Gripping tales of memorable characters caught in the tide of history
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May 2025 - "Marek Zaczek Vol 3: The Precipice of Peace" set in 1807
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Thanks (Dziękuję) for dropping in! Welcome to the intriguing world of historical fiction from the tales of David & Marie Trawinski. Browse our titles, the reader's comments, and even scroll down for a few photos of the places we've visited that have inspired our stories.
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A Texas Western with a surprising Polish Twist!
A young Polish girl, Kalina, from Panna Maria, Texas, is taken from a stage coach. Her impetuous brother Piotr strikes out in search of her. Cord McCullough is hired to save the boy before he gets himself killed, but after meeting his beautiful Ciocci Mieczysława (Aunt Midge), Cord decides to save the "Untouched" one.
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IT"S HERE! The 2nd Installment of THE LIFE OF MAREK ZACZEK saga.
"The Life of Marek Zaczek Volume 2: Embers of Love and War"
Review from September 2023 Polish American Journal
Reviewed by Basia Betlejewski
It has already been three years since Volume 1 of this appeared, (See PAJ, Nov. 2020, p. 6 for the review of Vol 1.), and another page turner flows from David Trawinski’s pen.
In his latest historical novel set in the Napoleonic era, Marek is now a handsome soldier of 32 years— and living the dissipated life of such in Paris in 1804, having left partitioned Poland. Poland would not become a country again until 1918.
The book is mildly R-rated due to occasional sex and violence— unfortunately, realistic. Marek’s life as a soldier who leaves a string of broken hearts behind him. The back cover shows a beautiful painting of the mounted Polish lancers of Napolean’s Imperial Guard, but danger and heartache lurk beneath the handsome façade.
In this volume, Trawinski again crafts a plot with unexpected twists and turns. His literary style is poetic, although, in my opinion, it could be somewhat “tighter,” more succinct. But if you have forgotten your Napoleonic history and its relation to partitioned Poland, this novel is an excellent review — and filled with juicy, lurid details your high school teacher never taught you. Who knew Horatio Nelson, the British naval commander who enabled Britain to rule the seas for a good hundred years, callously dumped his wife to take up with his mistress? And that he was a dead- beat, absentee dad with a “love” child named Horatia?
Most know that Napoleon had “short-pant” syndrome at 5’6”, but who knew he was obsessed with having an heir and “tested” himself out on other women? His wife Josephine, a widow with two children when he married her, proved infertile after they wed. (Josephine, it should be noted, cheated on Napoleon several days after their wedding, when he left for a military campaign). One of the women that Napoleon used included a beautiful young Polish countess, Maria Walewska, who was served up to him as a sacrificial pawn by Polish leaders to attempt to convince Napoleon to help liberate Poland and restore it as a country.
For those interested in military history, Trawinski has researched and intertwines many of the details of Napoleon’s and Nelson’s battles in the novel. If our high school history book had been written like this, we would be glued to the page and would ace the final. Again, like the first volume, family secrets are a large part of this novel’s plot — and cause continued chaos, or, as Sir Walter Scott said, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” Nearly every character in this novel, including the women, acts dishonorably and dishonestly at times, again unfortunately, an only too realistic portrayal.
This novel is quite relevant to our own lives, as most of our ancestors left what had been Poland to escape the oppression under the Partitions by Germany, Austria, and Russia, just as Marek did. The novel terminates abruptly and chaotically. Imperial overreach and hubris, then as now, are on the horizon, as the novel ends with Napoleon over-wintering in Warsaw in 1807 prior to his failed Russian campaign. A detailed reading of “The Art of War,” by Sun Tzu, (544-496 BCE) might have helped him avoid some fatal mistakes. “Every battle is won before it is ever fought.”
Once you finish avidly turning the pages of this novel, you must wait patiently for Trawinski’s next volume to be published. With Trawinski, it will no doubt be a wild ride!
"GUNS OF THE YELLOW ROSE"
THE LATEST CLAY AND DEEKIE NOVEL!!!
The year is 1873, and Clay and Deekie take up with a flamboyant gambler and travel to Memphis, Tennessee. Once there, Clay takes advantage of their location to take the Old Butterfield Overland Stage Coach to. Fort Worth and search for his missing "Diddy".
"The Twins of Narvik, Parts I & II"
A Texas billionaire's dying mother claims to have given birth to twin sons who later fought in World War II. Is this shocking family revelation real, or a manifestation of her dementia? Diane Sterling and her team are called in to investigate, and she uncovers a story stretching back to 1912, involving three international families who become entangled in fighting the Nazi invasion in Arctic Norway.
Polish American Journal Reviews of "The Life of Marek Zaczek Volume I: Under the Wings of Eagles"
Book Review by Mary E. Lanham from December 2020
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POLISH AMERICAN JOURNAL REVIEW by Barbara Betlejewska
May-June 2021 Issue
THE TWINS OF NARVIK, PART I (Abridged Review)
The Twins of Narvik is a mystery split into two alternating-but interwoven tales, cleverly wrapped around a World War I-II history lesson. The time period of Part I is 1912 to 1939, told from a present-day viewpoint. This book is part of Trawinski’s Churchill Trilogy. Quotes from Winston Churchill are sprinkled throughout the book.
Trawinski has a natural talent to keep one turning the pages to find out what happens next.
If you like war books with intel ops, you will like this mystery... but you'll still find plenty of "chick flick" material. Romance, family secrets, interpersonal relations, mental illness, DNA identifying lost relatives, father/son difficulties, the avoidable problems caused by excess wealth, power, money, adventure - it's all there. And as I said earlier, Trawinski has a natural talent to keep you turning ages to find out just how his clues interconnect to solve the mystery.
Barbara Betlejewska
Polish American Journal
May-June 2021
Purchase Part I and Part II here!
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Polish American Journal Review By Mary E. Lanham
Women Shine in Trawinski's "The Life of Marek Zaczek"
Set against the backdrop of late eighteenth-century Poland, is the first volume of "The Life of Marek Zaczek" by well-known Polish American author David Trawinski. In this volume, the protagonist comes of age during the turbulent times of the partitions of Poland.
Born into a peasant's life on the estate of a duke, Marek Zaczek seems fated to work in a salt mine. As he grows up watching the duke's horses, he develops s love for the animals and soon has his heart set on working with them. As he matures, he becomes infatuated with the idea of becoming like the great winged Hussars.
Marek has aspirations that are above his station, but what he doesn't know about his origins would change his world forever. Marek's mother keeps secrets from him that will turn their lives and the lives of his grandparents upside-down and inside-out. Magda,as his mother is known, is the daughter of a noble couple who were exiled to Russia. The other secret is the truth of Marek's parentage, which she cannot bring herself to reveal to him.
The novel illustrates the cruel way some nobles exerted their power over the peasants that worked their land. The duke viewed the peasants on his estate as his property, which Magda bravely contradicts. Although this novel focuses on Marek, the women in the book, especially Magda, shine as resilient characters as they rally against the hardships they are forced to endure at the hands of men.
To give a larger view of the tumultuous times, Trawinski has the characters of the duke and Count Von Arndt, an acquaintance of the duke, discuss and expound upon the changing world order. With this, the author sets the stage for his cast of assorted characters.
Mary E. Lanham
Polish American Journal
December 2020
