Under the Same Blue Sky by Pamela Schoenewaldt Spotlight!

From Pamela Schoenewaldt, author of SWIMMING IN THE MOON, short-listed for the Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction, and USA Today bestseller WHEN WE WERE STRANGERS, comes a captivating new novel, UNDER THE SAME BLUE SKY (May 5, 2015; $14.99; William Morrow Paperbacks), about a young German-American woman seeking her place and her people amidst the turmoil of the First World War.

Hazel Renner is on the cusp of adulthood as WWI breaks out, the daughter of German shopkeepers in Pittsburgh who have high hopes for who she might become. Her mother is convinced that Hazel’s mysterious healing talents point to a career in medicine, but Hazel’s dreams lie elsewhere.

As the war escalates, isolating her community and family, Hazel escapes to teach in a one-room country schoolhouse, desperate for peace. But the traumas of war are everywhere, in a gentle man still shell shocked from an old war, and in her own father, who can’t resolve the fissure of his native and adopted countries. When her healing powers bring shattering consequences, Hazel understands that to move forward, she must first understand her past, in particular the truth about her birth. As the world rages, she travels to a remarkable castle in New Jersey and post-war Germany to solve the mystery of her mother—and ultimately of herself, and to fashion a new kind of healing for a shell-shocked hero.

“Absorbing and layered with rich historical details, Schoenewaldt weaves a tender and at times, heartbreaking story about German-Americans during World War I.  With remarkable compassion, the author skillfully portrays conflicted loyalties, the search for belonging, the cruelty of war, and the resilience of the human spirit.”—Ann Weisgarber, author of The Promise and The Personal History of Rachel Dupree

 “From the smoke-filled streets of Pittsburgh to the war-ravaged landscape of Europe, UNDER THE SAME BLUE SKY is the story of one woman’s wonderfully determined journey through a world at the edge of war to seek her family’s past and her own future.”
   — Jessica Brockmole, author of Letters from Skye

“The past returns in this story of the Great War, to tell of some who survived and some who didn’t. Hazel Renner is a hesitant healer, a young woman afraid of her gift. When the power to cure physical ailments deserts her, she tries instead to mend the human spirit. Rich in historical detail, this novel describes what it is to be gentle in a world gone terribly mad.”
   — Rita Leganski, author of The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow

“Schoenewaldt has done it again - crafted a rich and refreshing tale that not only sweeps us back to the American landscape of 1914 but keeps us bound to the page as young German-American Hazel Renner fights for her dreams while war rages on abroad.”
   — Susan Gregg Gilmore, author of The Funeral Dress and Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen

Pamela Schoenewaldt is the USA Today bestselling author of the novels WHEN WE WERE STRANGERS, which was translated into three languages and selected as a Barnes & Noble Discoveries Selection, and SWIMMING IN THE MOON, which appears in German this year and which was short-listed for the Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction. Her prize-winning short stories have appeared in literary magazines in England, France, Italy, and the United States. She taught writing for the University of Maryland, European Division and the University of Tennessee. You can find her online at http://pamelaschoenewaldt.com/.