‘Sisters at War’ chosen for Sunday Remembrance Fiction at KOBO by Jina Bacarr
November 11, 2024 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as Army, RemembranceDay, RemembranceSunday, Soughnut Dolly, Veterans Day
I love this fabulous painting outside the Salvation Army Building in Tulare, CA re: the photographer © Karinoza – Dreamstime.com
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Sunday in the UK was #RemembranceSunday.
According to Merriam-Webster, Remembrance Day is the Sunday closest to November 11 and in Great Britain is ‘set aside in commemoration of the end of hostilities in 1918 and 1945’.
I’m honored Sisters at War was chosen for #Remembrance Sunday Fiction on KOBO.
2 sisters at war with the Nazis… and each other https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/sisters-at-war-2
from BoldwoodBooks
In my story Justine is the victim of sexual assault by the SS. ‘Sisters at War’ explores wartime sexual assault and how it affects the lives of Justine and Eve Beaufort in Wartime Paris.
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Back in the day, I served with the U.S. Army Special Services in Livorno, Italy. My job was to make coffee and play pool with the troops, set up entertainment and gourmet restaurant tours.
And make cookies.
I whipped up hundreds and hundreds of cookies. Chocolate chip.
And doughnuts, too. I got help from the mess hall sergeant, a bespectacled guy from the Midwest who let me commandeer his big pots and huge ovens. Along with my Italian liaison, Maria, we’d cook up hot doughnuts and top them with powdered sugar we got from the PX, a sweet favorite with the boys.
Those were the days.
So on this Veterans Day here in the US, I think about all the Doughnut Dollies who help bring our servicemen and women a touch of home.
Over the years, I’ve come to realize the amazing effect my time with the service affected me. I had some difficult times, like being assaulted on the street by a thug and my pants ripped, also in an elevator (story for another time), but I had some heartbreaking and soulful times, too.
Like the sisterly bond I developed with another American girl on base that lasted far beyound my time there, the wonderful Italians I worked with who took me in like I was family and taught me about music and photography and how to properly eat pizza.
I drew on these experiences when I started a series of historical novels set in Wartime Paris about the brave women who fought in the French Resistance.
I want thank the brave servicemen and women who have served our country. If you were stationed in Livorno and dropped by the service club once upon a time and saw a girl with long hair from California handing you a cup of coffee, it was me.
PS — For fun, I put on my old uniform with U.S. Army Service Clubs patch.
I lost the hat years ago somewhere in Italy.
Who are the Beaufort Sisters?
They’re beautiful
They’re smart
They’re dangerous
They’re at war with the Nazis… and each other.
I was a Doughnut Dolly…another tale from my wayward youth for Veterans Day by Jina Bacarr
November 11, 2023 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as Army, Soughnut Dolly, Veterans Day, womens fictionI love this fabulous painting outside the Salvation Army Building in Tulare, CA re: the photographer © Karinoza – Dreamstime.com
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I was a doughnut dolly.
Back in the day, I served with the U.S. Army Special Services in Livorno, Italy. My job was to make coffee and play pool with the troops, set up entertainment and gourmet restaurant tours.
And make cookies.
I whipped up hundreds and hundreds of cookies. Chocolate chip.
And doughnuts, too. I got help from the mess hall sergeant, a bespectacled guy from the Midwest who let me commandeer his big pots and huge ovens. Along with my Italian liaison, Maria, we’d cook up hot doughnuts and top them with powdered sugar we got from the PX, a sweet favorite with the boys.
Those were the days.
So on this Veterans Day I think about all the Doughnut Dollies who help bring our servicemen and women a touch of home.
Over the years, I’ve come to realize the amazing effect my time with the service affected me. I had some difficult times, like being assaulted on the street by a thug and my pants ripped, also in an elevator (story for another time), but I had some heartbreaking and soulful times, too.
Like the sisterly bond I developed with another American girl on base that lasted far beyound my time there, the wonderful Italians I worked with who took me in like I was family and taught me about music and photography and how to properly eat pizza.
I drew on these experiences when I started a series of historical novels set in Wartime Paris about the brave women who fought in the French Resistance.
An actress, a parfumier, a Philly debutante and my latest, SISTERS AT WAR.
On this Veteans Day, I want thank the brave servicemen and women who have served our country. If you were stationed in Livorno and dropped by the service club once up a time and saw a girl with long hair from California handing you a cup of coffee, it was me.
Jina
PS — For fun, I put on my old uniform with U.S. Army Service Clubs patch.
I lost the hat years ago somewhere in Italy.
Who are the Beaufort Sisters?
They’re beautiful
They’re smart
They’re dangerous
They’re at war with the Nazis… and each other.
Veterans Day and Doughnut Dollies
November 11, 2018 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as 100th anniversary, 99 cents, Armistice Day, Civil War, cookies, doughnut dollies, romance, time travel, vet, Veterans Day, Wolrd War 2, World War 1
I love this fabulous painting outside the Salvation Army Building in Tulare, CA re: the photographer © Karinoza – Dreamstime.com .
I was a doughnut dolly.
Back in the day, I served with the U.S. Army in Livorno, Italy. My job was to make coffee and play pool with the troops, set up entertainment and gourmet tours.
