Tag: fiction

A reason to celebrate! Wolf Catcher, my most personal book, is now available

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Here’s the new cover for my historical fiction novel Wolf Catcher. It’s rather edgy and cool, and a handful of you might recognize the title, because this book came out years ago. However, my life didn’t go exactly as planned back then, so few people ever read the story.

Here’s what happened.

Launch day for an author is huge. Like a wedding, or a milestone anniversary, or celebrating a 100th birthday. Authors plan for these events by locating venues, sending out invitations, courting the media, and soliciting reviews. Then we agonize over the details and hope everything goes as planned.

So imagine when a week before the scheduled launch of my suspense novel The Castle I awoke with Covid. I could barely move. I even hallucinated. The one delusion I still remember is, perhaps, understandable since I’m a writer. I was searching for the answer to a question I don’t recall and was being attacked by words and phrases, none of which gave me what I was looking for. The faster I batted those words away, the quicker they came at me. I felt like a tennis player at Wimbledon. It was like being imprisoned in a vicious writer’s video game.

But that wasn’t the worst part. I got out of bed, walked into the bathroom, and promptly passed out. When I woke up, I tried to stand, but my left leg wouldn’t work. I looked down, saw my foot twisted in the wrong direction, and slowly crawled back to bed. It would be eight months before I could walk properly again. I carry a titanium plate and eleven screws in my leg as a reminder.

So, remember that launch for The Castle? It never happened. As you can imagine, few ever read the book. And, in a sad twist, another novel, Wolf Catcher, came out during the same period and suffered the same fate. There’s a window of opportunity for promoting books, moments that slipped by. Then, the books went out of print when the publisher closed.

But now I’ve been given a another chance. I can’t thank Next Chapter Publishing enough for taking on both Wolf Catcher and The Castle. Do overs are not that common in the publishing industry, so I will be forever grateful for the opportunity.

Of all my books, Wolf Catcher—which was released August 7, 2025—is the most personal. One of the protagonists is a reporter tasked with ferreting out the identity of a man buried outside of Flagstaff, Arizona almost 900 years earlier. A man whose mummified remains looked different from the people who occupied the area at the time, one who was buried with 600 exquisite funerary objects, identifying him as a person of power and prestige.

The story of the man they call The Magician was my assignment when I worked as a journalist for Arizona Highways Magazine. That the reporter’s name in the book is Kate Butler might be a tipoff that she and I traveled the same path in search of the story. With the exception of the time when bullets are flying, just about everything that happened to Kate also happened to me.

Note that as a girl who grew up in New Jersey with little knowledge of Native Americans, the investigation was a long learning curve. I charged into my research with little understanding of the cultural traditions I might be trampling and, like Kate, changed a lot along the way.

So, if you weren’t one of the few who had a chance to read Wolf Catcher you can now.

The past and present collide when a tenacious reporter seeks information on an eleventh century magician…and uncovers more than she bargained for.

In 1939, archaeologists uncovered a 900-year-old tomb at the Northern Arizona site called Ridge Ruin. The man, bedecked in fine turquoise jewelry and intricate bead work, was surrounded by hundreds of extraordinary funerary objects, including wooden swords with handles carved into animal hooves and human hands. The Hopi workers stepped back from the grave, knowing what the Moochiwimi sticks meant. This man was a magician.

Sixty-five years later, investigative reporter Kate Butler discovers evidence that The Magician looked notably different from those who buried him. Her quest to discover The Magician’s origin carries her back to a time when the high desert world was shattered by the birth of a volcano and into the present-day dangers of archaeological looting where black market sales of antiquities can lead to murder.

Note: Ebooks are available on all sites. Paperbacks and hardcovers will be out shortly.

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Bookstores, libraries, and other booksellers can order copies directly from the Ingram Catalog.

