Tag: French Indochina
-
99 CENT SALE – The Reach of the Banyan Tree
99 cents on AMAZON.COM For a limited time only, The Reach of the Banyan Tree is well within reach. You might say it’s a steal at only 99 cents on Kindle from August 17-23. Historical Fiction + Contemporary Romance + VIETNAM!!!! = A Terrific Read! I had an amazing time piecing together this 300 page novel. I […]
-
Did Truman Start the Vietnam War?
The headline is purposefully provocative. How could Truman, who came on the scene after Roosevelt’s death in April 1945, have started the Vietnam War of two decades later? He didn’t, of course, but the case could be made, and was made in my thesis, that Truman instituted a policy shift towards Indochina which set the […]
-
A Valentine’s Day Exclusive: “Banyan Tree” Romantic Excerpt
My latest novel, The Reach of the Banyan Tree, is loosely a historical romance. I hate to categorize it as such because I don’t believe it adequately describes it. But, it does have romance and it does tell a historical story. I thought I’d share a short romantic excerpt in honor of Valentine’s Day 2015. In […]
-
Know Your History: Indochina 1945 from a Page in my Novel
I’m going to change up the “know your history” post this time around and use a direct quote from my new novel, The Reach of the Banyan Tree, to emphasize the strange WWII ties which existed in Indochina in 1945. Here’s a short paragraph from the chapter entitled “The Strange Ways of the Universe”: On a cosmic […]
-
Know Your History: Americans Helping the Viet-Minh in 1945
On July 16, 1945 a group of American OSS officers (Office of Strategic Services – the precursor to the CIA) parachuted into the Viet-Minh HQ in Tan Trao, Tonkin. (Tonkin was the name for northern Vietnam during the French colonial period.) This small group of officers were charged with helping to train the Vietnamese to […]
-
Vietnamese General Giap: 1911-2013
The revolutionary general of the Viet Minh and the North Vietnamese communists died earlier today. (You can check out the slide show of his life on yahoo HERE!) He was the military mind and right hand man of Ho Chi Minh. He dressed in street clothes and a fedora, making an unassuming presence. But his presence […]
-
Mixing real historical figures into a work of fiction. Vietnam 1945.
My untitled third novel that I’m currently working on is set during two different time periods in Vietnam. The first is 2000 and the second is 1945. Nineteen-forty-five is the crucial year in modern day Vietnam. It’s the year that the Japanese completely overthrew the remnants of the French Empire in Indochina. It’s the year […]
Author Mark W Sasse 