Experience the
Romance
Where Nothing is Hidden
Trained to uncover the secrets of others, only his own will reveal the truth.
In 1942, a Nazi movement gains momentum at a remote mountain resort, threatening the Argentine neutrality vital to Allied success in WWII.
When ambitious young fashion designer Risher Griffen disappears during a work assignment in Argentina, Army Ranger Dieter Brandt suspects the work of a Gestapo madman. The woman he loves is trapped and alone with the villain he was sent to destroy.
Where Nothing is Hidden lays bare a sinister alliance between Nazi leaders and corrupt priests, explores POW testimonies critical to reclaiming Europe and unveils a childhood trauma buried too long.
Follow this enigmatic couple’s turbulent journey across Argentina and their sojourn stateside to uncover the secrets shaping an era. Confront with them the contradictions of devotion and duty, where love for country competes with love for one another.
Where Nothing is Hidden
Coming Soon In 2024!
By Suzanne Shipley
Meet the Author
Suzanne Shipley
Suzanne Shipley grew up in Texas and received three degrees in German from Texas Tech University and The University of Texas at Austin. She studied and conducted research in Germany as a Fulbright Scholar and a German Academic Exchange Scholar. As a professor at the University of Cincinnati, her interest in women’s diaries was furthered by Hebrew Union College, who graciously awarded her the Margarite Jacobs postdoctoral fellowship. She taught a wide range of courses and published in the fields of exile literature, literary translation, and women’s memoirs until her transition into university leadership. After her appointment as an American Council on Education Fellow, she pursued higher education leadership as Department Chair, Dean, Vice President, and President at universities in the United States. She retired from university life in 2021.
Throughout her life, Suzanne has been a voracious reader of women’s literature. She is indebted to the novelists who ignited her current obsession with historical fiction, in particular JoJo Moyes and Anna Huber.
Suzanne, with her adventurous husband Randall, chose Tucson, Arizona, in the beautiful Sonoran Desert, from which to launch her career as a writer.
Why I Love Department Stores
My great aunt Obbie worked at the glamorous department store downtown, Hemphill-Wells. Its glamor rested not only in the gloriously frigid air welcoming customers off the hot and dusty streets of Lubbock Texas, but in the brightly lit sales counters behind which stood an army of fashionably attired women. My aunt worked, not in the appealing cosmetics sections or the fragrant counters for soaps, powders and perfumes, but in boring dry goods, standing before shelves of bolts of fabric and unadorned versions of handkerchiefs and scarves. Dry goods originated as manufactured and textile wares, peddled in the early 1800s to far-flung settlements and homesteads, landing mid-twentieth century in the department stores that would later make them obsolete.
We didn’t go to Hemphill-Wells to shop, not even for Aunt Obbie’s dry goods. Instead, we walked the store to capture the fashion ideas my mother would replicate on her Singer sewing machine at home. Mother refused to spend money on store-bought clothes, instead creating original designs or turning out the latest McCall’s patterned version of Lubbock high fashion. She kept me in homemade clothes as I spurted toward my final 5’6” height at age twelve. My least favorite part of her design process was being pinned for fit. I suspected Mother’s pokes were in revenge for my many moods, especially when they drew blood. Dad said naughty words when his bare toes encountered the pins sticking up from the carpet, a weekly occurrence.
Summers, when Mother wasn’t working on her Master’s degree in math, she would create outfits for my Barbie collection. Her most challenging project was Barbie’s wedding gown, fashioned from multiple layers of ruffled lace remnants. I considered it the most beautiful dress I’d ever seen–except for the clothes worn by the girl next door.
My neighbor Kim was just enough older to inspire my adoration, and she possessed talents I longed for—hair that flipped just right at her shoulders, piano pieces learned by heart that she would play for hours on the baby grand piano in her living room, and a freckle-free complexion. Like the true fashionistas of Texas, she took the spring pilgrimage to Dallas for Fashion Week at Neiman Marcus, returning with the car’s trunk full of the sweaters and skirts I would someday inherit as hand-me-downs.
Kim’s outfits had straight seams and even hems and were made of fascinating prints like houndstooth and Scottish plaid, with buckles and buttons imprinted with patterns of royal seals and auspicious profiles. I treasured those clothes, as I treasured my neighbor for sharing them with me. The drive to be like Kim never dissipated, so I endowed Risher Griffen with her remarkable qualities–intelligence and ambition, kindness and loyalty. I first witnessed and appreciated those character traits in Kim.
Department stores will always hold an aura of mystery for me, but none more than Neiman Marcus. The store has grown from the historic nine-story building in downtown Dallas into a retail empire, by way of the true-to life practices described in my novel. I hope you enjoy your time with this younger version of Neiman Marcus and with the beloved and lovable Risher Griffen.
Happy reading,
SUZANNE
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