The Brunswick
Historical Southern WWII Fiction Novel Book 1
Callie Murray
Revell Pub
May 2026
The Brunswick by Callie Murray is two stories in one, a family drama and a romance. Although this is a fictional story, it is based on true facts. The story intertwines the history of Norcross Georgia with a courageous Jewish husband and wife that rescued many Austrian children and brought them to safety in America.
The plot goes back and forth between what is happening in Norcross and what is happening in Austria. Cora Cain takes over for her father in running the Brunswick Hotel. Four years ago, burdened by loss and debt, Cora transformed the hotel into a general store and has been single-handedly running every aspect ever since. Then, Thomas Watkins arrives seeking work and solace after his mother’s death. After hiring him and working together a spark ignites between them. Through Thomas, Cora glimpses a life beyond obligation and her war hero father’s unpredictable moods.
Family friends George and Evelyn Cohen are working with an organization to bring Austrian Jewish children to Norcross. They approach Cora with a proposal to house the Austrian refugee children in the hotel’s rooms. Cora agrees and prepares with Thomas for the children’s arrival.
The other plotline has ten-year-old Charlotte spending months sheltering from the Nazi regime in her aunt’s apartment. Her family is offered for her to be one of the children chosen to come to safety in America. But even with the horrors she sees around her, she wonders how her parents could possibly send her away.
This story has hope, resilience, and the power of love to prevail in the darkest of times. This includes the sacrifice families must make for their children’s safety.
Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea for the story?
Callie Murray: I had never written fiction before, but had the idea of writing a novel. I finished reading an author’s note of another novel, and it just kind of hit me that you’re not really born a novelist. It’s something you can learn. I’ve always been interested in how World War II happened. There was a period where things were brewing and people didn’t know what was coming. And so, there was that, and then foster care and adoption had always been an interest of mine. I Googled those two things together, foster care adoption in World War II, and I found this little online Holocaust encyclopedia article about a Jewish couple that went overseas in 1939 and brought 50 children back to America on a loophole with visas. And I just thought it was fascinating. So that’s where the idea came from. The true story was set in Philadelphia, though, and I couldn’t picture Philadelphia. I’ve never really spent much time there and not in the 30s, so I just started imagining it in my hometown of Norcross, Georgia.
EC: Do you think this is a two- story kind of book where the first is the relationship between Thomas and Carla and the second is the rescue of the children?
CM: I think the risk of the children is kind of the premise. It’s the inspiration there. But then Cora kind of has her own story. I mean, it’s really a coming-of- age plotline where, yes, there’s her relationship with Thomas, but even more than that, it’s her wrestling with her own parents, and kind of some of those nuances as she tries to accept this love from Thomas.
EC: What is true?
CM: Vienna, where they confiscated property of Jews and the Jews had to pay taxes. The Jewish father, Otto, was taken away very early, like 1939 and put into a concentration camp or a prison camp. I talk about it in the author’s note at the end about some of the specifics. There was that story of the couple in Philadelphia. They have a memoir and a documentary. There was one family that inspired Charlotte and her parents. And yeah, the dad was taken in 1939, so before the war started, to Dachau, a political prison. Then, it wasn’t as we know a concentration camp, but it was not good and it was getting worse. And he was released, but then later the mom ended up going to a concentration camp and dying.
EC: What about Ben, the boy who replaced a sick boy, was he real?
CM: There was a little boy chosen, and then he got sick and couldn’t go on the transport. He died at a concentration camp with the character that inspired Charlotte’s mom. Ben is a made-up character. He was kind of a mix of some other people. Of the 50 children that came overseas, for some, their parents came, some of them, they didn’t. And so, kind of that grappling of when do we pursue adoption?
EC: Was there an ignorance on the part of Americans on what was happening to the Jews in Europe?
