Review: Gracianna by Trini Amador

Teddyrose@1

11 years ago

Book Description:

Publication Date: July 23, 2013
Greenleaf Book Group Press
Hardcover; 296p
ISBN-10: 1608325709

The gripping story of Gracianna–a French-Basque girl forced to make impossible decisions after being recruited into the French Resistance in Nazi-occupied Paris.

Gracianna is inspired by true events in the life of Trini Amador’s great-grandmother, Gracianna Lasaga. As an adult, Amador was haunted by the vivid memory of finding a loaded German Luger tucked away in a nightstand while wandering his great-grandmother’s home in Southern California. He was only four years old at the time, but the memory remained and he knew he had to explore the story behind the gun.

Decades later, Amador would delve into the remarkable odyssey of his Gracianna’s past, a road that led him to an incredible surprise. In Gracianna, Amador weaves fact and fiction to tell his great-grandmother’s story.

Gracianna bravely sets off to Paris in the early 1940s–on her way to America, she hopes–but is soon swept into the escalation of the war and the Nazi occupation of Paris. After chilling life-and-death struggles, she discovers that her missing sister has surfaced as a laborer in Auschwitz. When she finds an opportunity to fight back against the Nazis to try to free her sister, she takes it–even if it means using lethal force.

As Amador tells the imagined story of how his great-grandmother risked it all, he delivers richly drawn characters and a heart-wrenching page-turner that readers won’t soon forget.

My Thoughts:

Gracianna is a work of fiction, but based on the true story of Author, Trini Amador’s great grandmother, Gracianna Lasaga. Gracianna was raised by her grandmother, Anastasia in the Pyrennes, mountains that border France and Spain, in a town called Basque. Her mother died giving birth to her sister, Constance when Gracianna was just 8 years old. Her father was unknown.

Like many in Basque, Gracianna was fluent in many languages including her native tongue, French, and German. She loved reading about far away places and dreamed on going to the United States of America some day.

It was during WWII that 17 year old Gracianna decided to go to France to look for a higher paying job, so she could earn enough money to eventually moved to the U.S. Before that she was living with a friend at their employment and she had a crush on a boy, Juan, a sheephearder also from Basque. He eventually followed Gracianna to France.

In France Gracianna worked in a resturant where her mother had been employed years before. The owner,Monsieur Dominique, welcomed her with open arms and they became friends. Eventually Germany invaded France. Soon it became apparent that Dominque was part of the French resistance and Gracianna got involved. She was a short girl, under 5 feet but her stature and feistiness more than made up for that.

I don’t want to risk giving out spoilers so you will just have to read this wonderful book to find out what happens. In the beginning the book read a bit slow for me but it soon picked up and I was hooked. I didn’t want it to end. Trini Amador’s writing leaps off the page. He captures the landscape, time, and places in exquisite poetic prose! The characters leap out as well and I felt like I was transported back to live with them and experience everything first hand.

I highly recommend Gracianna for those who love historical fiction, especially in the WWII era. Bravo!

4.5/5

I received the ebook version for my honest review.

About Trini Amador:

Trini Amador vividly remembers the day he found a loaded German Luger tucked away in a nightstand while wandering through his great-grandmother’s home in Southern California. He was only four years old at the time, but the memory remained and he knew he had to explore the story behind the gun. This experience sparked a journey towards Gracianna, Amador’s debut novel, inspired by true events and weaving reality with imagination. It’s a tale drawing from real-life family experiences.

Mr. Amador is a traveled global marketing “insighter.” He is a sought-after guru teaching multinational brand marketers to understand how customer and consumer segments behave based on their needs, values, motivations, feeling and values. He has trained over five thousand brand marketers on how to grow brands in over 20 countries in the last 15 years. His counseling has been valued at global brands including General Electric, Microsoft, AT&T, Yahoo!, Sun Microsystems, Google, Jack Daniel’s, The J.M. Smucker Co., DuPont, Mattel, and Rodale, Inc..

Amador is also a founding partner with his wife and children of Gracianna Winery, an award-winning winery located in Healdsburg, California. The winery also pays tribute to the Amador Family’s maternal grandmother, Gracianna Lasaga. Her message of being thankful lives on through them. The Gracianna winery strives to keep Gracianna’s gratitude alive through their wine. Learn more at: www.gracianna.com, like Gracianna Winery onFacebook or follow them on Twitter @GraciannaWinery.

Amador resides in Sonoma County with his family.

Please come back tomorrow, when Trini Amador will be our guest as So Many Precious Books, So Little time. Would you like to try to win a copy of Gracianna. Check out the following link to find out where the book giveaways for this tour are: http://hfvirtualbooktours.com/graciannavirtualtour/