Early in Hillcrest author Lynn Solte’s first historical novel, Gestapo officers pound on the door of a Jewish family celebrating the Sabbath, in Vienna. “If Alex Wasserman does not come here immediately, we will break the door down!” barks one of the officers. Wasserman, a physician, is pulled from his home and transported to a work camp, where he experiences what English teachers call “Man’s inhumanity to man.” 

  The book, titled “In The Blink Of An Eye,” begins on what became known as “Kristallnacht,” the “Night of Broken Glass,” which marks the start of the Holocaust; it speaks through the voice of adult daughter Rachael, recalling what she and her family endured when she was just seven years old. Having begun life in a comfortable, affluent environment, with the arrest of her father, Rachael, her mother and younger brother are forced to leave home and onto the perilous streets, soon hiding in the basement of a kind Christian baker who harbors Jews at a time when most of the world didn’t know about the evil march of Hitler’s hatred.      

The cramped, dark quarters give Rachael a first glimpse into the difficult and heartbreaking choices Jewish people had to make to survive. The lessons, which young Rachael terms “the game” of survival, continue. As a baby cries in the basement, the mother realizes she must suffocate the child to stop the sound. Crying, a normal activity for babies, threatened the safety of everyone else; Gestapo and military men patrolling the streets might hear the cry and storm the basement. 

Originally published in 2002, Solte wrote “Blink,” as she refers to the book, back in the 90’s while living and working in Miami. She moved to Hollywood and settled in Hillcrest #27 in 2010.

Solte, a New Jersey native, worked for major advertising firms in Manhattan and Miami.  Later, though, she took her skills to non-profit organizations, where she put her love of writing to work composing brochures, newsletters and fund raising/promotional material for Easter Seals, ArtCenter South Florida, the UM School of Medicine Department of Orthopaedics, and others. 

In fact, while at a promotional event in Miami, someone mentioned to her that Jews had owned slaves.  This startled Solte, a Jewish woman who notes Jews themselves have experienced slavery. “My head exploded!” she says.  

So, Solte did one of the things she does well – research. And she learned that some Southern Jews did, in fact, own slaves. This finding led to plenty more research, and, eventually, to her second historical novel, “Lydia’s Story,” which was published in January, 

Winning high praise from readers, “Lydia’s Story”, which tells of a Jewish girl and her best friend, Savannah, who is also her slave and how their friendship is affected by the Civil War — jumped to the top of Amazon’s new releases in the Young Adult and Civil War categories. Lydia considers her relationship with Savannah “as intimate as sisters,” and, feeling betrayed, she’s devastated when she overhears a conversation in which her slaves express the hope the South will lose the war, and they will soon be free. The story explores Lydia’s bumpy transition from slavery enthusiast to impassioned abolitionist.  

The author suffered pain while writing “Lydia’s Story” – In 2008, just after she’d begun working on the manuscript, her beloved Leonard died of a heart attack. They were days away from getting married. “His name was Leonard, but he went by Len,” she says.  “We were Lynn and Len.  He thought that was the most adorable thing.” Solte also lost a special friend while writing the novel. On the dedication page, she writes, “Lydia’s Story is dedicated to the memory of my dear friend Rosa Fernandez.  A devoted ‘reader’ of the novel as I was writing it, but who passed away unexpectedly before it was finished…”

“Blink” was written back in a time when you had to conduct research in libraries and by reading books. But “Lydia’s Story” contains research found both in books and on the internet. “Thankfully,” the author says, “trips to libraries weren’t necessary.” Of course, editing is a major part of her job as an author, but Solte agrees with the late science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, who instructed writers to write and not think. “I fly by the seat of my pants,” she says. 

Simply put, the Hillcrest resident conducts lots of research, thinks about the characters and scenes – even seeing them in her mind. Then she sits down and writes.  Most of the thinking comes later, during the editing process. 

Now 84 and looking back at her creative efforts, Solte says her goal in writing historical fiction has always been to entertain and educate, and she quotes the philosopher George Santayana, who said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”