Gracianna

Description

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 Amadors 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-grandmothers 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 Graciannas past, a road that led him to an incredible surprise. Amador weaves fact and fiction to tell his great-grandmothers 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 wont soon forget. One line summary: Young Gracianna saves her sister from Auschwitz after being unwittingly recruited into the French Resistance where her "job" is to repeatedly kill Nazi officers with their own gun.

Reviews

'"Gracianna" is a riveting and remarkable narrative. The characters come alive through their unassuming but compelling stories, as Nazi-occupied Paris unfolds before our eyes. We come to care deeply about the characters, which makes putting down the book almost impossible. Highly recommended.' --Stacey Katz Bourns is Director of Language Programs, Dept. of Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard

Author description

Trini Amador vividly remembers the day he found a loaded German Luger tucked away in a nightstand while wandering through his great-grandmothers 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, Amadors 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 Daniels, 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 Familys maternal grandmother, Gracianna Lasaga. Her message of being thankful lives on through them. The Gracianna winery strives to keep Graciannas gratitude alive through their wine. Learn more at:www.gracianna.com, like Gracianna Winery on Facebook or follow them on Twitt