Available Now! - Click here to order!

“This is Soraya M. Lane at her finest.” - Literary Soirée

“This fast-paced narrative is packed with subterfuge, action, and romance.” - Historical Novel Society

When journalist Ella Franks is unmasked as a woman writing under a male pseudonym, she loses her job. But having risked everything to write, she refuses to be silenced and leaps at the chance to become a correspondent in war-torn France.

Already entrenched in the thoroughly male arena of war reporting is feisty American photojournalist Danni Bradford. Together with her best friend and partner, Andy, she is determined to cover the events unfolding in Normandy. And to discover the whereabouts of Andy’s flighty sister, Vogue model Chloe, who has followed a lover into the French Resistance.

When trailblazing efforts turn to tragedy, Danni, Ella and Chloe are drawn together, and soon form a formidable team. Each woman is determined to follow her dreams ‘no matter what’, and to make her voice heard over the noise of war.

Europe is a perilous place, with danger at every turn. They’ll need to rely on each other if they are to get their stories back, and themselves out alive. Will the adventure and love they find be worth the journey of their lives?

**EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW**

CHAPTER ONE

IllInois, UnIted states, July 1943

Ella

Ella turned her face up toward the sun and stretched, her neck still sore from the hours she’d spent at her typewriter the night before. She grimaced as her shoulder groaned painfully, and vowed not to sit for so long without moving again.

There was an envelope poking out of the mailbox and she walked quickly down the steps from her front door to the path, plucking it out and checking to see if it was the only letter. Her heart thudded as she turned it over, hoping to see her brother’s familiar scrawl, but instead of finding Brendon’s hand, she found the formal stamp from the publication she wrote for.

Frowning, she slid her finger beneath the seal and took out the letter. Why would they be writing to her? Ella tucked the envelope under her arm, quickly scanning the perfectly printed words on the page.

Her heart sank.

Dear Miss Franks,
It has come to our attention that, despite submitting your stories under the name of Ernst Franks, you are in fact a Miss Ella Franks. As you will be well aware, we are strictly forbidden from hiring women as journalists at the United Press, and as such we will no longer be able to publish your writing. Whilst we appreciate the work you have done for us, writ- ing under a pseudonym, we nonetheless see this as a deliberate and fraudulent attempt to conceal your gender and therefore obtain a job with us under false pretenses.

We wish you all the best with your future endeavors.

Ella read the letter again, her eyes traveling more slowly over the words this time, before crushing the paper in her hand and squeezing it until her fingers hurt. Tears formed against her lashes but she refused to let them fall, chewing hard on her bottom lip as she battled her emotions.

I’ve been fired.

Just like that, for being a woman, she’d been fired. After a year of cleverly turning in her stories as Ernst Franks, and asking for her checks to be made out to simply E. Franks to ensure she could still bank them, it was all over. It seemed so archaic that publications like the United Press strictly forbade the hiring of women, but they weren’t the only publication, far from it.

Ella walked silently into the house, kicking the door shut behind her and going straight to her bedroom. She stood and looked around at her perfectly made bed, at her desk beneath the window, papers stacked neatly beside her typewriter. At the ciga- rette discarded in the ashtray with a pen propped against it—a birthday gift from her brother, who believed so genuinely in her talent as a writer despite her gender.

It’s over.

She dropped the balled-up piece of paper to the floor and stalked toward her desk, standing over it as she breathed heavily, her nostrils flaring as her shoulders trembled. Anger tore through her, pulsated like a living, breathing force.

In one fast movement, she swiped the papers off her desk, batting her beloved pen to the ground, too.

Ella dropped to her hands and knees, chest heaving, her shoulders bunched up as she collapsed. Then, no longer able to contain her emotions, tears ran down her cheeks and fell to the carpet as she rocked, sobbing, guttural noises erupting from her as the weight of her failure consumed her. She may as well have been grieving a loved one, her pain so acute it stole her breath away. She thought she’d been so clever, writing about the effects of war on the local economy, how it was affecting politics, businesses and the everyday person struggling to get by on newly introduced rations, and they’d liked it when they thought her articles were written by a man. But of course no one cared for her reporting skills when they knew her gender. Heaven forbid if anyone had dared to employ her knowing she was a woman; then she’d have only been allowed to write about the latest Veet Cream hair removal product or the perfect new Brylfoam shampoo. It made her shudder just thinking about it.

