure it was nothing valuable. Hopefully.”

Then his face appeared in the dark hole overhead. “Looks like they built the attic to use as another bedroom or office at some stage. The floorboards and everything are tight. No real access into the walls below.”

“Mm.”

“Plus there’s about an inch of dust on the ground and no sign of any footprints other than mine.”

“Good work, Nancy Drew,” I said. “Is the basement next?”

He gave me a flat, unfriendly look. “Yes.”

Maybe I’d be better off finding another builder. In fact, I knew I would be. Though it would only be trading one peace of mind for another. While Lars would no longer be in my face, I wouldn’t be able to trust the new builder’s work to the same degree. Which would be anxiety-inducing and possibly costly. Talk about a no-win situation.

Back into the dining room then through to the kitchen at the back of the house, we went on our not-so-merry adventure. I opened the door to the dingy staircase. “I like to call this the murder room. Dark, dank, dangerous. It’s got it all.”

No response from him as we made our way down. Tough crowd. It was just a basic concrete room with a boiler, laundry area, and more assorted crap. But the old boiler, the one before this one, used to make creepy noises. Hence my childhood fears of the basement. Helping with the laundry was always an ordeal. I usually avoided it by offering to do the dishes instead.

Lars began examining the ceiling.

“When did you find out you had this job?”

“Around eight this morning. The office called,” he said. “Mateo’s boyfriend got hit by a car riding to work.”

“Is he okay?”

“A few bumps and bruises and a sprained wrist.”

“Phew.”

“Yeah,” he said. “The job I was on was close to finishing and they could spare me, so they asked me to come here.”

“What gets me is that the paper looks old. I mean, the way the text is faded and everything.” I carefully turned the certificate over in my hands. “I wonder if we could get it tested, somehow.”

He scoffed. “You don’t actually think it’s real?”

“I honestly don’t know,” I said. “What I do know is, if you didn’t put the certificate there to mess with me—and I guess I believe you when you say you didn’t—then I can think of no rational explanation for how it got there.”

He frowned harder and kept right on inspecting the ceiling. Even he had to admit that it was highly unlikely I’d put the decree of dissolution in the wall. Surely.

“Does your middle name start with A?”

“Alexander. Yes.”

“So the details are right, at least. No money judgement ordered. No real property judgement ordered. This marriage is dissolved. The petitioner and respondent are divorced. Not much information there to go on.” I chose my next words with care. “You know, my aunt, she was kind of eccentric. She was always burning candles and buying crystals.”

Looking back over his shoulder at me, he raised a questioning brow.

“The thing is, she used to talk to the house sometimes,” I finally said. “Like it was an actual living breathing entity. And yes, maybe she was lonely or a little strange. Please don’t say anything mean or dismissive about her.”

“I’m not going to say anything about your aunt.”

“Thank you.”

He didn’t even blink. “But it’s not supernatural, Susie. This was no ghost or spirit or whatever you’re suggesting.”

“Okay. Fine. I just thought I’d put that out there,” I said. “Did you find anything down here?”

“No.”

“So now what?”

Face set, he walked over, staring into my eyes as if he could read my soul.

“Susie.”

“Lars.”

“I want to believe you when you say you had nothing to do with it. You always seemed like a pretty honest person to me,” he said. “A bit too honest, sometimes.”

“How so?” I asked, only mildly annoyed—although I was exercising great restraint.

“Some of the stuff you come out with sometimes is…unnecessary.”

“Let’s agree to disagree,” I said.

He shook his head.

“I would point out, however, that I’m not brutal. Ever notice how people who say they’re just being honest usually are?”

His nostrils flared on a deep breath. How that was in any way attractive I had no idea. Something must be wrong with me. Guess my vibrator was getting a little boring. Maybe it was time for me to get out there and meet some men. Then again, not dating for the rest of my life would also be great.

“For the last time,” he said, speaking nice and slow, “did you put that piece of paper in the wall?”

“No. I swear.”

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“Fuck,” I agreed.

He sighed. “Someone’s messing with us.”

About the Author

Photo Credit: Annie Ray Photography

Kylie Scott is the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and international bestselling author of 19 novels including the Stage Dive series, the Dive Bar series, the Larsen Brothers series, and West Hollywood series. Her most recent release, Pause, debuted on the USA Today bestseller list. Her books have been translated into fourteen languages, and she has sold over 2 million copies worldwide.

