Golden Flight - Book Two of the Bright One Series
In 1933, as antisemitism spreads across Europe, fifteen-year-old Berta leaves Czernowitz on a journey that will change her life forever.
Married to a man three times her age, Berta is forced to surrender childhood overnight, stepping into the role of wife before she has fully learned who she is. Marriage was meant to secure her future. Instead, it carries her across borders just as hostility toward Jews intensifies and the ground beneath her people begins to shift.
What was meant to be a quick and safe departure becomes a desperate migration as anti-Jewish persecution grows and escape routes narrow. By 1935, Berta and her husband Solomon are stranded in Istanbul, suspended between continents and consequences. Months pass in suffocating uncertainty. Promised departures collapse without explanation. Funds diminish. Friendships disappear into another ship's wake.
And within the confines of marriage, Berta begins to understand that protection does not always resemble love, and that survival may demand more maturity than she was ever meant to possess. When passage to Palestine is finally secured, relief does not come easily. She has learned how quickly certainty dissolves. Ahead lies open water and the fragile hope of safety.
Behind her, a Europe turning its back on Jews and closing its doors. Between those two realities stands a young woman who must decide which parts of herself she is willing to sacrifice to endure.
Set against the tightening grip of pre-war Europe, this sweeping and intimate second installment of the Bright One series traces Berta's forced coming of age amid exile, identity loss, and the quiet, often invisible costs of survival.
Anka walked beside the rattling wagon along the uneven road to Odessa. Her face calm and her mind racing. She watched Berta pull her shawl tighter to ward off the morning chill, unaware of the treasures in her trunks. She longed to comfort Berta, but knew that the truth would have to wait until the time they parted. And when that time came, she would pull her aside, away from Solomon’s watchful eye, and tell her about the valuables.
Lisajoy Sachs is an award-winning author of historical fiction whose work explores memory, identity, and the enduring strength of the human spirit. Her best selling debut novel, Bright One, launched a six-part World War II saga inspired by true stories from her own family ancestry. The novel established her as a powerful voice in multigenerational storytelling grounded in rigorous historical research and emotional authenticity.
The third installment of the series, Aliyah, is currently in development and is scheduled for publication in 2027. The remaining titles in the completed saga include Folding Light, Restoring Hope, and Fading Night. Sachs has completed manuscripts for the entire six-book series, an ambitious literary undertaking that traces the lives, displacement, survival, and rebuilding of her ancestors across pre-war and wartime Europe.
Born and raised between Long Island and the Catskill Mountains of New York, Sachs was shaped by landscapes of sea and mountain that continue to influence the atmosphere and expansiveness of her fiction. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from the City University of New York and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Alfred University. Her professional background reflects a lifelong dedication to craft and design, with experience spanning fine arts, interior design, metal smithing, lapidary arts, and the craft beer and hospitality industries. She is an Accredited Jewelry Professional through the Gemological Institute of America, a Certified Beer Server® through the Cicerone® Certification Program, and a graduate of the Hop & Brew School at Yakima Chief Hops.
With the eye of a visual artist and the discipline of a historian, Sachs writes with cinematic scope and layered emotional depth. Her work is driven by a profound commitment to preserving family history and honoring those whose stories might otherwise be lost to time. Through richly detailed narrative and immersive storytelling, she illuminates the fragile threads that connect past and present.
Now residing in the Catskill Mountains of New York, Sachs continues to write and research while embracing an active life filled with cycling, skiing, and travel with her partner and their standard poodle, Hops.
