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In the early 1930s, Helena and Alex Birken are forced into marriage by her father to salvage the family hotel in Düsseldorf, Germany. A year after the rise of Nazi leadership, their second son, Hektor, is born. Totally unprepared to run a business, the Birkens fail to save the property from bankruptcy during the overwhelming depression that is engulfing the country.Defeated but not conquered, Helena returns to her hometown of Essen in 1938 to open a meat market and grocery store. Even after Alex is conscripted into the military in 1939, she is determined to succeed. After a major bomb attack in March 1943, her sons Albert and Hektor are rushed off to safety on the Astral Express toward southern Germany. While they live with strangers in the tranquil village of Köndringen, Helena remains in the industrial city of Essen. Can Helena and her unborn child survive the relentless Allied aerial bombardments that leave her hometown in ashes? Will she escape imprisonment for defying the Brownshirts and Nazis and live to see their defeat? Will Alex return from the Russian front? Will Helena Birken reunite with Albert and Hektor as the Allied forces advance?Escape on the Astral Express is the first in a trilogy of novels revealing the tumultuous life of Hektor amid Nazism and its aftermath countered by the life-long inspiration he draws from his mother's persistence and strength.

In The Born-Again Phoenix, book three of the Birken Saga, Hektor's wife Laura encourages him to pursue his educational dream of earning his PhD -- an adventure he has longed for since early adulthood. So Hektor, now thirty-one, cuts ties with his secure position in retailing/merchandising and embarks on an academic career that will change their lives forever. Over the course of nine years, he and Laura maneuver through numerous challenging road blocks and financial sacrifices until Hektor finally receives his PhD at age forty. At last, his life is fulfilled. Or is it? After being settled into his first academic position, Hektor faces himself in the mirror one morning and doesn't like what he sees. Is this all there is for him? He wonders. On that auspicious morning, he opens a Pandora's Box that brings his relationship with Laura into an abyss of emotional trauma. The obstacles separating them from the happiness they once knew seem insurmountable. Will their love for one another be enough to bridge the chasm?

When Hektor's educational dreams are thwarted by familial attitudes in the aftermath of World War II, he pursues a career in retailing and merchandising. Purely by chance, he meets Werner von Unselm, a long-forgotten friend of his mother who immigrated to the United States in the 1920s. A year later, Hektor crosses the Atlantic, leaving his first love, Doretta, and his family behind in Germany. While not expecting the streets of America to be paved with gold, he is dreaming of making adventurous discoveries in the New World while trying to forget traumatic events experienced during the post-war era. But when Hektor meets Georgia, a distant cousin who hotly pursues him, all his dreams of reunification with Doretta and Germany fade away. Frustrated and utterly alone, he marries Georgia against his own good conscience and is taken on an emotional and devastating rollercoaster ride that leads to divorce.Always driven, Hektor moves west seeking a new life in Connecticut and Ohio. When he is transferred to Detroit he meets Laura on a blind date and falls in love. Will Laura bring love, peace, and contentment to Hektor Birken's turbulent life? Will his mother ever accept her prodigal son's move away from Germany? Will Hektor ever realize his professional dreams, or is this the end of a long road paved with countless disappointments?A Wanderer on the Earth is an epic novel that follows the emigrant Hektor Birken through heights and valleys of astounding discoveries, shattering disappointments, and ultimate triumph and success.