She heard footsteps echo out on the wooden hallway floor and she scrambled up, reaching for her chair to steady herself as her body trembled. She wiped furiously at her cheeks with her finger- tips, clearing the salty tears from her skin as they fell to her mouth, and attempting to catch her breath between hiccupping sobs.

“Sweetheart, are you home?”

Her mother’s voice was like a warm song drifting down to her room, and Ella took a few more gulps of air before answering her, not wanting her to hear the waver in her tone.

“Ah, just a moment,” she stammered.

But she felt her mother’s presence without turning, knowing she was already standing in the open doorway behind her. And then Ella heard her drop to her knees, quietly picking up the scattered papers.

She should have bent down to help her, but instead she wanted to scream at her to leave them, to burn them for all she cared. But she didn’t. Because this was her mother’s house, and because she had no right to be angry with her mother when it was her editor she wanted to scream at. And also because they were in the middle of a war, and her mother would make her feel like a petulant child for being upset over a job given the times they were living in. But despite knowing all that, it didn’t make the news hurt any less.

“Ella, I’d like you to come with me tonight,” her mother said, touching her arm as she passed. “We need more young women volunteering with the Home Guard, and we have a rifle drill this evening near the university. Please come.”

Ella swallowed. Her mother asked her all the time, but usually she had a deadline to wield as an excuse.

“Yes,” she whispered, nodding her head as if to convince her- self. “I’ll come.”

Her mother’s brows rose in obvious surprise. “You will?”

Ella took the papers from her and dropped them beside the typewriter, glancing up and finally making eye contact with her. “Yes. I will.”

“And does this sudden interest in joining me have anything to do with the mess in here?”

Ella’s breath shuddered from her lips and she clenched her fists so her mother wouldn’t see her hands shaking. “Yes,” she said evenly, refusing to shed another tear. “It appears I’m going to have a lot of free time on my hands for volunteering.”

Her mother pursed her lips, her eyebrows drawing together as she studied Ella.

“You won’t be writing anymore?” she finally said.

“Oh, I’ll be writing,” Ella muttered stubbornly, “just not for that stupid goddamn newspaper.”

“Ella!” her mother scolded. “No swearing in my house.”

She chewed on her bottom lip, fingers suddenly itching to type, wanting to belt out a story about the injustice of being a woman and not having a voice, even though she knew no one would publish it. She could almost see the look on her editor’s face when he read that type of story—not that she’d ever actually write it. She hadn’t ever written anything for publication that involved her personal opinions, instead reporting the facts as she saw them.

“And now she’s smiling again, just like that,” her mother groaned, throwing her hands up into the air. “But there’s no getting out of coming with me tonight, do you hear? There are plenty of capable young women there, all doing well with their rifle training. It’d do you good to meet them instead of hiding away in here with that blasted typewriter all day.”

Ella stifled another smile as her mother crossed the room and opened the window, smoothing down the bedcovers as she passed.

“How I ended up with a daughter like you,” she murmured, and Ella mouthed the words as her mother said them, used to hear- ing that exact phrase on a daily basis.

But it was always followed by a squeeze of her shoulder and a kiss on the cheek, which at least made her think that her mom secretly approved of her work. Or maybe she was just deluding herself.

When she was alone in her room again, Ella opened her drawer and took out a cigarette, knowing her mother hated her smoking in the house but seemingly unable to ever type without at least a few puffs before she started. It was one of her little rituals around her writing, the need to smoke at least half a Lucky Strike until the words started to flow, before forgetting about it and letting it burn down to nothing in the glass ashtray beside her.

She pulled out a fresh sheet of paper, cigarette between her lips, and fed it through her typewriter, the habit calming her as she considered her current predicament. Maybe she’d write that article just for something cathartic to do.

“Darling! It’s time for breakfast!”