Praise for Wolf Catcher

“Blending archaeology and Native American mythology, “Wolf Catcher” by novelist Anne Montgomery is an original, exceptionally well written, and compelling work of historical fiction…” – Midwest Book Review

“The author’s ability to interweave the past and the present was masterful. The characters were complex and interesting, especially with the underlying theme of rethinking the history of worldly human migration … A real page turner and I am wondering when the movie is going to be made!” – Alicia Williams Goodreads

“The story is very well-paced, reaching a page-turning, action-packed climax to the end. This story has all the elements of a great suspense drama centered around a historical mystery.” – Heidi Slowinski Author

“I was deeply and thoroughly embroiled in this imaginative novel… (that) melds seamlessly much of fact with fiction. Totally recommended! “ – V. Williams Vine Voice

“What a journey! What a story! A truly epic tale that grabs you by a throat and moves your soul. Highly recommend for the readers of all age groups.” – Marina Sardarova Author

“Boy, didn’t this one grip me quickly and keep me glued to the pages! Loved the cliff-hanging chapter endings. Well researched, well-plotted and paced…Trust me, you’ll love it. Totally recommended and out now!” – Rosepoint Publishing

“Once again the author has created a beautiful story with a powerful message. She took a piece of history and brought it to life. I just can’t say enough good things about Wolf Catcher.” – Megan Salcido Wildwood Reads

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

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Historical fiction authors sometimes find fascinating facts that don’t make the history books

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Writing historical fiction can be fascinating and frustrating, an effort that often feels like digging for buried treasure. Sometimes you find what you’re looking for. Other times the facts are elusive. And then there are the moments when intriguing new evidence emerges, details that put your story in a new light.

That was the case in regard to my most recent book, Your Forgotten Sons, a story inspired by Sergeant Joseph “Bud” Richardville, who served in the Graves Registration Service in Europe during World War II, arguable the most difficult assignment in the military. Bud and his men were tasked with the job no soldier wanted: locate, identify, and bury the dead.

But there was another side of Bud’s story. A love story. In fact, quiet family rumors suggested there may have been two women in Bud’s life.

During the course of my research, I learned about Allotment Annies, women who married men just as they were headed off to war. My thanks to Linda Pennell, a fellow historical fiction author, for sharing my story on her website History Imagined

Allotment Annies: A homegrown hazard to servicemen during World War II by Anne Montgomery

Your Forgotten Sons

Inspired by a true story

Anne Montgomery

Bud Richardville is inducted into the Army as the United States prepares for the invasion of Europe in 1943. A chance comment has Bud assigned to a Graves Registration Company, where his unit is tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead. Bud ships out, leaving behind his new wife, Lorraine, a mysterious woman who has stolen his heart but whose secretive nature and shadowy past leave many unanswered questions. When Bud and his men hit the beach at Normandy, they are immediately thrust into the horrors of what working in a graves unit entails. Bud is beaten down by the gruesome demands of his job and losses in his personal life, but then he meets Eva, an optimistic soul who despite the war can see a positive future. Will Eva’s love be enough to save him?

Release Date: June 6, 2024

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Bookstores, libraries, and other booksellers can order copies directly from the Ingram Catalog.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

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Your Forgotten Sons: The origin story

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Authors get ideas for books in a variety of ways. In my case, since I’m a former reporter, the topics for my novels often came from stories I read about in the paper or watched on the news, subjects, discoveries, or societal issues that intrigued me, inviting me to learn more about them.

My most recent novel, however, came to me in a different way. My friend was in trouble, a health issue that, if things went wrong, would have had disastrous results, possibly paralyzing her from the waist down. She asked for my help. And then, the night before the surgery, she made a strange request.

“No matter what happens to me, promise that you’ll tell Bud’s story,” Gina said.

“A book?”

My friend of 40 years nodded and, despite what she was facing the next morning, she smiled.

How could I say no?

The blog Women Writers, Women’s Books asked me to write about how my World War II historical fiction novel Your Forgotten Sons—which was released June 6th in honor of the 80th anniversary of D-Day—came to be and the pitfalls I faced in my efforts to tell the story.

Find that article here.

