Our Story BEFORE The Story ~ Waltz with Destiny - Esther Meir & Eric Edhardt

My name is Esther Meir. Insecurities haunted my every step. I wish I could feel the soft grass of my beloved Kentucky hills beneath my shoes instead of the impregnable sidewalks of Detroit. I hated school; I struggled to make good grades in high school while my brother did it easily.

My brother inherited our father’s photographic memory. That’s just about all I know of my father. He died when I was two months old. I was born in a little cabin on the prairies of Colorado. When my father was near death, Mother brought us back to her childhood home in Kentucky. Then we moved to Detroit to live with my aunt when she up and married her long-lost love. I lived there until I was ten. When the Great Depression struck, we moved back to Kentucky with my aunt, uncle, mother, and brother. Now that the Great Depression is behind us, 1941 looks promising for a girl with an education.

Brother had won a scholarship to University of Detroit, and Mother was confident that, “There was a rainbow with their name on it in Detroit.” We returned to Detroit where I work in my cousin’s hot dry cleaners alongside Mother and attend evening classes at the Detroit Business Institute.

The newsreel I saw last night at the Gala Theater showed Hitler’s Third Reich stomping their leather boots across the cobblestones of Rome. That worries me enough to not want to go to that ball Mother is so dead set on me attending. After all, I have two left feet and will spend most of my time blending into the wallpaper.

“When you meet the right man, you’ll have no trouble following, Esther,” my mother has told me countless times.

I’m not so sure I want to fall in love with any guy, not with a war looming on the horizon. I’m wasting my time looking for a guy that can weave me across the dance floor and not stumble over my feet. Besides, I have more important things on my to-do list. I need to study and get a good-paying job. I want to get Mother, my brother, and I into our own place.

I’m not planning to live out my life like my mother working in some hot cleaners. Nor can I rely on a man to lead me either, he could die. I’d be penniless, alone, and—pregnant. Or, be worst off like my mother; with a five-year-old toddler pulling on my skirt while holding a two-month-old baby in my arms, and relying on relatives to give them their next meal and a roof over their heads.

Hi, I’m Eric Erhardt. I knew Esther was different from the other girls the moment I met her. That didn’t daunt my determination to win her over. After all, I’m used to working for everything I have. During the Great Depression, I worked a paper route and sold applies to help my pa put food on the table for us five siblings. When I graduated from high school, I landed my first job being a jumper for a Detroit newspaper. Then I landed a job as a junior draftsman for Wood Industries and had enough money to entered night school at Lawrence Institute of Technology. I took more drafting and engineering courses. Pa always told me that with God on my side, I could accomplish anything I put my heart into. I hope to have my own engineering company someday. Well, maybe even a manufacturing company. Might as well dream big.

Now with Hitler and Japan knocking on our door, well, it is just a matter of time before I’ll have to fight in a war I don’t have time for. I heard that outsiders think American guys like me are soft, not much more than playboys. What’s wrong with playboys? I kind of enjoy that title.

Some people have the audacity to call my generation religious mama boys still wet behind the ears. Well, if Hitler or Japan tries to do anything to these old United States, we playboys just might have to put a few firecrackers down their pants and watch them dance the jitterbug, and it won’t be to any tune they ever heard of before! Yeah, we don’t care what you think about us; just don’t mess with the good old USA!

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Our Story Title:   Waltz with Destiny

Our Story Genre:  A historical romance; however, it took three generations of faith-in-creating the vivid characters of Waltz with Destiny

Our Story Released:  Officially released on the 75th celebration of D-Day 2019

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The Author of Our Story:    Catherine Ulrich Brakefield

Catherine Ulrich Brakefield  is an award-winning author of the inspirational historical romance Wilted Dandelions. Her faith-based Destiny series includes Swept into Destiny, Destiny’s Whirlwind, Destiny of Heart, and Waltz into Destiny, which released on June 6.
Catherine has written two pictorial history books. Images of America: The Lapeer Area, and Images of America: Eastern Lapeer County. 
Her short stories have been published in Guidepost Books True Stories of Extraordinary Answers to Prayer, Unexpected Answers and Desires of Your Heart; Baker Books, Revell, The Dog Next Door, Horse of my Heart, Second-Chance Dogs, The Horse of my Dreams (releases on September 17) CrossRiver Media Publishers, The Benefit Package and Abba’s Promise; Bethany House Publishers, Jesus Talked to Me Today. Catherine is a longtime Michigan resident and live with my husband of 45 years and our Arabian horses in the picturesque hills of Addison Township. I love traveling the byroads across America and spoiling my two handsome grandsons and two beautiful granddaughters!

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  Get Connected:

• Website:  https://www.catherineulrichbrakefield.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CatherineUlrichBrakefield
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/catherine.u.brakefield
• Blog: Hopes, Hearts, & Hoofbeats https://catherineulrichbrakefield.wordpress.com
• BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/catherine-ulrich-brakefield?list=about
• Twitter:  https://twitter.com/CUBrakefield
• GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3387463, Catherine Ulrich Brakefield
• YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB57k3YmOEw  Waltz with Destiny
• Instagram: https://www.instagramCatherineUlrichBrakefield
• LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-brakefield-4710b315/

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WHERE can the book be purchased?

Amazon, CrossRiverMedia, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, and Faith Christian Stores in Flint

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Catherine is willing to give away Waltz with Destiny or any Destiny Saga book of your choice, e-book or a print. (Please note: for readers outside of the United States, she can only do an e-book.)

DRAWING TO BE HELD WEDNESDAY EVENING ~ July 31, 2019.