Heather Graham

Happy June, Happy summer!

Well, apparently, there are many things that we celebrate or honor in June. Important days like June 6 – D-Day, recognizing the Invasion of Normandy during World War II. There are also days that honor cancer survivors, it’s Pride Month, and we have a day to acknowledge the contributes of immigrates to the USA! And many, many more!

There’s a day to celebrate running!

Two important days to me are Flag Day—the child of immigrants, I was always taught to honor the country and our flag. And then there’s “Juneteenth.” While I sadly have just my kids and nephew and his family left on my side, I married into a massive Italian family and now five generations in, my in-law family includes people from every continent and color and religious background known to man.

I love it!

Of course, Father’s Day is coming up, and there will be a Krewe/Crows/Blackbird story out for that holiday in a week or so, but today, I’m using a cool story I heard from a woman at a museum combined with a bit from my real life. Since I’m first generation, it’s a given that I had no ancestors around during the Civil War, but with five kids and travel from Florida all over the country to visit family and friends, I spent hours and hours in museums and sites all around the country.

This story specifically honors two June holidays, Flag Day and Juneteenth.

I hope that I have given them justice! Just a few thousand words, but I hope you enjoy it! And, of course, come August, I also hope you enjoy “These Ancient Bones,” and in November, “Destiny Rising.” The first is Krewe/Crows story and the second, a ‘romantasy,’ a sequel to “The Sword of Destiny.”

A bit that happened in life that I truly enjoyed. I had already written and turned in “A Cruise to Die For” when I was asked to speak on a Transatlantic cruise. The very best thing was the people aboard. Nicest crew ever. And they were from fifty-four different countries. They loved to play the game they called, “You guess it!” And I was right maybe fifty percent of the time.

Thank you so very much!

Heather Graham

The Civil War is coming to an end as the battle of Appomattox Courthouse was coming to an end.

For David Mayberry, it also appeared to be the end of his life. He was bleeding profusely from a bullet that had ripped into his side.

And worse. He was on ground taken by Union forces, among them the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. And he had been a Confederate soldier fighting in the battle. If he was found by a freed man of color.

He was surely dead.

But he was soon to discover that he just might have a chance.

And he would learn a great lesson in the process.

Mercy Knows No Color.

Memorial Day story, free on Kundle Unlimited.(GOL, groaning out loud- Kindle Unlimited!)