Ella shut her eyes for a moment, blocking out her mother’s voice and wishing she had the nerve to write straight back to theUnited Press and refuse to accept their treatment of her. But that little voice of self-doubt, the one that had almost stopped her from writing under a false name to begin with, was whispering at her that perhaps she just needed to accept her fate. That maybe she hadn’t been good enough in the first place.

“Ella! Come along before your eggs go cold!”

She sighed and stood, staring down at her typewriter, desperate to settle her hands over the cool black metal and start tapping out a story, even if it would never be published. But that could wait.

“Coming, Mama!” she yelled back.

***

Eight hours later, she was trudging off to meet the group of women her mother had talked about for months now. Her mom had been like a parrot, telling her everything about them and how brave they were, so if she was honest, there was something satisfying about meeting them. Not to mention the fact that she probably should have written an article about them all those months ago.

Ella smiled to herself as she patted the small notebook in her pocket, vowing to scribble notes about the women she met throughout the evening just in case she was able to put a story together.

“Come on, sweetheart, keep up,” her mother called out, strid- ing out up ahead.

And then she saw them, and she had to stop her jaw from drop- ping. The women waiting wore practical, almost man-like coats over their dresses to protect them from the slightly cooler evening wind, but despite their clothing, they were the most beautiful bunch of ladies she’d ever seen, with not a hair out of place and their lipstick perfectly brushed on. And they were all holding guns in their gloved hands.

Ella absently touched her hair, a scarf tied around it, and wished she’d followed her mother’s advice and made more of an effort with her appearance. She was used to spending most of her days curled up with her typewriter, and the more she’d worked, the less she’d started to worry about how she looked.

“Everyone, this is my daughter, Ella.” Her mother beamed, her shining smile sending waves of guilt through Ella—it wouldn’t have killed her to come along before now, given how proud her mother was of her little group.

“Hello,” she said, raising her hand and smiling back at the women.

“You ever shot one of these before, Ella?” one of them asked, holding out a rifle.

“Um, well, no actually, I haven’t,” she admitted, pulling out her pen and paper to start taking notes. “I tend to fight my battles on the page, not with bullets!”

She expected them to laugh, but only her mother smiled at her joke. The others looked more confused than anything. Ella cleared her throat awkwardly, realizing that her mother obviously hadn’t mentioned that her daughter was a journalist. Or if she had, it clearly hadn’t impressed them.

“I was thinking I could interview you all, you know, as you train and patrol,” she said, glancing at each of the ten or twelve women blinking back at her, their expressions impossible to read. “I’m a, ah . . . a writer.” It almost felt fraudulent saying it now that she didn’t actually have a job. But the stories she’d been writing on the social issues that were arising as a result of the war had all been printed, so technically she was still a writer.

“Or you could just get on with things and learn how to shoot one of these,” the same robust-looking woman said, thrusting the gun more forcefully at her this time, clearly not impressed by her suggestion.

Ella stared at the weapon, nodding as she slowly reached out one hand and gripped the wooden barrel with her fingers. “Oh, yes, of course,” she said, shooting her mother a quick sideways glance as she took it. “Of course I can, we can always talk later, I suppose,” she muttered.

But her voice was lost to the chatter of the women around her, who seemed oblivious to anything other than the work they were doing. She sighed and fell into step beside them, notebook tucked back into her pocket, resigned to the fact there was going to be no more writing until morning. And then an idea struck her, and she almost burst out laughing.

This was what she could write about. The United Press might not want her, but surely another publication would be interested in having a woman write about what women were doing during war- time? She smiled to herself as she marched, thrilled with her idea.

This way she wouldn’t have to pretend she was a man just to get published, although the idea of everyone knowing it was her, with no pseudonym to hide behind? Ella gulped. It was exhilarat- ing and terrifying at the same time, but most of all it scared her so much she knew it would take all her nerves to follow through with it. In the past, she’d been so careful to make herself sound like a man through her writing, but if she did this? She wouldn’t have to change the way she wrote to sound so formal and robust; she wouldn’t have to pretend anymore.

“Ella, stop dreaming and hurry up!” her mother whispered, tugging her arm.

Ella grinned, trotting along to catch up as her head filled with possibilities.

Copyright © Soraya Lane 2020

Like what you’ve just read? Buy the book here!