Your Forgotten Sons

Inspired by a true story

Released June 6, 2024

Anne Montgomery

Bud Richardville is inducted into the Army as the United States prepares for the invasion of Europe in 1943. A chance comment has Bud assigned to a Graves Registration Company, where his unit is tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead. Bud ships out, leaving behind his new wife, Lorraine, a mysterious woman who has stolen his heart but whose secretive nature and shadowy past leave many unanswered questions. When Bud and his men hit the beach at Normandy, they are immediately thrust into the horrors of what working in a graves unit entails. Bud is beaten down by the gruesome demands of his job and losses in his personal life, but then he meets Eva, an optimistic soul who despite the war can see a positive future. Will Eva’s love be enough to save him?

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Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

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On being an author

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Being an author is exciting and exhilarating. It allows one to travel to far-off places without leaving home and to meet new people, ones you might never get to know in your regular life. But writing can also be a solitary struggle to get things just right. And then there is the fight involved in trying to get a book published, which can be daunting, as well as the added marketing and social media demands that inevitably come along. It’s understandable, perhaps, that authors often wonder if it’s all worth the effort.

All that said, I never set out to write books. It just happened. And despite the everyday battles I can’t imagine doing anything else.

My new historical fiction novel Your Forgotten Sons, a story of a man who served in the Army’s Grave Registration Service during World War II, has just launched. All I can say is that it’s kind of like raising a child and then sending them out into the world, all wrapped up in your hopes and dreams.

The online magazine Books Uplift, just posted an interview with me where I discuss my new novel, as well as what it means to be an author and what aspiring authors should consider when contemplating a long-term relationship with written words. Find that I interview here.

Your Forgotten Sons

Inspired by a true story

Anne Montgomery

Bud Richardville is inducted into the Army as the United States prepares for the invasion of Europe in 1943. A chance comment has Bud assigned to a Graves Registration Company, where his unit is tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead. Bud ships out, leaving behind his new wife, Lorraine, a mysterious woman who has stolen his heart but whose secretive nature and shadowy past leave many unanswered questions. When Bud and his men hit the beach at Normandy, they are immediately thrust into the horrors of what working in a graves unit entails. Bud is beaten down by the gruesome demands of his job and losses in his personal life, but then he meets Eva, an optimistic soul who despite the war can see a positive future. Will Eva’s love be enough to save him?

Order Your Copy Today

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Apple Books

Barnes & Nobel

Google Books

Kobo

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

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Amazon

Your Forgotten Sons—Growing up in poverty: An excerpt

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My World War II historical fiction novel Your Forgotten Sons is set for release June 6, 2024 in honor of the 80th anniversary of the storming the beaches of Normandy: D-Day. The book was inspired by the true story of a man assigned to the Graves Registration Service.

Joseph “Bud” Richardville was like millions of other young men who grew up in poverty in the shadow of the Great Depression. His family lived in a tiny house next to railroad tracks in Vincennes, Indiana, where his father ruled with a hard hand over his wife and children.

Bud was a poor student who often skipped school and got into trouble. Still he was charming and kind and most found it hard not to like him, with the exception of his father who believed Bud would never be anything but but an embarrassment to the family.

Find below an excerpt from Your Forgotten Sons.

Vincennes, Indiana

1930

Spring in Vincennes had remained cold. Bitterly so. Mickey, wrapped tight in a ragged gray sweater and a pair of cuffed jeans, shivered uncontrollably even when inside the house. Mickey was Bud’s favorite. Her sharp eyes and sometimes irreverence toward adults made the two of them alike, though they were separated by eight years.

Bud crept out of the house an hour before dawn, his breath crystallizing in a huff of white. His coat—a short, cracked, brown-leather jacket that had come by way of the charity ladies at church—wasn’t enough to quell the dry cold that crept onto and under his skin despite the jeans and threadbare sweater. He grabbed the metal bucket that rested beside the uneven front porch and bolted toward the trees.

