Synopsis

1918. France. Reports of unexplained rogue attacks have come in from both sides of the Western Front.

When Marcus Dewar is tasked with investigating the aerial bombardments, it’s not because of his aviation record. To make a name for himself, he will have to escort his best friend, a woman named Jane Turner known for her witchlike repairs on damaged aircraft, through some of the war’s most dangerous battle zones.

But when they learn the rogue pilots seek out arcane devices filled with magic powerful enough to alter the war, it will take more than some hedgewitch tactics and smart flying to return with their lives.

And in a conflict that values human life so little, that’s the least they have to lose.

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Excerpt

“Are those Boelcke’s goggles?” Marcus asked.

Smith nodded and took them off.

“I Convinced Mustermann to leave them here as a sign of good faith.” Smith’s eyes glossed with a peculiar sheen. He laughed to himself and whispered. “I’ll be damned, but they work.”

I stared, grasping now for the first time the importance of Smith’s experiment.

“You watched the fight through the goggles?” I asked.

“Hardly thought to grab them when the bomber showed up, but I’m sure glad I did.”

Marcus squirmed beside me.

“What do you mean they work?” he asked, a trace of anger on the edge of his voice.

“I mean that while Private Whiskey pulled his risky spiral, it just so happened to coincide with the German’s bottom gun jamming.”

“How do you know?” Marcus stammered.

But we all knew, at least after the fact. The bloated pause before Lufbery opened fire—a gun jam would explain it. A flash of sympathy for the pilots raced through me. How they must have panicked when they realized…

“It’s just like Mustermann said,” Smith replied, tossing the goggles brusquely to Marcus. “There’s something inside of you that goes off. And as you believe it, the plane gets a bit of a glow to it. Like the glow of a Christmas tree from down the hall after too many drinks. Hazy like, almost blurry. It’s like you could swear someone was shining a blue flashlight on the jammed gun.”

I turned to Marcus. Part of me wanted to flaunt how I’d been right, that the magic was real, but the danger of the immediate situation cut the wind from my sails. Instead, I hoped he would at least see reason. He saw red.

“Luf downed that plane because he’s the best pilot we have.”

Smith raised his eyebrows.

“Best American pilot, you mean.”

“Best Allied pilot.”

“Not by the numbers,” Smith said flatly.

“Then forget the numbers,” Marcus spat back, his voice raising.

I furrowed my brow.

“Marcus, you have to start believing. Why else would the Germans send a bomber after Mustermann if not to keep him quiet? These goggles are important. This mission is important. They must be on to something.”

“On to what?” Marcus asked. He shook his head “What? Blue flyers and special goggles? Smith, what if this is all part of a larger cup and ball routine? If I were Ludendorff, one of my top priorities would be finding a way to make the other Allied commanders lose faith in General Pershing. Isn’t this type of goose chase exactly the thing to accomplish that?”

“You think the Germans would sacrifice a Gotha bomber in a show of pageantry? Have you lost your mind?” I asked incredulously.

“I appreciate the point you’re trying to make, Marcus. But like it or not, she’s right.” He looked at the goggles with a faraway frown. “It’s too many validations. I don’t know if those goggles are some kind of military innovation or if they’re the product of some devious enchantment or what, but they worked for me just now. Could it be that the Gotha had some type of technology synched up with these goggles to show me what I expected to see? Maybe. But that’s not technology our government has any idea how to replicate.”

“But, sir—”

Sharp shouts from Dupont and Atkins cut short our conversation. Calls for help mixed with rudimentary commands in German.

“This day keeps getting better,” Smith said as he peered through the trees toward the wreckage. “The pilot survived.”

– Excerpted from The Shards of Lafayette: Drops of Glass Book 1 by Kenneth A. Baldwin, Eburnean Books, 2023. Reprinted with permission.

Guest Post

The Inspiration Behind The Shards of Lafayette by Kenneth A. Baldwin

Somehow, I got my hands on a copy of the personal diaries of Lieutenant Colonel Georges Thenault. It’s difficult to say what drew me into the pages, but I don’t doubt that somewhere inside of me a boyhood fascination with Charles Schultz’s Snoopy going wing to wing with the Red Baron lives on.

Thenault was the captain of a volunteer fighter squadron in WWI called the Lafayette Escadrille at a time when they didn’t even know to call them fighter squadrons yet. A group of American guys left their Ivy League educations to go and help France in its war against Germany. Many of them started as ambulance drivers, but somehow they ended up in airplanes. Thenault, a French officer, was assigned captain of this group, who wanted to name themselves the American Escadrille, but due to the United States’ neutrality, couldn’t do so without invoking the German ire and threatening relations between France and Uncle Sam.

Instead, they conjured up a name from the memory of the Marquis de Lafayette, a similarly young guy who gave up similarly great wealth to come and volunteer for the American Revolutionary War.

I found reading Thenault’s firsthand account of managing this rowdy group of young men nothing short of magical, as I did the rudimentary and clumsy exploration of motorized flight, something that had been discovered by mankind only a decade earlier.

The Lafayette Escadrille captured my attention as firmly as it captured international attention during WWI. I wanted to explore the human magic that drove so many pilots like them to take to the skies and risk everything for the great game of combat aviation.

But beyond that, the bonds of friendship and love between fellow pilots, even when they were on opposite sides of the war, are so strong that they still have emotional power today.

So, I set out to tell a story about a young man who wanted glory as a combat pilot and his best friend, a woman known for her magical aviation repairs.

I wrote the novel while in isolation during COVID, and I wanted to see how far friendship could stretch, to examine how important it really is to the human experience, by placing it under enormous, arcane pressure.

I also wanted to represent WWI in a way that is often neglected. I’ve had many readers refer to Drops of Glass as a “cozy war story,” and I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I’m proud of the moniker. It means that I was able to represent the human experience in the war out of the trenches in a meaningful way. Hopefully, those who read it can remember that the men and women who fought between 1914 and 1918 were more than lice-covered trench rats.

They are what we are built upon.

About the Author

Kenneth A. Baldwin writes stories that blur the lines between history, magic, dreams, and reality. He loves finding oddities in history books with unbelievable tales or unexplained phenomena. His first series, The Luella Winthrop Trilogy, takes place during just such a time when late 19th-century Victorians struggled to balance a surge of occultism and never-before-seen scientific advancements.

Before he started writing novels, Kenny paid his way through law school by writing, performing, and teaching humor. You can still catch him on stage or in corners of the Internet that feature sketch and improv comedy. Now, he lives nestled under the Wasatch Mountains with his wonderful wife, sons, and Golden Retriever.

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