A Timely Review: Girls of the Glimmer Factory

And an upcoming book launch event with Jennifer Coburn

In December of 2022, instead of doing my usual 5 Top Books list, I selected one title that I thought that everyone should read. That book was Cradles of the Reich by Jennifer Coburn, a novel about young women caught up in the Lebensborn project, a Nazi “master race” breeding program. It was not just a good read, I said, but a very timely and important book. You can read the full post here.

The good news is that Cradles of the Reich was very well received by reviewers and journalists, with the Associated Press saying "Every historical fiction novel should strive to be this compelling, well-researched and just flat-out good." The book also got a lot of good exposure, including showing up in a Jeopardy answer!

The even better news is that the sequel, The Girls of the Glimmer Factory, comes out in just about ten days. I read an Advance Reading Copy and I’m happy to report that it is just as gripping and readable a story, about an arguably even more horrible subject.

The Girls of the Glimmer Factory focuses on Hannah, a Jewish prisoner at the “model” ghetto of Theresienstadt, created to try and convince the world that the Nazis are treating Jewish people humanely. The other POV character is Hilde, who is still a true believer, and who happens to want to make a propaganda film set in Theresienstadt. The author manages to make this despicable character not only believable, but even empathetic, someone who makes us wonder how we ourselves would behave in the face of complete authoritarian rule and the resultant ignoring of all facts detrimental to the ruling government.

This novel should be required reading for Americans right now, as we see the incoming administration already making it clear that they have no compunction about twisting facts to suit their selfish power-hungry purposes. And as many of our allies in countries around the world once again embrace authoritarianism, we readers can hopefully learn timely lessons from the dreadful history of the German Nazi Party, with its state-sponsored alternate reality.

If you are in San Diego this coming week, you have the opportunity to hear Jennifer Coburn speak about The Girls of the Glimmer Factory at her launch party hosted by the Coronado Public Library, as part of Adventures By the Book. Registration for the event on Wed Jan 22nd at 6:30 is FREE and open to the public, but seating is limited. Click here for more info and to purchase a copy of Girls of the Glimmer Factory to guarantee admission and priority seating.

Russel and I will be flying down to La Paz, BCS for a week on Monday, so we unfortunately will miss this event, which promises to be an excellent evening.

In other local book event news, this past week we attended the recent Dime Stories—an open (sign up) mic night for prose held on the third Wednesday each month at Catapult Books in South Park. I got to see Amy Wallen and Judy Reeves, two of my favorite writer-teacher-mentors and a few other local writer friends, and I got to read a short excerpt from Honeymoon at Sea which focused on my beloved Los Angeles.

We drove down from Los Angeles to stay with our dear cruising friends Don and Ellen Freeman, while we visit family, attend events, teach classes, and fly off to la Paz (from Tijuana). As firefighters begin to get a handle on the massive fires that wreaked such devastation in LA, everything is still reportedly fine at Casa Redmond in the Valley.

Driving down Hwy 1 from LA earlier this week, we were struck by how gorgeous the beaches were just a few miles south of the infernos and blighted smoking ashes. Here’s a photo of beautiful Laguna Beach from our afternoon walk that day.

Keep LA in your thoughts; if you can spare anything, here are some places to donate.

The California Fire Foundation, the Red Cross and World Central Kitchen.

Hasta pronto!