Ten minutes later, Bud looked down the track and waited. Finally, he felt the rumbling. He’d picked the perfect spot. The train would slow inside town limits, and the small hill would give him the perfect trajectory. The golden light, shining like a small sparkling sun, bounced along the track. Bud crouched in the bushes, not wanting the engineer to see him.

The engine moved past, the tick, tick, tick of the wheels a strangely soothing sound for a massive mechanical vehicle. Bud counted three cars. It was the fourth that was his destination. At the same moment the third car rattled by, Bud launched himself into space. The metal pail banged against the side of the car and, distracted in his effort to keep a grip on the bucket, threw him off balance. His foot slipped on the top edge of the car, and Bud tumbled, though he managed to maintain his hold on the pail, while the other hand clung precariously to the rail atop the car.

“Shit!” Bud mumbled as he grappled his way into the boxcar. When he’d finally lifted himself over the edge, he fell with a thud into the dirty cargo. He took several deep breaths that dissipated in white clouds in the frigid dawn air. Then he stood awkwardly, the uneven freight and the swaying railcar making his footing unstable.

The town was just around the bend. Bud quickly went to work making small piles of coal and lining them up against the side of the boxcar. A few lights glowed ahead, inside the houses on the edge of Vincennes.

He was finished just in time. The first home appeared out of the gloaming. Bud crouched, ready. He scooped the first pile and filled the pail with hard lumps of shiny bituminous coal. Just as the train car approached the dwelling, Bud dumped the coal over the side. Then, he dug into the next pile and flung the contents again. Over and over, he scattered the lumps of stone, knowing his neighbors were in dire need of the heat-producing rock, which many of them couldn’t afford to purchase.

Sweat formed between his broad shoulders and ran in rivulets down his chest. Bud—overly warm now from the exertion—wanted to remove the frayed leather jacket, but the next house approached so quickly, he couldn’t afford to take the time. He worked his way down the inside of the car, dumping coal by every house the train passed. Then his home came into view. Bud dug the edge of the bucket into the loose coal, hauled up the stone, and poured it over the side. He felt like Santa Claus and whooped as the train pulled away from town.

Bud knelt in the coal, the rocks sticking into his knees. He peered into the waning darkness and waited for the best spot to depart the train, which was now leaving Vincennes and picking up speed. After crossing a small trestle, the train rumbled toward the soft grassy area near the river where Bud often went when he skipped school and where he sometimes took girls who’d let him kiss them. He’d have to jump, but he’d done it before and wasn’t worried. Still, the realization of his actions and the knowledge that he would pay for his theft made him wince. He was covered with coal dust. There was no way to hide his crime. Bud tossed the bucket over the side and leapt. He tumbled away from the moving train and rolled in the grass, then stood, brushed off his clothes as best he could, and retrieved the now-empty bucket that had spun down the riverbank.

Later that day, Bud stood with his face pressed against the old oak, the branches of which were so large they’d dropped to the earth and then curved back toward the sky. It took three grown men hand to hand to encircle the massive tree that had stood for close to two hundred years. Bud, striped to the waist, had both arms around the rough trunk.

“What is the matter with you, boy?” His father brought the switch down on his son’s back, slicing through skin, raising an instant welt. “The Bible says thievin’ is wrong.” He whipped his son again. And again.

But Bud never made a sound. It was Mickey who cried on the porch, the bucket of coal by her side, while Momma dabbed her eyes with a hanky.

That evening, Bud’s back smarted. He was unable to sit or lie down comfortably, still he didn’t miss the irony of the fact that the purloined coal now blazed in the black, pot-bellied stove, next to which his father sat, a cigarette dangling from his thin, colorless lips.

Mickey idly played with several hunks of coal. Then, she emitted a gasp. “Look, Bud!” she scrambled from her place on the floor, holding two large pieces of rock.

Bud, sitting rigidly in a high-back wooden chair, smiled at his little sister. “What have you got there, Mick?”

“It’s a flower.” She turned up the two halves of the broken piece of coal, showing a perfect fossil imprinted on both sides.