CM: In 1939, the war had not yet started. But to a lot of America, they did not even know what was happening at the time. I have the scene early on where Cora is kind of finding out about it. And Thomas knows a little bit because of his German background. He’s a little more interested in knowing what’s going on, but it was one thing I researched or learned in my research was newspapers were not sharing much in America about what was happening overseas and at that time. And so, you’re right in saying there wasn’t really that education or awareness. I would love to think that when the kids came over, everyone would go, ‘oh, I see what’s going on.’ There was a phrase I used, I think one of the women in the town said something like, you know, well, ‘50 cute children will one day grow up to be 50 ugly adults.’ And that was that was a real quote taken from the memoir that was said by someone in Philadelphia. I think there was just this ignorance of what was happening.
EC: What was the role the Brunswick played in the story?
CM: The Brunswick was a true hotel in Norcross Georgia. It existed about a block from where I live. I’ve just always been fascinated by it. There was a woman that used to run it as a business, and I thought that was cool. When I started imagining this story, I just started picturing it at the Brunswick. That’s the kind of the fun part of fiction the what if; what if the kids came to Norcross and they came to the Brunswick? So that was where the setting came from, but then I really had a lot of fun thinking what the Brunswick represented. It wasn’t just a building or Cora and her dad’s livelihood. I think more of it as a symbol of people taking care of people.
EC: How would you describe Charlotte, the Jewish refugee child?
CM: She felt her dad was her anchor. She acted as an old soul. She was quiet, intense, an observer.
EC: How would you describe Cora?
CM: Cora is witty, strong, vulnerable, spirited, detached, distant, and really does not have the support of her father. And in that way, she’s resentful and defiant. She had these hand muscle twitches.
EC: How would you describe Thomas?
CM: Caring. He was arrested by the Gestapo, even though he was an American and tortured.
EC: Why the muscle twitches?
CM: It happened to me. In the book, Thomas discovered this in his medical research. He discovered it to be a stomach infection that led to her not absorbing nutrients and led to all the neurological issues. In the author’s note, I talked about it. I had the muscle twitches for years. They thought I had ALS and it turned out to be a stomach infection. called H pylori, and it made my body not absorb things. And so, that’s kind of where that storyline came from. I’ve got videos where you could just watch my muscles rumble underneath my skin for years. The stomach infection got fixed, and my body started absorbing magnesium and B 12, and I’m totally healed now.
EC; Where did you get the saying, “If you save one life, you save the world entire.”
CM: It’s from the Talmud, and it was referred to in the documentary that I watched. We’re adoptive parents. I’m not the mother to 1000s, but I feel like it’s kind of that, to do for one, what you could do for all. And how I value my husband whose is only one person, but he really is, to me, kind of the world.
EC: Do you think George and Thomas, when they went over to Austria, kind of play God?
CM: It was a who’s chosen and who was not chosen kind of attitude. I think in some ways there is that nuance of it. And I remember reading that in the true story, they talk about what a frightening place to be where you’re trying to pick who goes. And it kind of got it down to health. They wanted to make sure the kids were as healthy as possible. And then they’re looking for who is most likely to have their parents get visas and be able to come overseas. It was a role that Thomas especially struggled with. And, the struggle of the parents that had let their children go. What must be going on for parents to have to send their kids away with strangers across the ocean.
EC: What was the relationship like between Thomas and Cora?
CM: They kind of avoided each other at first, then became friends. She tried to build a wall. She was a little broken. Almost like a coming- of -age story where it was a romance, but it was also more than that. It was Cora trying to value herself more and she was always trying to win over her dad’s love, and save the Brunswick. This is where she is kind of broken. And she wonders what can she offer Thomas. For Thomas, he wonders can he take the risk that love requires.
EC: Next book?
CM: I just turned in my first draft, and so the hope is that we’ll publish next year, 2027, probably summer or fall. It is set in 1938 South Georgia. A completely different storyline, but a similar feel with a small town, southern fiction. The main character has dyslexia; except it’s not known as dyslexia in the 30s. They call it word blindness. It follows her story. She gets a job for the federal writer’s project.
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