St. Johns County author Kaye D. Schmitz released her third novel, “The Road Remembered,” on Monday, Nov. 1. She’s planning a book launch at 2 p.m. Nov. 13 at VFW Post 2391 on U.S. 1 in St. Augustine.
Schmitz has written two award-winning novels, “The Consort Conspiracy” and “On Deadly Grounds.”
She has won the Literary Titans award and Florida Authors and Publishers Award and is a member of the Florida Writers’ Association, Sisters in Crime national, Northeast Florida Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, Women’s Fiction Writers’ Association, and Historical Novel Society.
The bulk of the action in her latest novel takes place during World War II. In writing it, Schmitz interviewed eight WWII veterans and wove their stories into it to help make her fiction historically accurate.
The Plot
Here’s a brief look at the plot of “The Road Remembered”:
In the final months of World War II, Sam Ryan takes his place as a new soldier in the 89th Infantry Division on the front lines in Europe. He’s trained to kill but struggles with the thought of taking the life of another person, a contradiction with the way he was raised.
On the other side of the war, Gerda Ziegler’s heart aches over the monster her beloved Germany has become. She confronts the Nazi soldiers who guard the Jewish-only sector in Zwickau and is appalled to learn that a Jewish baby will be killed because of a large birthmark. Can she manage to whisk the child away right under the noses of the brutal Nazis?
Sam and Gerda face their enemies head-on, but they also battle internal elements on their own sides of the fighting that violate their shared values of humanity. They meet under the worst of circumstances but find a way to help each other through the trauma of war.
