Gracianna

By: Trini Amador

Narrated by: Trini Amador

The gripping story of Gracianna—a French-Basque girl forced to make impossible decisions after being recruited into the French Resistance in Nazi-occupied Paris.

Gracianna is inspired by true events in the life of Trini Amador’s great-grandmother, Gracianna Lasaga. As an adult, Amador was haunted by the vivid memory of finding a loaded German Luger tucked away in a nightstand while wandering his great-grandmother’s home in Southern California. He was only four years old at the time, but the memory remained and he knew he had to explore the story behind the gun.

Decades later, Amador would delve into the remarkable odyssey of his Gracianna’s past, a road that led him to an incredible surprise. In Gracianna, Amador weaves fact and fiction to tell his great-grandmother’s story.

Gracianna bravely sets off to Paris in the early 1940s—on her way to America, she hopes—but is soon swept into the escalation of the war and the Nazi occupation of Paris. After chilling life-and-death struggles, she discovers that her missing sister has surfaced as a laborer in Auschwitz. When she finds an opportunity to fight back against the Nazis to try to free her sister, she takes it—even if it means using lethal force.

As Amador tells the imagined story of how his great-grandmother risked it all, he delivers richly drawn characters and a heart-wrenching pause-resister that listeners won’t soon forget.

©2013 by Jose Trinidad Amador III (P)2020 Jose Trinidad Amador III

Enjoyed your story!

Visited the winery in July 2022 and saw the information about the book. Thank you for sharing your family’s story. Your Grandmother was one tough woman.

Touching

I am in awe of Graciana & all she gave to help during WWII. You hear hints of such bravery hear & there but to read her story is truly awe inspiring! Thank you Graciana & friends for what you did to stop the Nazis & thank you to the author for sharing her story!!

It was good

The only reason for me giving it 4 stars is because the the beginning of the book was hard to follow and to figure out why they were talking about different people. He never tied them together until much later.

Wow. It’s rare that I listened to an audible and considered every sentence important

I would give it 10 stars if I could. Fascinating and informative. I’ve hardly heard of the Basque people cause I thought they were in Spain only but I looked at several maps to see it in France too. I also learned about the life of a sheep herder what a hard lonely life it appeared to be. The story seems so smooth and plausible and showed the nazis evil deeds when they occupied Paris. Much credit is due the resistance and those ‘nobodies” who bravely fought them. This is truly the greatest generation. Only problem with this audio is no time line. I didn’t know where they were in the war. When did book start? when did vital things in the book happen. I was lost and it mattered to me to have the timeline. But it doesn’t negate the fact that it was excellent. The author and narrator were some of best I’ve heard

Thank you for this retelling

This is yet another perspective of the Holocaust that I am grateful to hear. Thank you for sharing with all your readers.