Winner of Audiobook Reviewer’s 2024 Best Team Award
Don Gabor Photo Credit: Ed Lefkowicz
Skyboat has recently added a gem of a novel to our list of publications. A made-in-heaven collaboration between author and narrator has chanced our way again.
With VIENNA ON FIRE: A WWII Story of Survival, Don Gabor, the best-selling author of How to Start a Conversation and Make Friends and nine other books and audio programs on networking and interpersonal communication skills, makes his first foray into the world of fiction and we here at Skyboat are proud to have produced his amazing story. While the events of VIENNA are fictional, the book is an intensely personal story. Greta Kolbe, the protagonist, is partially based on his own mother when she was living in Vienna between 1938 and April 1939, and in researching this book Don was effectively researching his own family’s past.
In preparing to write the VIENNA ON FIRE, Don traveled to Austria multiple times and went through official documents to create a world combining the recollections of his mother and his own story-telling with “historical figures and events, original German and Austrian archival documents, memoirs, and obituaries of Holocaust survivors and anti-Nazis inGermany, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, plus numerous historical resources about World War II, the Third Reich, the Holocaust, and the Austrian and German resistance movements.” (- The Author’s Note, Don Gabor)
When it came time to put the story on audio, Don Gabor and Skyboat’s own Gabrielle de Cuir worked very closely together to create an “immersive and unforgettable” audiobook (Audiobook Reviewer). There were considerations of accents (and to what degree they should be applied) and a lengthy list of proper noun pronunciations to be researched. And clearly this collaboration was a success! AudiobookReviewer.com has awarded VIENNA ON FIRE the 2024 Best Team Award. With a multitude of languages, accents, and dialects, Gabrielle de Cuir masterfully brought this harrowing tale to life. “[Her] precise emotional projection deliver a riveting, engaging performance that adds depth to the narrative and each character[…] Her seamless ability to embody the characters and adapt to each moment is both fluid and impressive.” (Audiobook Reviewer).
And if you’re looking for the next pick for your book club, Don has a lovely set of questions on his own site here, where you can also request him to join you for your discussion!
“Vienna on Fire by Don Gabor plunges readers into the treacherous heart of Nazi-occupied Austria, where eighteen-year-old Greta Kolbe must find her way to freedom while all around her is going to hell. Inspired by his mother’s experiences of life in and exile from Vienna as Europe teetered on the brink of war in 1938/39, Gabor vividly describes a city subsumed by hatred, fear, and conspiracy. The few brave souls willing to do something about it face persecution and brutal violence, with Gabor highlighting the physical and mental danger facing Greta from all sides. She emerges as a bold, resilient, and inspirational character, and Vienna on Fire provides a gripping and historically accurate account of the resilience of the human spirit amid the darkest of times.” —Erin Britton, San Francisco Book Review
~ Listen to a sample on our SoundCloud ~
VIENNA ON FIRE: A WWII Story of Survival
Written by Don Gabor
Read by Gabrielle de Cuir
Edited, Mixed and Mastered by Ken Barton
Can Greta Kolbe escape Nazi Vienna and reach America before her past and the Gestapo catch up to her?
In the heart of darkening Europe, amidst the looming war, Vienna on Fire by Don Gabor tells the riveting story of Greta Kolbe, an eighteen-year-old Jewish woman whose life was upended when German troops annexed Austria in 1938. Her peaceful existence is replaced by a nightmare of terror as she, along with Vienna’s Jewish community, faces an ordeal of intimidation. Greta’s journey of resilience begins as she flees Nazi Vienna to escape arrest for her resistance activities, embarking on a dangerous trek to The Netherlands, with a spiteful ex-suitor and the Gestapo closely trailing her.
Demonstrating awe-inspiring bravery, Greta smuggles diamonds for the German resistance, eludes Hermann Göring’s advances, and survives numerous perils, including a harrowing ambush at the German-Dutch border. Her race against time crescendos to a nail-biting climax on the gangplank of a ship bound for New York City, where she must evade her pursuers one last time.
Authored by Don Gabor, known for How to Start a Conversation and Make Friends, this novel is a poignant tribute to the courage against tyranny, based on his mother’s real-life experiences and those who opposed the Third Reich. Vienna on Fire is not merely a narrative but an affirmation of the human spirit, inviting listeners to witness Greta’s grit, ingenuity, and her relentless pursuit of freedom during Europe’s most forbidding time.
Uncover the courage that defies darkness—secure your copy of Vienna on Fire now and be inspired by this remarkable story of persistence and survival.
