Synopsis

2019: Alison Wiley, a once-idealistic biotech CEO, is processing her new reality: she’s the last bud on the last branch of her family tree. On the heels of her mother’s illness and crushing death, she’s pulled into a seventy-four year old mystery by a chance discovery on a Norwegian glacier.

1945: RCAF Squadron Leader Jack Barton flies combat missions over occupied Europe. Major Günther Graf, a war-weary and disillusioned Luftwaffe pilot, is trapped in the unspeakable horrors of Nazi Germany. Their paths, so different yet so similar, are connected by a young victim of appalling cruelty.

A story of love and loss, cruelty and kindness, guilt and redemption, EO-N’s sweeping narrative takes readers on a riveting journey—from the destruction and cruelty of war to the relentless pressures of contemporary corporate greed—weaving together five seemingly separate lives to remind us that individual actions matter and that courage comes in many forms.

Review

This may be the first novel by this author, but he has written a winner of a novel as far as I’m concerned!

This story spans seventy-four years and multiple storylines. I enjoyed going back and forth in time and the various side stories that are integrated into the main focus of this story. There are stories that you might at first wonder how they tie into the main storyline, but it won’t take long before you discover the importance of these side stories. Some of the stories are not pretty and one deals with inhumane testing on children during the war. But at the same time, the lengths that a few of the characters go to trying to save one of these children is touching and it is in this mission to save this one child is how the story came to life and tied the past to the future.

This book was hard for me to put down. I loved all of the characters (well maybe not all of the characters) and it was a puzzle waiting to be solved in the present as to what happened in the past. I won’t spoil it but it is amazing what information they were able to uncover to get to the truth and perhaps give closure to those that thought family members were lost in the war.

There is one quote that stuck out to me regarding Alison and her search for answers to unanswered questions:

“Every new answer creates a new question.” The pinpoint accuracy of that statement stunned her.

This book has a little bit of everything for the reader – mystery, history, heart-stopping moments, heartfelt moments, and even a little romance. These are all woven together into a story that you won’t forget.

We give this book 5 paws up.

About the Author

Born in England and raised in Canada, Dave Mason is a former diamond core driller and high school football coach, an internationally recognized graphic designer and Fellow of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada, co-founder of Cusp Conference, and a co-founder of a number of software companies including OpinionLab and PowerPlayer. He divides his time between Chicago, Illinois, and Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. EO-N is his first novel.