Published October 29th, 2021
Summary:
A broken family. A new opportunity in a country on the precipice of unspeakable evil.
November 1932. Seamus Ritter, a widower with four children, returns from riding the rails in an America crippled by the great depression. Realizing that his homecoming will not be how he envisioned it, and in a desperate attempt to make amends with his 16-year-old daughter, Maureen, Seamus accepts an invitation to come and work for his long-lost uncle in Berlin. With little other choice, Seamus takes the ship to Germany with his family. Maureen leaves everything to go with her father she no longer trusts, dedicated to taking care of her younger siblings.
The Germany the Ritter family encounters is vastly different than the one Seamus spent time living in as a child. An upstart politician called Adolf Hitler has come to the fore, but surely it’s only a matter of time before the right-thinking members of society banish him to the fringes of the political landscape he emerged from.
As the Ritter family struggles to adjust to life in a country ravaged by unemployment and internal strife, Seamus meets Lisa, a beautiful and mysterious woman weighed down by the ghosts of her past life. When tragedy strikes, Lisa and Seamus will be forced to act together to save their lives and build a future together in a nation that, unbeknownst to the citizens there, is about to descend into the greatest evil the world has ever known.
Review:
“The Lion’s Den” is such an adequate name for Eion Dempsey’s newest release. It can be read after the prequel “The Way Home”. You can get the prequel FREE at Eoin’s website and meet Seamus, the main character.
Eoin Dempsey always writes on the very pulse of Hitler-era Germany, and in “The Lion’s Den” he introduces us to a pre-Hitler Berlin. Eoin captures the tone of the German people as the first whispers of Adolf Hitler’s name and voice are heard. It is hard to believe that Eoin didn’t live in this era, because I felt so close to the very rumblings of the people.
The strife starting the crack the very core of the heart of Germany is witnessed as we fall in love with the Ritter family.
It is unimaginable what strengths Seamus must have had to muster four children as a widow at this time. He meets a woman named Lisa that grew on me. As they team up, I was practically rooting out loud for them.
The historical references are inspiring. His stories are so visceral, you join the story as if you’ve stepped into the pages. Your heart and soul are so invested in the outcome, it is hard to put down.
No one writes a Novel about Hitler like Eoin Dempsey.
I received a copy of this novel from the author in exchange fir a fair and honest review. I loved it so much, I bought the print copy for my library.
5 Stars.
About the Author:
Eoin Dempsey was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1977. He grew up in the beautiful Dublin suburb of Dalkey, where he and his friends would jump into the icy waters of the Irish Sea (during summertime) to prove their manliness. Eoin had a fantastic time attending Blackrock College, where he played rugby (poorly) and did his best to coast his way through. Eoin’s first ambition was to play rugby for Ireland. Due to a lack of talent, he soon abandoned that goal for the more reasoned path of the rock star. He played in bands through his teens and well into his twenties before harsh reality came calling, and his dreams of being the next Keith Moon faded.
Eoin made the ill-reasoned decision to study business in university and was accepted into University College Dublin to study Commerce in 1995. While Eoin did attend college, studying wasn’t his priority there.
He met his beautiful wife, Jill, while traveling to the USA in 1997, though it would be several years before he managed to break her down and they got together as a couple. It was during Eoin’s second stint in the USA, which he spent with his brother in New York City, that he decided to start writing a novel, for the express purpose of impressing women. This effort was met with mixed success. Eoin finished his first novel a year later. The over hundred and fifty rejections he received from publishers didn’t discourage him. He pinned them to his wall. After spending a year in Australia, where he was fired from many jobs, including picking red and green peppers and toiling for scallops miles out to sea on a fishing trawler, he returned home and decided to write again. Another novel followed while he phoned it in at a number of jobs in financial services in Dublin.
By this time Eoin had managed to convince Jill, the girl he’d met in the USA years before to move over to Dublin. She did so in 2004. It was the best negotiation he ever undertook. They were married in 2007. Jill’s more brilliant negotiating skills led Eoin to move to her hometown of Philadelphia in 2008, just in time for the economy to collapse. The plan to live with her parents for a few weeks turned into eighteen months, as Eoin struggled to retain employment in a fractured economy. It was during this time that he wrote FINDING REBECCA, which would go on to be his first published novel and be translated into fourteen different languages.
Eoin and Jill have three beautiful sons, Robbie, who was born in 2015, Sam, born in 2017, and Jack who came in 2019. Eoin enjoys playing with them and marveling at how much more talented they are at the sports that he loves, particularly golf.
Eoin’s website with the link to the FREE prequel, ”The Way Home”
https://www.eoindempseybooks.com
The Write Review 