“I think that’s a fern.” He rubbed her tawny head. “Like the ones that grow out in the woods. Remember those?”

Mickey nodded and hugged the stones to her chest. “They’re beautiful!”

Her father rose from his seat by the stove. “Give me those, girl!”

But Mickey held the fossils tightly in her grip.

Then, her father reached for the pieces of coal, wrenched them from the child’s hands, and hurled them into the fire.

Your Forgotten Sons

Inspired by a true story

Anne Montgomery

Bud Richardville is inducted into the Army as the United States prepares for the invasion of Europe in 1943. A chance comment has Bud assigned to a Graves Registration Company, where his unit is tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead. Bud ships out, leaving behind his new wife Lorraine, a mysterious woman who has stolen his heart but whose secretive nature and shadowy past leave many unanswered questions. When Bud and his men hit the beach at Normandy, they are immediately thrust into the horrors of what working in a graves unit entails. Bud is beaten down by the gruesome demands of his job and losses in his personal life, but then he meets Eva, an optimistic soul who despite the war can see a positive future. Will Eva’s love be enough to save him?

Join us at Changing Hands Bookstore in Phoenix on June 6, 2024, for the lanuch of Your Forgotten Sons. Find out more about the event here.

Pre-Order your copy today

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Nobel

Google Books

Kobo

Review a copy early by going to NetGalley. Sign in here.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

Goodreads

Amazon

Your Forgotten Sons—a story of love and loss: An excerpt

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Bud Richardville married Lorraine, a woman he barely knew, right before heading off to war. But there were rumors of another woman who stole his heart.

There were quiet whispers of another woman in Sergeant Bud Richardville’s life. Someone he met while serving in the Graves Registration Sevice in Europe during World War II.

But Bud was married and Catholic.

My World War II historical fiction novel Your Forgotten Sons is set for release June 6, 2024 in honor of the 80th anniversary D-Day. While Bud’s story details the ordeals he and his men confronted as they gathered the dead, it also presents the moral delema he faced by loving two women.

Find below an excerpt of Bud’s story.

Luxembourg City

1945

Since it was midmorning, Bud opted for coffee and a croissant with a slice of white cheese and some jam. That the coffee was real was astonishing. The nutty, smoky aroma was almost overwhelming. And the pastry was warm and buttery, and Bud couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten anything so delicious. He wanted another one, so he raised an arm to attract the waiter, but stopped when he sensed someone watching him. She stood on the other side of the ornate, cast-iron railing that enclosed the patio of the café. Again, she stared at Bud with those unblinking blue eyes.

“Hello.” Bud stood and smiled, dropping his napkin on the ground. Her bright red hair was uncovered and fell in short curls around her face. Freckles spread across her nose and cheeks. “We met at Malmédy.” Immediately, Bud wanted the words back, the horror of that place still fresh in his memory.

“I do not think we actually met.” Her English was laced with a British accent.

They stared at one another for a long time, until Bud, feeling awkward, broke the silence. “Can I offer you a cup of coffee?”

“Eva! How nice to see you!” The waiter smiled at the woman.

“Bonjour, Victor!” She smiled as well, and the change in her expression was startling.

Bud pulled out a chair at the table where he’d been sitting. Eva paused, seemingly unsure.

“Yes, yes! Have some coffee, Eva. It’s been such a long time. I had no idea you were back.” The man’s brow furrowed. “I hope everything is all right.”

She took a deep breath. “At least I am home now.”

Bud watched as she turned and walked away, and his heart unexpectedly sank until she stepped into the doorway that led to the interior of the patio. Then Eva walked to the table and sat.

Bud didn’t know what to say, and several moments ticked away. Victor broke the silence when he returned with a fresh pot of coffee, a cup and saucer, and two warm croissants balanced on a tray. He placed everything on the table and gave Bud a fresh napkin. Then he turned to Eva. “You are too thin, my dear. Eat!”

