The Hungarian: 3-2-1…BLAST OFF!

The space race is back…along with Dior dresses, stiletto heels, secret agents, double dealers, smoky rooms and bullets meant just for you!

Get a load of this short excerpt:

Lily held in her hands Fedot’s translation of the Sputnik papers Pasha had squirreled away from his office in Moscow. In the spiritualist’s direct language, he distilled highlights of the emerging Soviet space program along with factoids of his own meant to help clarify the situation for Lily.

“1955 – In announcements made four days apart, the United States of America and the Soviet Union publicly state they will launch artificial Earth satellites by the end of the 1950s decade. This was the starting shot, as Tony Geiger might say, and was preceded by the pillage of the Nazi German V2 ballistic missile program after the war. Liquid-fueled rockets capable of flying long distances at high altitudes, they are the very foundation of astral voyaging.

Von Braun, a German, heads the design team for United States, while a man whose identity is a state secret heads the Soviet design team. His name is Sergei Korolev and he was recently brought out of retirement after spending many years imprisoned in Siberia; a victim of Stalin’s Great Purge in 1938.

Eisenhower will not allow Von Braun to use any military launchers for United States satellites because he fears looking like a warmonger. As a result, Von Braun must develop his own, non-military launchers for his satellites. Soviet Union places no such restrictions on their designer, giving them a timeline advantage.

It is known by Pasha Tarkhan that propaganda is not the only victory Soviet Union hopes to gain. If the Sputnik launch is successful, Soviet Union hopes by end of decade to launch the first of a secret nuclear arsenal into space.”

Lily put the papers down and folded her hands. She couldn’t bear sitting for another moment. Tucking Fedot’s Sputnik translation into her coat pocket, Lily ran outside. There, in the front yard of the library, she found shelter under the very stars and moon the Soviets and Americans were hoping to claim. She located Venus immediately, and the planet stared back at her while the surrounding stars twinkled. The moon, nearly full, was bone white. It was an unspeakably clear and beautiful night. Serene. Deceptive. Lily had never wanted the dawn more.

THE HUNGARIAN, my new historical thriller set in 1956 Europe, Russia and the Middle East, is now available.

Click this link to buy THE HUNGARIAN today!

If you can’t get enough of the spy vs spy world at the height of the Cold War, please visit my Patreon page for a photographic and historical exhibit on The Space Race! And for as little as a $1.00 donation, you can read my original essay on The Missing Cosmonauts of the Soviet Union, which includes a nearly sixty year-old audio clip alleged to contain the final moments of the first Soviet woman in space.

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добрый вечер!

Victoria