Welcome back to the Story Sparks multi-Author Blog Tour. Between  May 21-26, 2018,  readers get a chance to enter and win ebooks from six different authors. Today, Terri Wangard is the featured author. A lucky winner will win her Friends & Enemies . Terri will be talking about “Creating a Family to be Proud Of.” Read on to discover what sparks Terri’s creativity and to enter the rafflecopter to win her heartwarming book. ***** A batch of forgotten letters was found in my grandmother’s house. Written in 1947 and 1948, they came from distant cousins in Germany. My grandparents and other relatives had been sending them care packages. My great-great-grandfather immigrated to Wisconsin in the 1870s, as did two brothers. A fourth brother remained in Germany, and these letters came from his grandchildren. The family in the letters would be the perfect subject around which to craft a story. Research revealed life in Nazi Germany as increasingly grim before the...

Welcome to the Story Sparks multi-Author Blog Tour. Between May 21-26, 2018 readers get a chance to enter and win ebooks from six different authors. Today Carole Brown is the featured author. A lucky winner will get her choice of a Kindle copy of With Music in Their Heart s or A Flute in the Willows . Today Carole will be talking about these books: The Spies of WWII. Read on to discover what sparks my creativity and to enter the rafflecopter to win one of my heartwarming books. Spies: Developing my WWII Spies series came from two things: · Listening to my mother talk about her life during WWII and seeing the pictures she had; · A short story about a “supposed” civilian spy during WWII from an elderly man. Rumors had it that HE was that spy, but he neither confirmed nor denied it. Because my interest in WWII was sparked through these two avenues, I found it easy to fall in love with the research for the books. Researching spies was an eye-opening ex...

Did You Know… 27 Medals of Honor were awarded to Marines and Sailors for their bravery during the Battle of Iwo Jima. This is actually 28% of all Medals of Honor presented to Marines during WWII. Hershel Williams (pictured) is the only one of these Iwo Jima recipients' still living. #IwoJimaDay

This Day in Christian History: April 29, Dachau Liberated April 29, 1945: Dachau Liberated by US Troops American troops guarding the main entrance to Dachau just after liberation, 1945 Dachau is the oldest of the Nazi concentration camps. It was the first, opened in 1933. The Dachau system grew to include over 100 sub camps located throughout southern Germany and Austria. The prisoners lived in constant fear. Their treatment was brutal, including floggings, confinement in standing cells, tree or pole hangings, and other atrocities. Dachau was liberated by American troops on this day in 1945, freeing  more than 30,000 people. Most were terribly sick. Women of the Dachau camp wave to their liberators There were 32,000 documented deaths, mostly Jews, during the camp's 12 year existence. Thousands more went undocumented.

This Day in Christian History: April 28 April 28, 1950: Israel Recognized by the UK Almost two years after Israel's declaration, the government of Britain finally recognized Israel as a state. They were the last power in the world to do so. They also recognized the annexation by Transjordan of the Arab part of Palestine at the same time. Britain’s decisions were communicated today to Israel and Transjordan by her diplomatic representatives in Tel Aviv and Amman. According to the Global Jewish News reported on April 28, 1950: Winston Churchill, welcoming the announcement by the British Minister, told the members of Commos that President Chaim Weizmann of Israel and King Abdullah of Transjordan have always been staunch friends of Great Britain. He urged the British Government to bring these two “eminent men” into closer harmonious contact. He asked whether the British Government is embarking on such a course.

This Day in Christian History: April 19-20 April 19-20, 1943: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Begins SS Agents burn houses Warsaw is the capitol city of Poland. A city of over 1.3 million residents in 1919 when Poland resurrected as a state. Pre-WWII, Warsaw was home to over 350,000 Jews, about 30% of their population. On September 29, 1939, Nazi troops entered the city. By October 12, 1940, a ghetto had been established and a decree made that all Jews were to move to the designated area, which was then sealed off from the rest of the city with a 10ft. high wall. It is estimated that over 400,000 Jews were contained in this ghetto from Warsaw and the surrounding area. Needless to say, the conditions were crowded, and poor. April 19th, 1943, the Eve of Passover, Nazi SS agents entered the ghetto. Knowing what this meant, the Jews made the decision to fight back.The Jewish insurgents ambushed the Nazis. The fighting lasted for several days. The Germans began burning down house...

This Day in Christian History: February 3 February 3, 1943: The Story Behind Four Chaplain's Day U.S.A.T.  Dorchester February 3, 1943, the American Troopship U.S.A.T. Dorchester sails on its way to Greenland as part of a Navy convoy. During the early morning hours, around 12:55 a.m. a torpeedo from a German U-boat smashes into the bow of the ship. It is clear that the damage is severe as the boilers lose power leaving not even enough steam to sound the whistled command to abandon ship. There was no power to send a distress signal via radio, and no time to launch rockets to alert the escort. Only a portion of the lifeboats were able to launch, and several of them were flipped over as the passengers crammed themselves onto them. During the midst of all this chaos, four men stood out as heroes. George L. Fox (a Methodist minister), Clark Polling (Reformed Church in America Minister),  John P. Washington (a Catholic Priest), and Alexander Goode (Jewish Rabbi) gave up...

USS Arizona during the Pearl Harbor attack. Today marks 72 years since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941. The surprise attack has been the subject of much disagreement and discussion and was the determining factor that pulled the United States of America into WWII. To commemorate this day, I've asked several Christian historical authors to share what they learned while studying for their WWII novels. Please welcome special guests, Cara Putnam, Patty Smith Hall,  Sarah Sundin and Murray Pura: What drew you to write about Pearl Harbor/WWII? Patty: My daughters. When the movie Pearl Harbor came out, both my girls were fascinated by the history of that era, and as a history buff, I wanted them to know how women played a part in the war effort. It was when I was looking through a book on women’s roles in the war that I found a small paragraph on girl pilots. From that moment on, I was hooked! Cara: I’ve long been fascinated by WWII. As I bega...