Beyond This Place of Wrath and Tears

From award-winning journalist Jack Ford, a riveting and colorful dual timeline novel of Lee Carson, the heroic yet elusive female journalist who defied convention and danger to report from the front lines of WWII, combining breathtaking wartime narrative with a compelling Cold War espionage tale for fans of Ariel Lawhon, Christine Mangan, Pam Jenoff, and Kate Quinn.

Washington, DC, April 1954: Lee Carson, former war correspondent, is frustrated that her journalism career has been relegated to society events and fashion stories. But when she receives a tip about a Russian spy in a high-ranking government position at the height of the Cold War, she feels the thrill of a story that she hasn’t felt since she was on the front lines of the European theater . . .

London, December 1943: As war rages on across Europe, twenty-two-year-old Lee Carson is waging a private battle of her own. An American-born correspondent for the International News Service, Lee is determined to cover the war from the field. But no woman, certainly not an attractive young woman with no military experience, will be allowed near the front lines.

Lee is not easily dissuaded. And as the Allied forces prepare to take the fight to the enemy, her gift for boosting public morale is seen a valuable weapon. Assigned to cover the build-up to the invasion of Nazi-held Europe, she constantly wrangles with authorities in order to get to the heart of the action. From talking herself onto a bomber and flying over the beaches of Normandy at the start of D-Day to other feats of daring, she witnesses and reports on the war’s most pivotal moments.

Told in dual timelines, Beyond this Place of Wrath and Tears is inspired by the story of an incredible woman who has largely been forgotten by history, and who, like many women in WWII, broke barriers in wartime only to find that upon the return home, she had to continue to fight for relevance in an entirely different way . . .