New Morning Sun
“You’ll need English one day,” Johann’s grandmother said, tapping her finger against the yellowed pages of a well-thumbed English grammar book.
"Learn their words. And they will open doors.”
—Excerpt from New Morning Sun
“How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Make people feel like there’s not a war going on.”
She smiled faintly. “Maybe because I want to believe a world without war is possible.”
—Excerpt from New Morning Sun
Untitled by Mark Rothko
Annette plans to continue writing historical fiction, bringing stories centered around nurses to life.
New Morning Sun (not yet published) is a work of historical fiction with book-club appeal that explores the cost of allegiance and the courage of nurses seeking to heal in a world at war.
Johann Bale is a German soldier who must confront the crumbling ideology of his homeland and the consequences of a war he never chose.
Forced into the Wehrmacht as a teenager, Johann is haunted by guilt and a longing to rescue Sophie, his Jewish sweetheart, who has fled Hamburg for Paris—pregnant with his child. He journeys from the Rhine through Nazi-occupied Paris and the Algerian desert to a rural POW camp in Southern California. There, Johann meets Isabelle, an American Army nurse searching for her place in the world. At first, she sees the prisoners as the enemy, but as she comes to know and care for them, she sees the humanity beneath the uniforms. Along the way, Johann is drawn to Isabelle’s compassion and her belief in the dignity of every life. Their connection deepens despite Johann’s enduring bond with Sophie and the war that has placed them on opposing sides.
The narrative also follows Johann’s older brother, Philip, a German-born artist who flees first to Paris and then to New York City. He is taken aback when he meets Isabelle’s sister, Grace, who finds herself in one conundrum after another.
When the war ends and the world reshapes itself, each character faces irreversible choices as their lives intersect in unexpected ways.
“There are so many tents. The camp is massive. How many prisoners do we have here?
One thousand, one hundred and twenty-one—as of yesterday.”
“And how many nurses?”
“Three, now that you’re here.”
“Only three nurses to treat all these men!”
“No, not just three nurses. There’s a doctor on call for surgeries.”
“Oh, well then, we’re practically overstaffed.”
“I like you already, Nurse Lucas.”
—Excerpt from New Morning Sun
Isabelle smiled, pointing to the shape in the painting, “But it looks like a violin.”
“And so it does,” said Johann, “though it may be closer to a cello.” He traced the lines on the print that resembled strings. “Some are familiar, some are broken—and yet they seem as though they could still sing.”
Isabelle’s eyes followed his finger. “Even the broken ones?”
“Especially the broken ones,” Johann said.
—Excerpt from New Morning Sun