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HTP Winter Reads Blog Tour (Historical Fiction Edition) Promo Post: Code Name Sapphire by Pam Jenoff

A woman must rescue her cousin's family from a train bound for Auschwitz in this riveting tale of bravery and resistance during World War II

1942. Hannah Martel has narrowly escaped Nazi Germany after her fiancé was killed in a pogrom. When her ship bound for America is turned away at port, she has nowhere to go but to her cousin Lily, who lives with her family in Brussels. Fearful for her life, Hannah is desperate to get out of occupied Europe. But with no safe way to leave, she must return to the dangerous underground work she thought she had left behind.

Seeking help, Hannah joins the Sapphire Line, a secret resistance network led by a mysterious woman named Micheline and her enigmatic brother Matteo. But when a grave mistake causes Lily’s family to be arrested and slated for deportation to Auschwitz, Hannah finds herself torn between her loyalties. How much is Hannah willing to sacrifice to save the people she loves? Inspired by incredible true stories of courage and sacrifice, Code Name Sapphire is a powerful novel about love, family and the unshakable resilience of women in even the hardest of times.

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Micheline

February 1942

Micheline threw the still-smoldering Gauloises cigarette to the ground and crushed it with the high heel of her black leather boot. Then she marched across the darkened Paris street and grabbed the man she’d never seen before by the lapels, throwing him back against the stained brick wall of the station.

“Kiss me!” she ordered in English, whispering tersely.

The airman, his crew cut a dead giveaway despite his French civilian clothing and chapeau, stood motionless, too surprised to move as Micheline reached up and pulled him toward her, pressing her open mouth against his. His musty scent was mixed with a hint of tobacco. The streetlight cast a yellow pool on the pavement around them, illuminating their embrace. Micheline felt the man’s body responding against her own. The navy beret which covered her red curls tilted off-center, threatening to fall to the ground.

A second later, Micheline broke away and brought her mouth close to his ear. “If you hope to live, follow me.” Without another word, she started away down the Rue des Récollets. She sensed the one-two beat as he hesitated, followed by the rapid pattern of his footsteps against the icy pavement. She strained hard to make sure she did not hear anyone else following them but did not dare to look back.

Micheline slowed, allowing the airman to catch up. When he reached her, she moved closer, linking her arm in his and tilting her head toward his shoulder. Anyone watching would have thought them just a smitten couple.

Micheline had spotted the airman a few minutes earlier, standing on the pavement outside the Gare de l’Est, a half kilometer from the intended rendezvous spot, looking out of place. It was always that way with the Brits, scared and barely out of school. The passeur, a girl from Brittany called Renee, was supposed to escort the airman. Her instructions had been simple: deliver the soldier to the Hotel Oud-Antwerpen, where a local contact would take him and hide him for the night. But Renee had never shown. Something must have gone wrong and she’d panicked and fled, leaving the airman alone.

Another ten minutes outside the station and the police would have picked him up. There was already a gendarme at the corner, watching the solider too steadily. That might have been what spooked Renee. Micheline, who was in Paris on an unrelated errand but was aware of the planned pickup, had seen the stranded airman by the station and knew she had to intervene. But Micheline had no way to lead him away on the open street without attracting attention. So she had resorted to The Embrace.

It was not the first time she had feigned passion in the service of the network. The Sapphire Line, as it was now called, had formed almost immediately after the war started. They had a singular purpose: ferrying downed British airmen from the Dutch or German borders across Belgium and occupied France to freedom. This was the hardest part of the journey, getting the airmen across Paris from Gare de l‘Est where they arrived to Gare d’Austerlitz where they would set out for points south. It was a few days across France to the Pyrenees, with only a brief stop or two for rest. When the line worked, it was brilliant. But when it failed, catastrophe. There were no second chances.

When they were several blocks from the station and out of sight of the policeman, Micheline pulled the airman into a doorway. He looked as though he expected her to kiss him again. Instead, she adjusted his chapeau in the classic French style so as not to give him away as a foreigner. The disguise, consisting of secondhand, outdated trousers and a too-large shirt, would not fool anyone. And if the clothes did not give him away, his tattered army boots certainly would. He would be forced to take those off farther south anyway. The evacuees tied their shoes around their necks and replaced them with alpargates, the strong laced sandals necessary for crossing the Bidasoa River into Spain.

“Where are you from?” Micheline demanded. She hated to speak aloud out here, but she had to verify that he was actually an airman and not a German spy before taking him to one of their safe houses. If the line was infiltrated even once, it would spread like a cancer, and the entire network would be gone.

The airman paused, his trained instinct not to answer. “Ely in Cambridgeshire.”

“What is the most popular movie in Britain right now?”

He thought for a second. “49th Parallel.”

“Good. What type of plane were you flying? How many men?”

