"Fate," the new novel in journalist/author Charles Loebbaka's Paris Trilogy, paints the great historical sweep of events in Europe, Palestine, and Israel from the 1930s to the mid-1950s. These are stories of love, sweat, blood, and tears of characters whose pain and triumphs make history come alive. "Fate" is the story of Hannah Abramov of Paris and Alina Wegner of Germany, young Jewish and Aryan girls bound by their destiny. Hannah flees Paris in 1942 and is sheltered at a Swiss Red Cross home in southern France. It is the 11-year-old's start on a 6,000-kilometer journey across the Pyrénées to Spain and then Palestine, home of her ancestors. Alina Wegner, five years younger, struggles to survive in violence-ravaged World War Two Berlin. Growing up in the Soviet Zone, she learns the shocking secrets of her family. Fate brings them together for the first time as young women in a night of danger and terror on the banks of the River Seine. Loebbaka's first trilogy novel, "Love and Death in Paris" is about waking to the reality of cruel repression. It is the story of ambitious young American Jack Lamont, an assistant to a glamorous female photographer for the Chicago Tribune, helping her click away as history unfolds. The ugly reality of life in German-occupied territory kicks in, and Lamont's life takes several sharp turns into, through and out of the lives of the dispossessed and the defiant, the Nazis and the resistance, the Aryans and the Jews, the crushed and the persevering. In the second book of the trilogy, "Paris Orphan," Hannah Abramov is sheltered at a Catholic boarding school in 1942 after Paris police imprison her parents and thousands of Jews in detention centers. Jack Lamont, sought by Nazis and French police, hides as the gardener there after French police find him with his lover, a university student fighting the Nazi occupation of France. They develop a friendship at the Saint-Coeur-de-Marie school and flee to the south of France. Their survival depends on British female covert agents; a hot-tempered underground leader; a Red Cross home that cares for displaced children; Basque smugglers and Jewish guerrillas; and the mistress of the Gestapo commander. "Paris Orphan," was recognized in the Mainstream/Literary Fiction category in the 3rd Annual Writer's Digest Self-Published eBook Awards that evaluate books on a 1 to 5 (outstanding) scale. The magazine's contest judge awarded a 4 rating for character appeal and development and cited the principal characters, saying, "I loved Hannah and Jack. What a great job the author did in crafting these main characters. They are well developed and realistic and they really brought the story to life. Wouldn't they be wonderful in a movie version of this script?" "Paris Orphan" has been added to the Holocaust and genocide information collection in the Brill Resource Center at the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, Skokie, Illinois.
About the Author: Charles Loebbaka started writing books after a 50-year journalism career, the last 27 years as director of media relations at Northwestern University. He is author of The Paris Trilogy books: "Fate," "Paris Orphan: Escape from Evil," and "Love and Death in Paris." Loebbaka also authored The Jack Lamont Trilogy-the noir mysteries of "Darlin/lost twin," "Sparrow/lost baby," and "Lola/lost memory." He began his writing career after earning a journalism degree from the University of Illinois, serving as a reporter for the Star Newspapers (Chicago Heights, Ill.) and then at the Hollister Newspapers (Wilmette, Ill.) as award-winning editor for the Glenview Announcements and Evanston Review and executive editor of Hollister's North Shore newspapers. He also wrote stories for the Chicago Sun-Times real estate section. He served as campaign director of William J. Scott for Illinois Attorney General in 1968 and campaign press secretary for Gov. Richard Ogilvie in 1972. He served 10 years as a Village of Glenview (Illinois) trustee. A widower, Loebbaka has three sons and five grandchildren and lives in Glenview, Illinois.