The Foreign Service Journal, November 2021

60 NOVEMBER 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Where Eagles Never Flew: A Battle of Britain Novel Helena P. Schrader, Cross Seas Press, 2020, $23.95/paperback, e-book available, 594 pages. Long fascinated by the Battle of Britain, in 2007 Helena Schrader published a novel about it titled Chasing the Wind . Wing Commander Bob Doe, one of the few surviving Royal Air Force aces who participated in that epic conflict, wrote Schrader then to say: “This is the best book on the life of us fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain that I have ever seen. ... I couldn’t put it down.” In honor of the 80th anniversary of the battle, the author has now updated and reissued that novel under a new title. Helena P. Schrader is a retired economic-coned Foreign Service officer who served predominantly in Europe and Africa. She holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Hamburg, which she earned with a groundbreaking dissertation on a leading member of the German Resistance to Hitler. She is the author of more than 20 books, and the winner of several literary awards, including the Pinnacle Award for Best Biographical Fiction in 2016 and the Feathered Quill Book Award for Best Historical Fiction in 2020. To learn more about her work, visit http://helenapschrader.com. Traitors for the Sake of Humanity: A Novel of the German Resistance to Hitler Helena P. Schrader, Cross Seas Press, 2021, $9.99/Kindle, 567 pages. Many books, both fiction and non- fiction, have been written about the unsuccessful July 20, 1944, plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler and bring the German war effort to an end. But few of them are as extensively researched or sweeping in their cover- age as this novel. As Helena Schrader details in her introduction, Traitors for the Sake of Humanity evolved over three decades, combining extensive primary and secondary research with the author’s intimate personal knowledge of the people and places of the period. Schrader was the first Westerner to obtain access to the East German military archives and receive selected materials from sources in East Germany. She also interviewed more than 100 survivors of Nazi Germany, as well as several high-ranking military officials who had opposed the July 20 coup attempt. The author includes a cast of characters and several glossaries to assist readers in keeping track of dozens of characters, both historical and fictional, over six years (1938-1944). This is a new Kindle edition. First published as An Obsolete Honor in 2008, the second edition was released in 2012 as Hitler’s Demons . Balian d’Ibelin: Knight of Jerusalem Helena P. Schrader, Wheatmark, 2020, $19.95/paperback, e-book available, 370 pages. The subject of this novel may already be familiar to some readers because Orlando Bloom played this colorful character from the Crusades in the 2005 Ridley Scott film, “Kingdom of Heaven.” However, as Helena Schrader explains in her introduction, “the life of the historical Balian was not only different from, but arguably more fascinat- ing and certainly more significant than that of the Hollywood hero.” Schrader published the first edition of this novel in 2014, but has updated and reworked it to reflect additional research. The first volume in a biographical novel series about Balian, the work throws surprising light on life in the Holy Land during the late 12th century. Rebels Against Tyranny: The Sixth Crusade and the Barons of Jerusalem Helena P. Schrader, Cross Seas Press, 2020, $20.95/paperback, e-book available, 456 pages. While Frederick II’s struggle with Pope Gregory is legendary, his defeat at the hands of his own barons in the crusader kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus is quite obscure. Yet both clashes have all the ingredients of first-rate historical fiction, and Helena Schrader takes full advantage of them here. On the one side, there is the legendary and colorful emperor, who called himself “the Wonder of the World.” On the other: a cast