Halifax at War

There are few cities in North America like Halifax which can proudly show off its battle scars. Because Halifax has a natural harbour and because of its northern location, it was the perfect staging ground for ships during a famous World War II battle. The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign in World War II which ran from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.

Allied ships from across the world staged battle formations here. Most of us in Halifax are familiar with the photographs of ships in the Bedford Basin. We're familiar with the stories of Nazi spies hiding in Halifax and U-boats sneaking through anti-submarine nets stretched across the mouth of the harbour. We certainly can see evidence in any casual walk downtown or areas around town, like the Citadel or York Redoubt. Some of us have spray-painted graffiti at Sleepy Cove, which used to be a first defense against German U-boats. Those are the dry facts.

Sisterhood of the Sword is the next book in the Jamie Poole Books series. While this book is not a dry retelling of war, it will use all the vastness of Halifax's war history as a backdrop. This story, like the rest of the series, is mixed genre with historical fiction and science fiction. There is time travel after all. Jamie Poole is front and center having traveled back in Time and found herself in the clutches of a Nazi spy who is much more than what he appears. This Nazi spy is really a psychopath time traveler bent on breaking the fabric of Time. Where else but in war can he feed off such chaos necessary to break Time and create a Multiverse that could destroy reality as we know it? Never mind if Jamie can return to her own time. Can she stop a faux-Nazi psychopath from reshaping the history of a world war? This is magic realism at its finest.

Sisterhood of the Sword will be available for purchase in September, just before Hal-Con.

Some of us--probably most of us--who had relatives living in Nova Scotia during the war have stories to tell about that time. And many of us have family who fought in the war. Halifax is a naval city after all. And the rest of those left behind? They have stories to tell too.

Part of Jamie Poole's backdrop is a collection of war stories which I gathered during interviews with friends, colleagues, and my own family. This was part of the research process on this book. Dry facts aren't enough.

Collectively both my friends and colleagues as well as I had family called to war both here and in other countries, including Germany. For myself, one of my relatives was a warden in a small Nova Scotian town. As he tells it, he helped oversee blackout drills in the town. While blackout drills were familiar in places like London, Nova Scotia had German U-boats prowling its coast, and there was concern here as well. Another relative talks about the time, as a young woman, she visited Newfoundland by ferry. A ferry crossing between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia takes about six hours. Her recounting in a diary states that one trip back from Newfoundland took about two days. The captain told passengers there was "icebergs" that caused the irregular navigation and time delay. Once safely back in Nova Scotia, he admitted they were dodging a U-boat that intended to sink them. In fact, about six months later a U-boat succeeded in sinking a ferry and killing all on board. Other stories I've collected tell of grandfathers or great-grandfathers on those U-boats with one of them sneaking into the Halifax Harbour, so the men could explore the city.

Over coming weeks I will share more details of this book as well as others in the series. Books will be available through Hal-Con's link above. Additionally, if you are in the Halifax area, you can purchase directly from me by contacting me at JamiePooleBooks@gmail.com. Further details, including a list of books is on the Jamie Poole website. There are also two preferred vendors through whom you can purchase books: Dartmouth Book Exchange and Cape and Cowl Comics and Collectibles.

If you haven't subscribed to my blogs, do so when you're checking out the books. Don't miss out on this exciting book series that spans space and time!