Courtney Williamson Milford

Gracestone 1943 Courtney Williamson Milford

Set against a backdrop of World War II, the Grace family and friends live in, and operate out of, Gracestone, a Miami Beach luxury estate. Most of them are "Graced," meaning they have special powers: Navigators can get anywhere without a map, and are never lost; Incapacitators are never bested in a fight, and can turn any item into a weapon; Knowers can learn all there is to Know about any topic, just by concentrating on it for a few moments. There is no finite number of Graces, and a person can be Graced in more than one way. In Gracestone 1943, the first book in The Grace Family Chronicles, the characters are focused on protecting the children of Gracestone. Kidnapping is always an issue, mainly because its patriarch, Henri Grace, is a Midasian Multiplyer, meaning her can Multiply wealth, and he has passed this rare Grace onto one of his grandsons. Greedy people, and even the U. S. government, target Midasian Multiplyers, hoping to exploit their ability to make money. Like most Americans in the mid-1940s, the Grace family and friends are enmeshed in World War II, and the action moves to the atomic weaponry lab in Los Alamos, NM, and to Europe and South America, and then back again to Gracestone for Henri's wife's ill-advised Christmas Ball in December of 1943. Be warned: the ending is a cliffhanger, and it leads into the second book in the series, The Atherlings 1944. This series has the feel of an old-fashioned radio soap opera crossed with a comic book and a war drama. The cast is large, and their lives intermingle, sometimes in surprising ways. Gracestone 1943 is a book for anyone who enjoys actions tinged with humor in a setting that features real history, and larger than life characters.