Sarah Aspen: Works and Days of a Black Forest Family: 1918 - 2005

Sixteen-year-old Sarah is hungry, frightened and alone on a train that is taking her to a destination in the Black Forest where she will arrive as a stranger. Sarah Aspen is a novella that takes readers on Sarah's life journey in the dark by-ways of the Black Forest during a dark time in her country's history. Along the way readers meet Sarah's family: three daughters who are as headstrong as Sarah herself; her shrewd and business-savvy husband, and the gentle family patriarch whose wisdom gives strength even during the worst of times. What is at stake for all of them is survival, not only in physical but also in spiritual terms during a time when evil infects the very air they breathe. They endure even as night falls over the land during the Nazi era, when neighbor fears neighbor and every-day acts of kindness are called acts of treason by Germany's brutal overlords. Sarah and her family must grieve many losses, they quarrel and they have secrets. Yet during the darkest of nights a light still shines in Sarah's house because above all Sarah Aspen's story is a love story, a love story about many different kinds of love: romantic love, love for life and family, love for country and a valley where ordinary men and women must meet the extraordinary challenges posed by their place in history. Sarah's story holds many surprises. It will make readers laugh or cry and perhaps even want to linger in a Black Forest valley that is very different from the modern world--and yet so very familiar to anyone with an interest in the ways of humanity.