She nodded, a sad expression on her face. After Victor filled her cup and topped off Bud’s, the proprietor walked away, leaving the two strangers alone.

Bud watched Eva take a bite of the croissant. Her eyes closed briefly as she chewed.

“Exactly the way I remember it.” She placed her palm on her heart, and Bud noticed she was missing several fingernails and the index finger on her right hand, a ragged pink scar marking where the finger had once been. She saw Bud staring but kept her hand in place for a moment longer, as if wanting him to look at the damage, then she reached for the coffee cup.

“So…you live here?” Bud focused on his second croissant and slathered some jam on the pastry.

“I was born here. I am a Luxembourger.”

The appellation sounded funny to Bud, but he didn’t mention it. “Are you friends with the owner?” It was all he could think of to ask.

She raised her eyebrows, which were golden-red like her hair. “Victor?”

Bud nodded toward the window where the man was polishing glasses inside the café.

“Victor and my father were best friends. I used to come here when I was a child. When the café was slow, they’d play chess.” Her English was flawless. “And they’d give me breadcrumbs so I could feed the pigeons.” She gazed into the street. “Not so many birds now. The people had to eat them. Both my parents are also gone.” She smiled, but the expression was sad, so Bud remained quiet, unusually tongue-tied.

“Were you in medicine before the war?” Bud finally asked.

Eva pierced him with those icy blue eyes that were hard to read. “No. Were you?”

Bud laughed. “No, I worked in a paper mill. Why do you ask?”

She gave the smallest of shrugs. “You were working with the bodies.”

“I’m part of a graves registration company. I’m not really sure how I ended up there. Most of the men I work with have no medical training, though Doc is a veterinarian.”

Eva nodded. Then she stared toward the sidewalk, where a young couple walked past arm-in-arm. They smiled and spoke animatedly in French. She blinked several times as if remembering something.

“More coffee?” Victor stood nearby, and Bud could see a bright red stain on the man’s white apron, one that reminded Bud of blood but appeared to be strawberry jam.

“Thank you, yes?” Eva held out her cup.

“I’m so glad you’ve returned, Eva. You know, I worried.”

Eva reached out and grasped the man’s hand. “I know you  did, Victor.”

He glanced at her damaged hand and proffered a sad smile.

Eva just nodded.

Bud wanted to ask what had happened to her, where her father and mother were, and what her life was like before the war, among a hundred other questions, but just the fact that he was dining with a woman who was not his wife seemed wrong. Then he felt silly. After all, it was only a pastry and a cup of coffee. What harm was there in that? And still, he felt unsettled, guilty.

  

Your Forgotten Sons

Inspired by a true story

Anne Montgomery

Release Date: June 6, 2024

Bud Richardville is inducted into the Army as the United States prepares for the invasion of Europe in 1943. A chance comment has Bud assigned to the Graves Registration Service where his unit is tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead. Bud ships out, leaving behind his new wife, Lorraine, a mysterious woman who has stolen his heart but whose secretive nature and shadowy past leave many unanswered questions. When Bud and his men hit the beach at Normandy, they are immediately thrust into the horrors of what working in a graves unit entails. Bud is beaten down by the gruesome demands of his job and losses in his personal life, but then he meets Eva, an optimistic soul who despite the war can see a positive future. Will Eva’s love be enough to save him?

Join us at Changing Hands Bookstore in Phoenix on June 6, 2024, for the lanuch of Your Forgotten Sons. Find out more about the event here.

Pre-Order your copy today

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Nobel

Google Books

Kobo

Review a copy early by going to NetGalley. Sign in here.

Find Anne Montgomery’s novels wherever you buy books.

Goodreads

Amazon

A surgery turns into a search for the truth

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My dear friend Gina Liparato told me about her Uncle Bud who served in World War II and never came home; a man who worked in the Graves Registration Service in Europe and whose strange death puzzled her for decades.

Baltimore, 2019

I’d traveled to Baltimore at the request of a dear friend. She was facing a delicate, possibly life-changing surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital and asked that I stand in as her healthcare power of attorney.