And make cookies. I whipped up hundreds and hundreds of cookies. Chocolate chip.
And doughnuts, too. I got help from the mess hall sergeant, a bespectacled guy from the Midwest who let me commandeer his big pots. Along with my Italian liaison, Maria, we’d cook up hot doughnuts and top them with powdered sugar we got from the PX, a sweet favorite with the boys.
Those were the days.
I’m proud of the time I spent with US Army Special Services — I made turkeys, fruitcakes, hot chocolate, and tons of cookies!
So on this Veterans Day I think about all the Doughnut Dollies who helped bring our servicemen and women a touch of home.
Especially on this 100th Anniversary of Armistice Day when the treaty was signed in a railcar in the French forest on the eleventh day of the eleventh month at the eleventh hour.
God bless all those who have served our country. Thank you.
Jina
PS — For fun, I put on my old uniform with U.S. Army Service Clubs patch. And yeah, I lost the hat years ago somewhere in Italy.
For this Veterans Day, my Civil War time travel romance is on sale for 99 cents!
She wore gray…he wore blue…but their love defied time
How many women soldiers fought in the Civil War?
And check out this audio/video excerpt from Chapter 1 of my WW 2 sweet romance.
Christmas 1943
American soldier and an Italian nun in war torn Italy dare to fall in love…
The captain thinks he’s found Shangri-La until he realizes there’s stolen art, Nazis and a whole lotta snow
A Soldier’s Italian Christmas on Amazon
0 0 Read moreVeterans Day: a soldier with PTSD finds his way home by way of a Christmas Piano Tree
November 11, 2017 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as Army, Christmas, holidays, military romance, PTSD, soldier, tree, veteran, Veterans Day
Veterans Day is for healing…let’s not forget our wounded warriors who suffer not only the physical pains of war, but the mental as well.
PTSD was first talked about during the Civil War by physicians who described it as nostalgia, while others believed it was a disturbance of a soldier’s mental capabilities caused by severe trauma to the brain.
After World War II, John Huston directed a documentary called Let There Be Light, about the care of soldiers with mental disturbances suffered during wartime.
These are wounds you don’t see.
But they are very real to the soldier with PTSD.
In my holiday romance, “The Christmas Piano Tree,” the hero, Sgt. Jared Milano, is a wounded warrior suffering from PTSD from his last mission in Afghanistan:
“His brain went into freefall and he couldn’t stop it. No matter how hard he tried, how much he squeezed his mind, the memory stayed lost in a thick, suffocating fog swirling around in his head.
Lost.
Dead and forgotten.
Angry, frustrated, he tried to reach out and grab it, but whatever his buddy said to him before he died remained silent and still in his mind.
When would he remember? When?”
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“The Christmas Piano Tree” is the story of a pretty young war widow who re-discovers the magic of the holiday season with the help of a homeless vet and an old piano.
I’ll never forget the Christmas I spent stationed overseas in a small town in Italy. The hot chocolate and cookies I baked and gave to the soldiers who signed up for my Christmas Eve Midnight Mass tour. Off we went on that wintry night in an old military school bus…
We were a motley group of military and Special Services personnel attending the service in a medieval cathedral that was cold and damp, but filled with song and hope for a better future.
Many of those men had seen the horrors of combat and suffered from PTSD (what we called DSS–delayed-stress syndrome–back then). Their stories as they told them to me have stayed with me always…
Thank you for spending part of your Veterans Day here with me. We thank all those who have served for their courage and bravery in keeping us and our families safe. God bless you.
~Jina
The Christmas Piano Tree is available on Kindle and KindleUnlimited.
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0 0 Read moreVeterans Day with “The Christmas Piano Tree” by Jina Bacarr
November 11, 2014 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Christmas, Christmas eve, Confessions of a Podcast Goddess, military, piano, PTSD, romance, second chance, soldier, sweet romance, tree, veterans, Veterans Day, wounded warrior
The gate is the entrance to the Mary Huber School for Girls where my heroine, Kristen Delaney, works…she’s been feeding homeless vets with leftover food as a way of keeping her husband’s memory alive (he was killed in Afghanistan)–this is a very difficult Christmas Eve for her and her little girl Rachel…until this soldier shows up!!
Here’s a short scene where we first meet him. Kristen gets a funny feeling when she sees a tall man walking toward her…
“She pulled her steering wheel hard to the right to avoid colliding with the tall man bundled up in a black field jacket and khaki pants, a duffel bag strapped on his back, his broad shoulders dusted with falling snow.
“She stuck her head out of the window to give him a piece of her mind and then stopped.
“Something about him made her stare at him. He had that swagger she knew so well. Military. Seeing him touched a nerve. Another homeless vet. Kristen shook her head, understanding. He was the third one this week looking for a hot meal.
“Not surprising on Christmas Eve.â€
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Who is the handsome soldier? And how is he tied to Kristen’s past?
Lost.
Dead and forgotten.
Angry, frustrated, he tried to reach out and grab it, but whatever his buddy said to him before he died remained silent and still in his mind.
When would he remember? When?”
http://www.pinterest.com/jbacarr
PS — just wanted to add that my Christmas Novella A Soldier’s Italian Christmas won the Novella category in the I Heart Indie contest!
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