“Halifax. Six. I don’t know if the others made it.” There was a choke in his voice.

“I’m sorry.” There were a half-dozen other questions she wanted to ask to verify his identity, if only there was time. But they had to keep moving. “Come.”

She started walking again more briskly now, savoring the familiar surge of adrenaline that rushed through her as she led the airman to safety. Though just twenty-three years old, Micheline had risen quickly to the top of the network, and she seldom got to undertake rescues herself anymore, instead overseeing operations from her headquarters in Brussels. But the job was fluid and changing. Sometimes, like now, when the mission called for it and there was no one else, she had to jump in. She had nearly forgotten how much she liked being in the field.

As the bell of the church of Saint-Chappelle tolled eleven, Micheline calculated mentally, judging the best way to protect the airman for the night. They had already missed the rendezvous with the contact at the hotel who would have hidden him. Paris was the most dangerous segment of the escape line, but it was often necessary because so many of the trains ran through the French capital. An airman could not simply be dropped at Gare de l’Est and expected to make his way across the city to the southern stations where the trains left for Lyon or Marseilles. No, he had to be individually ferried through the back streets and alleys by someone who knew the city and how to avoid the security checkpoints, and who spoke impeccable French in case they were stopped and questioned.

When they reached the banks of the Seine, Micheline led the airman across the Pont au Change and into the shadowy alleyways of the Left Bank, clinging to the shadows. The cafés were already closed, barkeepers turning chairs onto tables, snuffing out the candles that burned low. She forced herself to walk at a normal pace and not to run. Her close-fitted trench swished smartly below her knees. She looked to the passersby like she belonged in the throngs of students who frequented the Latin Quarter.

Thirty minutes later they reached the safe-house apartment on Rue de Babylone. Micheline took the airman’s hand and led him up the stairs to the apartment, a room which was bare except for a mattress and a weathered armoire and a sink in the corner. He would stay no longer than twelve hours in the city, just enough time to rest and carry on.

Inside, the airman looked weakened and confused. “We went down quickly after we were shot,” he offered, saying too much, as they all did. “They hit the fuel tank.”

“Are you wounded?”

“No. There were others, though. Someone will look for them, right?” She nodded, but it was a lie. The network could not spare the resources to go back and search for those who were wounded and presumed dead. He opened his mouth to ask something else, but she put her finger to her lips and shook her head. It was not safe to say too much anywhere, even here. The airman’s eyes widened. She had seen more than once how very afraid the young soldiers were, the ones who panicked or cried out in their sleep. They were eighteen and nineteen, not more than boys, and thousands of kilometers from home. Micheline herself was just a few years older and sometimes wondered why she could be strong when they could not.

“Empty your pockets,” she instructed firmly. There were too many times when a well-intentioned Brit carried something sentimental from home which would be a dead giveaway if he was stopped and questioned.

The airman glanced around the apartment. Then he turned back toward her hopefully, as if the kiss had been real and matters might continue here. “Did you want to…?”

Micheline stifled a laugh. She might have been offended at the overture, but he seemed so naive she almost pitied him. “Here.” She rummaged in the armoire for new clothes. Then she threw the clothes at him and gestured toward a screen that offered a bit of privacy at the far end of the room. “Get dressed.” He moved slowly, clumsily toward the divider. A tram clacked by on the street below, rattling the cloudy window panes.

A few minutes later, he reemerged in the simple shoes and buttoned shirt of a peasant farmer, an outfit that would help to get him through the south of France to the Pyrenees. She took his old clothes from him. “There’s bread in the cupboard,” she said. “Stay away from the windows, and don’t make a sound. Someone will come for you before dawn. That person will have a key. Don’t open the door for anyone.”

“Merci,” he ventured, and it seemed likely that it was all the French that he knew or understood.

“Bonne chance,” she replied, wishing him luck.

Without waiting for a response, she walked briskly from the apartment. She wondered uneasily whether he would still be safely there when the new passeur arrived to claim him for the next leg of his long journey home or whether another calamity would befall the already-struggling network.


Excerpted from Code Name Sapphire @ 2023 by Pam Jenoff, used with permission by Park Row Books.

About the Author

Pam Jenoff is the author of several books of historical fiction, including the New York Times bestsellers The Lost Girls of Paris and The Orphan's Tale. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University and a master’s degree in history from Cambridge, and she received her Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania. Jenoff’s novels are inspired by her experiences working at the Pentagon and also as a diplomat for the State Department handling Holocaust issues in Poland. She lives with her husband and three children near Philadelphia, where, in addition to writing, she teaches law school.

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