Author: Katie Slattery
Hooray! I am celebrating!!
Ashes and Ruins hits the shelves of bookstores on January 31, 2026. I’m pleased to announce the release of my latest historical novel. Based on a true story, Ashes and Ruins brings readers the full story of Clara and Edith, characters introduced in Immigrant Soldier. In the new stand-alone novel, mother and daughter come alive…
Why Did Jews Stay So Long in Nazi Germany?
READERS OF MY HISTORICAL NOVEL, Immigrant Soldier, have asked me why the two main characters remained in Germany after Hitler came to power. Indeed, along with a few kind words, one reader wrote in a review, “I really didn’t like Clara, because she stayed too long in Germany. Why didn’t she leave earlier?” This is…
Words in Malaga
SOME MARRIAGES LAST TOO LONG, and so do some honeymoons. Mine had already lasted seven months, and we were again in the middle of an argument that left me sitting alone watching the road go by. Tom drove, the back of his head all I could see from the rear seat of the van. Outside…
India Times Three: 4
2024 continues The next morning, Erin and I flew south to Madurai. Our new driver, Mooney, was an incredibly handsome young man clad in an immaculate white shirt and clean, pressed slacks. The seats in his SUV were encased in spotless white covers, and between the passenger seats he had placed a basket of snack-size…
India Times Three: 3
2001 Continues Una and I had a decision to make. A longer, more comfortable trip versus a faster trip in an Indian second-class train car. I was inclined to experience traveling like a local. Van travel and Girl Scout backpacking taught me I didn’t always need luxury to enjoy a journey. Una was older, but…
India Times Three: 2
2001 Continues By the third afternoon, our tour group arrived in Agra. My second visit. Una’s first. Our guide, Prakash, warned us we would start before dawn the next morning. Ten hours later, the Elderhostel group stood in awe as the shrouded form of the Taj Mahal floated in and out of gray mist. When…
India Times Three: 1
Part 1 Jawaharlal Nehru: “India is a geographical and economic entity, a cultural unity amidst diversity, a bundle of contradictions held together by strong but invisible threads.” 1972/73 Almost fifty years ago, I was on the Hippie Trail with my new husband, traveling overland to India and back. The huge subcontinent of India was the…
Memories of stollen
When December arrives, I begin to think Christmas thoughts. This leads to memories of hot chocolate, eggnog, mulled cider, and all the goodies that go with them. My childhood memories of Christmas always include the German holiday bread called Stollen. Early in her marriage, my mother learned to make this traditional confection to please my…
Books Beyond Auschwitz
When I learned, at seventeen, of my father’s Jewish heritage, I flung myself headlong into reading about Judaism. (see my earlier post, Finding my Jewish Story.) Naturally, this discovery led me to read countless books about the Holocaust and World War II. . . . And finally, to writing two historical novels inspired by family stories…
The Help of Strangers
Mexico, September 1971 TOM AND I WERE ONLY a few weeks into our honeymoon road trip. It was late afternoon on our second day in Mexico, and we were sweaty and tired from the long, hot drive across the Sonora Desert. The city of San Luis Potosí slumbered under the siesta-time September sun. Though it…