The night before the operation, Gina, handed me a Ziplock bag. Inside I found a packet of yellowed letters. We’d spoken of Gina’s elusive uncle—her mother’s handsome, rakish brother—on occasion over the years, and of the odd circumstances surrounding his death near the end of World War II.

“No matter what happens to me, I want you to tell Bud’s story,” she said.

I nodded and promised that I would.

The next day, my friend of over three decades tried to comfort me and her soldier husband: three tours, two in Afghanistan, one in Iraq, a navy-blue sweatshirt boasting an Airborne patch, a bracelet saying Remember The Fallen encircling his wrist. Gina’s husband would soon disappear, leaving her in my care, because the hospital and its patients gnawed at his belly, a reminder of dead and dying soldiers he’d been unable to help in another hospital in Iraq.

I kissed Gina goodbye, told her I loved her, and left her alone with her husband.

Hours later, I sat bedside, staring at my friend who looked small and fragile beneath a thin hospital blanket.

“I want to bring him home.” Her eyes were still glassy from the anesthesia.

“Who?” I gazed at Gina, her face etched with pain. The drugs weren’t helping.

“And I want to know what happened?” She winced and closed her eyes.

“Do you want me to call the nurse?”

“No. Bud…” her voice trailed off.

“It’s been a long time, Gina. And we don’t have much to go on.”  I recalled the night before when she’d extracted those fragile letters with almost religious reverence. The epistles were small squares, etched with tight, black script. I’d made the promise in haste, hoping to make Gina feel better, and now wondered if I could keep my word.

She opened her eyes and squirmed, trying to find a comfortable position, but was under doctor’s orders not to move.

“Stay still! Water?” I reached for a plastic cup with a bent white straw, in an effort to do something.

Gina shook her head and stared out the window. I followed her gaze and focused on the clear blue sky and showy fall foliage, brilliant orange and yellow leaves basking in bright sunshine. I searched for something to say. I’d always been the one who, faced with a problem, could tackle a job and get it done, a hangover perhaps from my previous life as a reporter. But how was I to determine what happened to a man who died mysteriously all those years ago?

“I will have some water.”

I reached for the cup and guided the straw between Gina’s chapped lips. When she was done, I placed it back on the stainless-steel tray next to the bed. Then, she closed her eyes and let out a ragged breath.

I hated feeling helpless. Without thinking, I blurted out, “Let’s go get Bud!”

“Really?” She brightened instantly, a glimpse of the Gina I knew before the surgery.

I nodded. “When you’re better.”

And so, we agreed to travel to France, to the graveyard in Épinal where Sergeant Joseph “Bud” Richardville had lain since his death in 1945. Even if Gina spent the rest of her life in a wheelchair, we’d go to France and find out what happened.

But then Covid hit and our plans were derailed. Still, as Gina healed, we invesitgated Bud’s story, utilizing the resources we had. And, when we were done, we finally knew what happened to Bud Richardville. Your Forgotten Sons, which will be realesed on June 6, 2024 in honor of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, tells his story.

Your Forgotten Sons

Inspired by a true story

Anne Montgomery

Bud Richardville is inducted into the Army as the United States prepares for the invasion of Europe in 1943. A chance comment has Bud assigned to a Graves Registration Company, where his unit is tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead. Bud ships out, leaving behind his new wife, Lorraine, a mysterious woman who has stolen his heart but whose secretive nature and shadowy past leave many unanswered questions. When Bud and his men hit the beach at Normandy, they are immediately thrust into the horrors of what working in a graves unit entails. Bud is beaten down by the gruesome demands of his job and losses in his personal life, but then he meets Eva, an optimistic soul who despite the war can see a positive future. Will Eva’s love be enough to save him?

Release Date: June 6, 2024

Pre-Order your copy today

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Nobel

Google Books

Kobo

Review a copy early by going to NetGalley. Sign in here.

Find Anne Montgomery’s novels wherever you buy books.

Goodreads

Amazon