Homeland's Hope: Virtues and Valor Series, #2

By Hallee Bridgeman

Stage and screen legend VIRGINIA BENOIT performs for standing room only crowds in her adopted home of France. When the Nazis roll into Paris, she flees to Casablanca, taking the heart of an enemy Colonel with her. While in there, Virginia devises a plan to use her position, talent, and influence with the high ranking Axis officer to aid the Allied cause.

Virginia joins the Virtues team, assigned the code-name HOPE. Her keen mind trains in the craft of espionage. After staging a rift with the US, she returns to Paris, hiding undercover in plain sight, and spies on the enemy. All is well until the Third Reich imprisons the Virtues wireless operator, code named Temperance.

As the Virtues engineer a plan to rescue Temperance from the Gestapo's clutches, Virginia takes to the stage to play her part in the daring mission. Will the murderous racism of the Nazi High Command prevent her from fulfilling her duties?

HOMELAND'S HOPE is part two of eight serialized novellas entitled the Virtues and Valor series.

Seven valorous women — different nationalities, ethnicities, and social backgrounds — come together as a team called the Virtues.

In 1941 Great Britain a special war department assembles an experimental and exclusively female cohort of combat operatives. Four willing spies, a wireless radio operator, an ingenious code breaker, and a fearless pilot are each hand-picked, recruited, and trained to initiate a daring mission in Occupied France. As plans are laid to engineer the largest prison break of Allied POWs in history, the Nazis capture the Virtues' radio operator. It will take the cohesive teamwork of the rest of the women to save her life before Berlin breaks her and brings the force of the Third Reich to bear.

Some find love, some find vengeance, and some discover the kind of strength that lives in the human heart when all they can do is rely on each other and their shared belief. Courage, faith, and valor intersect but, in the end, one pays the ultimate price.

Continuing the Virtues and Valor series by Hallee Bridgeman. Eight serialized novellas, each inspired by real people and actual events, reveal the incredible story of amazing heroines facing the ultimate test of bravery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Olivia Kimbrell Press
• Release date: Oct 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781939603463

Hallee Bridgeman

Hallee Bridgeman is a best-selling Christian author who writes action-packed romantic suspense focusing on realistic characters who face real world problems. Her work has been described as everything from refreshing to heart-stopping exciting and edgy. An Army brat turned Floridian, Hallee finally settled in central Kentucky with her family so that she could enjoy the beautiful changing of the seasons. She enjoys the roller-coaster ride thrills that life with a National Guard husband, a teenaged daughter, and two elementary aged sons delivers. A prolific writer, when she's not penning novels, you will find her in the kitchen, which she considers the 'heart of the home'. Her passion for cooking spurred her to launch a whole food, real food "Parody" cookbook series. In addition to nutritious, Biblically grounded recipes, readers will find that each cookbook also confronts some controversial aspect of secular pop culture. Hallee is a member of the Published Author Network (PAN) of the Romance Writers of America (RWA) where she serves as a long time board member in the Faith, Hope, & Love chapter. She is a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) and the American Christian Writers (ACW) as well as being a member of Novelists, Inc. (NINC). Hallee loves coffee, campy action movies, and regular date nights with her husband. Above all else, she loves God with all of her heart, soul, mind, and strength; has been redeemed by the blood of Christ; and relies on the presence of the Holy Spirit to guide her. She prays her work here on earth is a blessing to you and would love to hear from you.

Book preview

HOMELAND'S HOPE, A NOVELLA

Homeland's Hope, a Novella: Virtues and Valor series, Part 2

Virtues and Valor Series, Part 2

a Novella by

Published by

Olivia Kimbrell Press™

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

Homeland’s Hope, Virtues and Valor series part 2

First edition. Copyright © 2014 by Hallee Bridgeman. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or recording – without express written permission of the author. The only exception is brief quotations in printed or broadcasted critical articles and reviews. Your support and respect for the property of this author is appreciated.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, organizations, places, locales or to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or publisher. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

PUBLISHED BY: Olivia Kimbrell Press™*, P.O. Box 4393, Winchester, KY 40392-4393

The Olivia Kimbrell Press™ colophon and open book logo are trademarks of Olivia Kimbrell Press™.

*Olivia Kimbrell Press™ is a publisher offering true to life, meaningful fiction from a Christian worldview intended to uplift the heart and engage the mind.