New York Time's Bestselling Author
HEATHER GRAHAM
Memorial Day - Lest We Forget
A day on which we honor all those who have fought for our country.
So, first, this Memorial Day, for my husband’s uncle, Anthony “Tony” Pozzessere.
The youngest child or eleven, Tony, like his siblings, was a first generation American. But when it came to signing up to fight for America and freedom, he was right there.
So were Frank Mero, Frank Astrella, Frank Piso, and many more in the family, all first-generation Italian.
Uncle Frank Mero parachuted with special forces into the action.
Tony fought in Italy and then went to Normandy. Dennis’s aunt would receive news on the same day that her husband and her brother had been killed.
I can’t imagine that pain.
And here’s what’s so interesting . . .
During World War II, Japanese Americans were sent to camps, German and Italian Americans were still considered “enemy aliens” and subject to curfews and various other restrictions.
The moral of this story to me is not that we need to be stupid—there will always be danger to us. But my dad taught me that the human soul had no color or ethnicity; good men and women came in all varieties. Never be stupid, but always judge a human being by their heart and person, and not by a label given to them.
Well, back to Memorial Day!
Tony was honored with a square in his hometown of Worcester, Massachusetts!
Now, onward to the man I knew who taught me so much! And because our personal histories don’t change, I may have written about this before. If I’m redundant, please forgive me!
I’m always proud that my dad was in the U.S. Navy during World War II. And a bit of family history here. The Graham family of Scots immigrated through Nova Scotia to Northern Wisconsin. As a young man, my father was apparently on the wild side, so much so that while he was technically too old for the service, his dad who was on the draft board told him he’d be drafted—if he was going to kill himself, it might as well be for his country. Rather than be drafted, my dad enlisted in the Navy. At first he served as one of the “frogmen,” the first term for what would become the Navy Seals. He could swim incredibly—how he managed that in Northern Wisconsin, I’ll never know! But as the war went on and younger men came in, he went on to become a petty officer. His ship was one of the first into Nagasaki after the bomb, and that was a memory that stayed with him forever. Well, in fact . . . I heard him talking to my mother about the experience, seeing people melting as they crawled and fell on the streets. I grew up in the “duck and cover” age, but in that conversation, I heard my dad tell my mom, “If a nuclear bomb goes off, you want to say take me quick and first!”
I went into school and when we were supposed to crawl under our desks, I told the teacher that it was foolish, and I threw my arms out and said, “Take me first!”
Of course, I wound up in the principal’s office. My parents were called in. My father didn’t take back his words, but he informed me sternly that if crawling under the desk was the school’s policy, I was to abide by the rule.
Well, of course, I did.
Sadly, I’m your basic coward. I don’t know how our men and women in the service do all that they do. I honor them with my whole heart, and I’m grateful that we do indeed have Memorial Day because we all need to remember how much our service members have done for us all!
Now, today’s tale is not a mystery, but a war story, a story about something that happened at the end of World War II that I heard about while visiting a Holocaust museum. A story I heard about, but one that you might have heard about, too, if you visited the same museum. Told from the point of my imagination, of course.
Hope you’ll enjoy this touch of human beings winding up finding goodness despite the cruelty, insanity, and horror of war.
Heather
In Memory
Even in the darkest hours, a ray of light might slip through.
The second great world war—World War II--is coming to an end. Russian forces are closing in from the east, Allied forces from the west.
But those in concentration camps still live in terror; they fear their fate as those who would save them press to reach them. Yes, there is hope on the horizon, too, but for those still prisoners, their fate is unknown.
Will their captors merely run,
or will they do all the damage
that they might before that time?
When eighteen-year-old Rachel Levy is called by her mentor within the camp, Hank Fisk, to slip quickly through the broken electrified fence he has been ordered to repair, she is torn. Since she and many other children and teens had been brought into the camp, Hank had given them his own food when they were all but starved, warned them what to do and not do, and been far more than a friend. Her own father and mother and she had been torn apart. But Hank is insisting that she slip away and run, hide in the forests and move westward, always westward. If she was caught, she mustn’t lie—that might be a death sentence. But if she could reach the American or any of the Allied forces . . .
She just might survive.
Rachel runs. And runs.
Ever westward! Surviving in the forest. Until the day that the grass and shrubbery part before her and she knows that she’s been found.
But Hank had warned her.
The truth. Blurt out the truth.
And somehow, the truth will change her world.
A Cruise to Die For
Special agents face deadly, uncharted waters in this tense romantic thriller from New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham.
Special Agent Chloe McMurray has been asked to do many things in the name of her job. Going undercover on a cruise ship leaving from her home port of Miami, however, is a new one. Not only that, but she’s tasked with posing as the wife of her federal counterpart, Special Agent Wesley Law.
Their investigation? A string of murders and suicides across three states that seem unrelated, until they uncover a deadly technological connection. Every victim was an expert in technology and had some connection to Milestones, a mega corporation with ties to many industries...including the cruise industry.
Chloe and Wesley must successfully go undercover as tech employees on the ship hosting the ten-year anniversary of the Milestones cruise company. A tough ask when the two have never met before. They’ll infiltrate the technology events, investigate their fellow passengers and try to uncover what’s really going on.
However, danger is never far behind. Their killer can use tech to do the job without lifting a finger, and at sea, there’s no escape if their covers are blown
No Other Man
Comanche Moon meets Savage Thunder in this sweeping Western Historical Romance of betrayal, desire, and redemption on the untamed frontier.
Krewe of Hunters
The Crows: Book 2
The X-Files meets Dan Brown in this suspenseful tale of dark magic, ancient curses, and modern murder, as two agents with unusual talents investigate a series of sensational crimes in the historic city of St. Augustine, Florida.
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Heading home from Thrillerfest! An amazing time. Our community is warm and giving and I love it!