All Comments on 'Madeleine Ch. 08'

I especially enjoyed the insights into European life in the WWI years. Thanks for a great series.

Exceptionally good story. Thanks for the writing!

This new work in your portfolio is at the top and sets a new bar for yourself and the other Authors here.<P>

You have come a long way Mr. Straw and I feel that the best is yet to come.<P>

So come and entertain us at interval hopefully shorter than the last.<P>

Whenever you do we the knowledgeable readers will welcome you and your work.

With Very High Regard

of period of time that has almost been lost to the current generation. Thanks for the hard work and the excellent images!

Well done and enjoyable. It doesn't matter much for the quality of the love story, but the March 1918 German offensive, Operation Michael, was in the sector held by the British 5th Army and portions of the 3rd Army. The attack on American troops was primarily in July, immediately before the Allies went on the final offensive of the War.

Thanks to everyone who commented for their encouragement. This story has been a labor of love that took about 15 months to write from the first idea to completion. Originally, this was going to have a tragic ending, with Madeleine dying in the influenza epidemic, hence the line in the prologue about a flower blooming in a field of ash. But as I got into the story, I fell in love with her character and I found I couldn't kill her off. I'm not sure how historically accurate it was to have her survive, but it's my story and that's the way I wanted it to go. I tried to make this story as historically accurate as possible, and I think I succeeded there. To anon below, I really didn't specify that it was the American units that were attacked in the German March 1918 offensive, just that the attack came against the Allied lines. I probably could have made that a little clearer. I'm honestly not sure what my next project is going to be. As I said in the intro, I have a lot of stories that I've started, but can't seem to get fired up about finishing. Also, I don't seem to have as much time for this as I used to. My day job (which is really a night job) has become a great deal more involved time-wise than it used to be, I'm closer in age to 60 now than when I started doing these stories, and I don't have the energy to stay up late and work on them. But I don't think I'm going to retire just yet. However, I can say that whatever I do, it will be in a romantic vein with some deeper characters. I have no more patience for some of the stuff I did 8 or 9 years ago. Frankly, some of that stuff was crap. I leave it up on the site because I don't feel like going thru the process of taking it down. just know that I'm aware that a lot of the criticisms those stories have absorbed were deserved. In closing, thanks again for reading my stuff. Your praise (or criticism) is the only payment I get for these stories, and you should know that I appreciate you.

thanks for the story. do you plan to keep writing?

Good story - thank you.