Some scripture quotations courtesy of the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

Some scripture quotations courtesy of the New King James Version of the Holy Bible, Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas-Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Original Cover Art and Graphics by Debi Warford (www.debiwarford.com)

Colorized derivative image based on a public domain photograph of Josephine Baker used on the cover used in accordance with fair use. All other images from the public domain and conform to fair use.

Library Cataloging Data

U. S. Library of Congress Control Number: 2014953676

Bridgeman, Hallee (Hallee A. Bridgeman) 1972-

Homeland’s Hope, Virtues and Valor series part 2 / Hallee Bridgeman

100 p. 23cm x 15cm (9in x 6 in.)

Summary: Tag Line

ISBN: 978-1-939603-46-3 (ebook)

1. Christian fiction 2. World War II 3. war stories 4. spies 5. historical fiction 6. espionage

PS3568.B7534 T941 2014

[Fic.] 813.6 (DDC 23)

Dedication

Dedication

For all the Josphine Bakers…

THIS series is dedicated to the amazing women who worked, planned, strategized, served, led, and fought alongside men throughout human history. This novella is specifically dedicated to Josephine Baker. To read more about this true heroine, read the Inspired by Real Events section at the end of Hope’s story.

***

Prologue

Prologue

Paris, France: 1939

VIRGINIA Benoit leaned closer to the mirror so she could apply the final coat of bright red lipstick onto her full lips. As she rubbed her lips together to help even it out, she could hear the sound of the late evening crowd.

She stood and ran her hands along the sides of her gold sequined gown. The shimmering gold perfectly complimented her mocha colored skin. Satisfied with the fit of the gown, she opened a small box on her dressing table and poured several of the gold sequins that matched those on her gown into the palm of her hand. Using hair grease, she applied the sequins to the corners of her eyes, swirling them out from the corners of her eyes toward her hairline and making a spiral design. It gave her an exotic look that left her male fans wanting to know more about her.

It didn’t seem to matter to the crowd here in Paris that her grandfather had been a slave on the Creole plantation that her grandmother’s parents owned, or that her grandmother gave birth to her mother, alone and ostracized, in a shack in the poorest section of New Orleans. All that seemed to matter to them was that she seduced them with her voice, giving them a hint of a promise that made them come back again and again, seeking more.

As she selected a flower from the vase next to her dressing table, she thought of how her grandmother and mother had come back to Paris to the welcoming arms of their French family when their Creole family in the United States had disowned them. Her grandmother’s cousin had embraced her, welcomed her into his home, and her mother grew up lacking nothing. At twenty she married the French musician, Alsander Benoit, and the two traveled back to her original home. Finding no welcome in New Orleans, they settled in St. Louis, Missouri. There, Virginia was born and grew up listening to her mother sing and her father play trombone in the clubs all over the musical city.

When Virginia had followed in her parents’ footsteps, she’d received a moderately warm welcome within the Negro clubs, but she was kept at arm’s length due to the whiteness in her blood. When she tried to play in the white clubs, she hadn’t had good experiences all around. Her father encouraged her to go to Paris and sing her heart out, knowing the Parisians would embrace her. And so she did.

Five years later, she filled the club nightly. Hundreds of people came just to hear her sing. She headlined shows all over Europe and her growing notoriety resulted in several film roles. She starred in French films, mostly, though she had a few cameos in English speaking films as well. She had a special case built in her country chateau to hold all of her honors and accolades. Of course, America began to beg her to come back to the land of her birth.

Now that her beloved France had officially declared war on Germany, she thought maybe she’d give her home country another chance.

She stepped back from her dressing table and looked at her full body in the mirror. Her dress fit tightly everywhere it mattered, molding to her athletic shape. Though her arms and shoulders remained bare, the golden neckline rose up and hugged her neck, with a collar poking out all around her head, giving her the appearance of a golden flower. She looked royal, exotic, dangerous, and the crowd would love it.

"Mademoiselle Benoit! A rap of knuckles on her dressing room door followed the call. Five minutes, Mademoiselle!"

A minute later, her personal maid, Cyllia, rushed through the door. Her dark eyes stood out from her pale skin. Black ringlets framed her narrow face, and her petite body and narrow frame made her look like a child. He’s out there, Virginia. Paulo at the bar saw him.

Virginia cringed. The last thing she wanted to do was to entertain a Nazi General with a serious schoolboy crush on her. She’d met him years ago in Africa, but he had started coming to her shows in Paris about two years before while he visited with his daughter at the university. Despite the constraints of war, he had