The Labyrinth

About the Book

HERE´S A BRIEF SUMMARY: In this sequel to the “riveting” historical novel The Sceptre, Austrian immigrant Katya Becker, learning in 1938 of Germany´s threat to invade her old homeland, returns to Europe and comes face to face with Hitler. She helps relay German invasion plans to Eleanor Roosevelt and unearths spies in Hawaii. While discovering her own tangled heritage, she also learns of her new lover´s secret role. AND HERE´S SOME INTERPRETIVE BACKGROUND, WRITTEN BY THE AUTHOR: A recent play about Hitler as an aspiring young artist drew criticism for a supposedly sympathetic portrayal of the man we know became a monster. My just-published historical novel, The Labyrinth, shows him at a different point in his life: the spring of 1938, as he prepares to take over Austria and is browbeating and threatening its chancellor, who is a guest at Hitler’s compound, The Berghof. Eva Braun is there, and so is my main character, Katya Becker, a former Austrian and Eva’s guest. Katya overhears Hitler’s tirade. Horrified, she escapes from The Berghof and is pursued as far as Canada. The Labyrinth is the sequel to The Sceptre, which reviewers have called “riveting,” “surprisingly funny,” “impressive,” “a real page-turner,” “irresistible,” “original,” “clever,” and “well-researched.” So far only one reviewer has read The Labyrinth (Jean Ardell, who directs a writing lab at the University of California), and she calls it “engaging.” When she read The Sceptre, she called it “a thrill” and said it kept her up at night reading; “I even played hookey from work to get to the end.” In The Sceptre, Katya returns to Austria to search for the source and meaning of ancient symbols she uses in her work as a designer. She uncovers a Nazi plot to disrupt the Salzburg Festival of 1935 and helps foil an attempt to kidnap Toscanini. In The Labyrinth, Katya comes up against Hitler himself, and in escaping from him she is pursued as far as Canada. Then she has a further adventure in Hawaii. Hitler and the Nazis are perennially fascinating subjects for historians and writers. Some of us even perform the research necessary for an accurate portrayal of the period and the people involved. Historians as well as other authors and librarians have praised my work highly. Readers have learned unexpected facts from my work. First, they learned from historical and dramatic flashbacks in both books that the Kelts are the ancestors of many Austrians. They also learned, despite those images we’ve been shown of Austrians welcoming the German Nazis into their country, that the Austrian aristocrats were among the most determined anti-Nazis of the time. I interviewed several aristocrats and read about many more. So the Austrians are really both victims and perpetrators in their own sad history during World War Two. WEB SITES AND NEWSLETTERS: The work of Dorothy Jane Mills is displayed on two different web sites. On the first, www.PatricianPublications.com, her books of historical fiction as well as her children´s books and her vegetarian cookbook are described. Readers who are themselves writers have learned helpful tips from her work on self-publishing. Her second web site, www.HaroldSeymour.com, covers her work with her late husband, Dr. Harold Seymour, in the field of baseball history. Dr. Seymour was the first historian to write baseball history, and Dorothy was his lifetime collaborator on his books for Oxford University Press. Dorothy is now under contract with McFarland to publish her memoirs, to be entitled My Life in Baseball, which is scheduled for publication in 2004. AWARDS: Dorothy Jane Mills has been honored by being selected for listing in Who´s Who in America. A literary award, The Seymour Medal, is awarded every year, in the name of Dorothy and her late husband, Dr. Harold Seymour, by the Society for American Baseball Research. In the year 2000 Dorothy was selected for the

About the Author

Dorothy Jane Mills, a.k.a. Dorothy Z. Seymour, is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who of American Women. The author of eighteen books and many articles, she wrote many of these while helping her late husband, Dr. Harold Seymour, prepare the first histories of baseball written by a scholar. Dorothy’s carefully – researched books show her love of travel and history. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, she has lived in several American cities as well as in Ireland and Canada. She has worked as a teacher and an editor, and she gives presentations on her books to clubs and classes.