Tainted Amber

It’ s 1937, and Katya— working as a servant girl on a Trakehner horse estate in East Prussia— dreams of being a writer. One hot June day, with Thomas Mann as her muse, and Minna Epstein as her friend, Katya heads to Rauschen, a spa town on the Baltic. Helmut and David, the estate owner’ s two sons, accompany them. The foursome pairs off— Minna and Helmut, David and Katya— and things go from peaceful and predictable to dramatic and unsettling. By summer’ s end, Minna leaves for Vienna, ostensibly, to study acting. The new girl who replaces her— Gretchen— is an avid Nazi supporter. She and Helmut, an aspiring SS recruit, soon become a couple. Meanwhile, David and Katya enjoy riding in the East Prussian countryside. One evening, David has a seizure. According to the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, he must be sterilized. David and Katya struggle to salvage their relationship, while babies seem to crop up everywhere. Katya attends a cousin’ s baby shower and Gretchen deals with morning sickness. Throughout the story, Minna and Katya exchange letters and Minna finally reveals her own unwanted pregnancy. Breeding Trakehner horses might be an exact science, but breeding perfect Aryans is much more complicated.

Gabriele Goldstone writes the books she wishes she could have read while growing up in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her first book, The Kulak’ s Daughter, was a Resource Links Best of 2010 selection and received a Silver Moonbeam award. The follow-up, Broken Stone, was ‘ Highly Recommended’ by CM Reviews. Both books were shortlisted for Manitoba Book Awards. An avid explorer, she’ s perused former KGB files, climbed Hitler’ s mountain, and biked through old East Prussia. Visit her at gabrielegoldstone.blogspot.com to learn more about the research behind her novels and to follow her meanderings.