My background is Swiss, so it wasn’t that the food was unfamiliar. When I traveled in Germany with my husband (who had lived there during his Army service years ago), I marveled over the scenery, became engrossed in the history, and definitely enjoyed the food. One thing that broke up the narrative of the heavy events I researched and wrote about? The food. Slowly, she begins to see the truth behind the Nazi lies.

She doesn’t follow current events much and struggles to balance the Nazi propaganda her uncle and oldest cousin believe with the events unfolding around her. My main character, Clare Simons, is a Mennonite young woman from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, who is staying with her uncle and cousins in Frankfurt, Germany. Soon following was the German occupation of Czechoslovakia before the Nazis invaded Poland in September 1939.

Then came the Night of Broken Glass-the anti-Jewish pogrom in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. During that period of time, Germany incorporated Austria, mandatory registration of all Jewish property began, and concentration camps opened. The historical thread of my dual-time novel A Brighter Dawn is set in Nazi Germany from 1937 to 1939. She and her husband live in Portland, Oregon, and are the parents of four adult children.

She holds an MFA in creative writing and enjoys studying church history, research trips, and hiking in the Pacific Northwest. Leslie Gould (is a Christy Award-winning and #1 bestselling author of over 35 novels, including four Lancaster County Amish series.

A Brighter Dawn by Leslie Gould