Never Turn Back: A Novel

This is a 412 page-turner!

Does writing and publishing a second book make you a real author?

If so, I guess I just joined a new club!

My first book was all about me. Write what you know, right?

I thought I branch out this time and write about something I know less about: my grandmother’s life.

And what a life it was!

Synopsis of Never Turn Back

Meri Vaarsara had a dream and something to prove. She also had incredibly bad fortune and even worse timing.

Her dream was to become a famous fashion designer in Paris, a dream born from a need to prove herself worthy of love and a happy life, something her stern Finnish mother never fostered but her seafaring father always knew was hers for the taking. So at the tender age of sixteen, Meri left the security of her family and her home for a country where she didn’t speak the language and she didn’t know a soul.

Paris in the late 1920s was not friendly to immigrants, even those with extraordinary talents. Forced to find work as a domestic, Meri forged ahead through turns of fate and misfortune as Paris braced for Hitler’s invasion. By choice, Meri becomes a single mother caring for her half-Jewish daughter throughout the occupation of France. Once the war was over, she used her feminine wiles to find her way to America, the land of milk and honey, with the hope of finally being able to work as a designer in a New York fashion house. But that too was not to be, until fate and a kind stranger stepped in to help.

What Readers Should Know

This is “bones” of this story are real. What happens in the story happened to real people. I simply didn’t know all the details that linked all the events, so I had to make up a great deal of the narrative to form a story that flowed. I changed names and places in America to protect the privacy of my family, mostly my mother (who for some reason doesn’t want to be famous).

Want to Contact Me?

If you have questions about the book, want to do an interview, or buy the movie rights, don’t hesitate to contact me via email: dizzylorna@hotmail.com.