In Store Event with Dr. Gretchen Eick

The National Front Party has just been elected in France and millions of immigrants flee to Europe to escape climate extremes and rising sea levels. As Russia tries to militarily rebuild its former empire, accurate and uncorrupted Artificial Intelligence is the best hope of preventing world war. In the midst of this perfect storm are two young Americans, one a young Black woman studying Artificial Intelligence at the Sorbonne and the other heir to the world's largest privately owned oil and gas company. The revolutionary changes occurring in France suck them both in. But are they on the same side?

When the National Front Party cracks down on dissent, trains youth to enforce its anti-democratic policies in France and beyond, and pulls France out of NATO, the two Americans must decide whether to join a homegrown secret Resistance that must involve students, immigrants, other nations, and even corporate leaders if it is to succeed. They must also decide how far to trust their hearts in this danger-fraught time.

A prescient, terrifying, and hopeful story of political intrigue, love, and possibility as the resisters forge their path learning from the past and determined to bring about a better future.

World traveler Gretchen Eick moved to Kansas, earned a PhD, and became professor of history after a decade working on foreign and military policy in Washington, DC. She wrote two prize-winning nonfiction books: (University of Illinois Press, 2001/2007/2023—which won three awards, is referenced on the wall of the Smithsonian’s Museum of African American History and Culture, and resulted in a PBS documentary and public park— and They Met at Wounded Knee: The Eastmans’ Story (University of Nevada Press, 2020). After retiring from full-time teaching in 2013, she wrote six published novels —political/historical fiction, thrillers, and a family saga: The Set Up, 1984, Finding Duncan, Maybe Crossings, Dark Crossings, and Where is Ana Amara?, and Resistance!

Eick was awarded three Fulbright fellowships to travel and teach overseas and teaches at Wichita State University in its Life-Long Learning Program. Poet and writer Janice Northerns will interview Gretchen on June 12th at 6-7 p.m. at Watermark Books, focusing on her new novel, RESISTANCE!

Janice Northerns is the author of the award-winning poetry collection, Some Electric Hum. She is currently finishing her second book, a hybrid collection of poetry and essays inspired by the life of Cynthia Ann Parker, who was kidnapped by Comanches at age nine and lived with them for 24 years. Janice and her husband moved to Wichita in 2023 and enjoy exploring all that it has to offer, including Watermark Books.

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