At the onset of the Second World War Monique de Jong and her family were ordered by the French government to evacuate the border province of Alsace and resettle in a village in Southwestern France. They nevertheless suffered a deadly German occupation. She captures the terror and tumult of their experiences in her historical novel "Into Crosswinds".

A heady mix of fact and fiction, this new book is centered on the experiences of two young couples, members of the same family swept into the crosswinds of WW2, one loyal to France, the other to Germany. For the first, it means a forced evacuation followed by a substandard existence and the hardship of dealing with the enemy occupation. For the other, it means submission to Nazi rules and dealing with the lethal dominion of intolerance, either by enforcing it or by suffering it. At some point, family members of both sides will cross paths, which provides the overarching suspense of the story.

Suffused in the zeitgeist of the Second World War, "Into Crosswinds" is a brilliantly orchestrated tale of people in a desperate search for identity, hope and peace in a time of widespread chaos and carnage.