The U.S. govt. recruits psychics to find Nazi spies and to defeat a black arts magician who can invoke demons.
Just when US WAVE Livvy Delacourt thinks she and her team of psychic Nazi hunters are ready for whatever The Reich can throw at them, Hitler adds to the mix a spy who also happens to be a wizard. Now dark magic is being used to attack US facilities, and Livvy must match wits with the evil wizard, whose objective is to destroy Operation Delphi and all her team. If she fails to ramp up her psychic powers, she may perish—and perhaps cause the U.S. to lose the war with Germany while she’s at it.
Excerpt
Chapter One
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 1943
The clock struck ten o’clock that Wednesday morning. A clairvoyant, a medium, a crystal ball reader, a seer of ghosts and a nurse with healing hands sat around the polished, antique table in the Hamilton House mansion library, now their conference room. The stormy weather that had heralded America’s entrance into the war had finally passed. Balmy breezes crept through the opened French doors, allowing exit to a flagstone patio and extensive estate grounds. They—the Operation Delphi team—were the White House’s top-secret psychic defense against Nazi mind control. They were attempting to raise their psychic powers to new levels. Distractions could wreck the experiment.
“Stay focused, people.”
U.S. WAVES Lieutenant Olivia “Livvy” Delacourt rolled her shoulders and shook out her hands before raising one hand to push back a bobbed strand of brunette hair still curled from the dampness of a morning shower. Beneath the starched, white-cotton collar of her uniform, she massaged a spot of tension at the nape of her neck. She and her team were attempting to coerce U.S. Navy Commander Barrington Drew III—“Trey” to most everybody—to act against his better judgment.
Livvy glanced at their goal written in white chalk lettering on the blackboard—Get the boss to eat hardtack. Skeptical engineer that he was, Trey wouldn’t be a cinch to manipulate into eating food he despised.
The stakes were high.
British spies had picked up rumors that Hitler’s inner circle of occult practitioners was capable of disrupting war preparations purely by mental suggestion directed against U.S. citizens. To combat this, President Roosevelt established the ultra-secret group The Watch Committee. In turn, and under the supposed oversight of the Navy, the committee created a U.S. occult team named Operation Delphi.
A second mission, but just as important, was to psychically search for Nazi spies who infiltrated cities and towns along the East Coast, especially in the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. In this, their team had had some success. A few weeks back, they’d zeroed in on German spies, resulting in their capture. But that success was a drop in the bucket compared to what must be done to win a war.
Visions normally came willy-nilly to Livvy. As a Delphi operative, she must invoke clairvoyant visions at will. If rumors were true, they were neophytes compared to their Nazi counterparts and had a lot of work cut out for them.
“We need to get this right.”
Livvy spoke aloud, as much to fortify herself as to spur on her team. She rubbed her hands together, the resulting friction creating physical warmth even as it drew sustenance from the ethers. She aligned her eyes to a crammed, floor-to-ceiling bookcase directly in front of her. Unfocusing her physical sight, she relied instead on her psychic third eye.
Releasing her willpower from the mystical bonds that anchored consciousness to her physical body, she allowed her spirit to drift upward as if riding a sunlit cloud. From ceiling height, she dispatched a mist of spiritual well-being to her physical body, which sat dutifully on the straight-backed conference room chair. With a mental tug on the silver cord connecting body to spirit, she drifted through the wall and along the back hallway.
Dragging the silver cord and probing ahead with rainbow-colored tendrils, Livvy glided closer to Trey’s office. Her spirit effortlessly slipped through the office wall and drifted leisurely across the ceiling, then floated downward, stopping behind the high-backed, black leather executive chair where Trey sat. Livvy knew that the comfortable chair and his rosewood office desk were a gift from his politically prominent, industrialist father, who was also a member of The Watch. A lined, yellow, legal-sized pad rested on the leather-bound desk blotter and had some notes written in ink.
From this close vantage point, Livvy reached out tendrils of mental willpower to tug on his aura and to entice him into the conference room.
“Make Trey eat the hardtack.”
“Dammit to hell.” He shouldn’t be bothered by hunger pangs. He’d eaten a large breakfast not that long ago. Trey pulled out a desk drawer, looking for candy, but no luck. Adding insult to injury, on top of hunger pangs something was poking him at the back of the neck. He checked beneath his uniform collar to see if the laundry tag was straight. His fingers unearthed nothing to explain the sensation or where the hell the smell of gardenias was coming from. Irritating.
Professional Reviews
Affaire de Coeur Magazine
Operation Delphi, the covert, gifted, and psychic occult team for the U.S. has been assigned to search for Nazi spies along the East Coast. Livvy, Lt. Olivia Delacourt was at Hamilton House with the rest of the crew honing their skills. She and her team successfully planted a psychic command to Trey, Cdr. Barrington Drew.
Learning that they wouldn’t get credit for catching the spies from their first case, the group was slightly mollified when they were given tickets to the local USO magic show. Trey and Livvy sat next to each other, both recognized the wizard, Deryk Fergus, who had wanted to join their covert group but had been denied entry. Livvy realized the man was using psychic powers to hypnotize the group and audience. She may have protected her small group temporarily but the wizard was determined. He was not giving up…
Ainsworth has penned a riveting story full of mysticism, intrigue, and nail-biting suspense. Expect Deception takes the reader and doesn’t let go until the very last page.
Lauren Calder, Reviewer
Ana Manwaring, Reviewer, Building a Better Story
Lt. Livvy Delacourt of the WAVES and the Delphi team of paranormal investigators lock horns with an undercover German wizard, Deryk Fergus, who is performing regularly as a USO magician in 1943. He is involved with the Nazi group der Mumm and is ordered to eliminate the Philadelphia-based Watch and sabotage supply ships bound for Europe.
Things start to go wrong after Fergus’s performance at the local USO. The team investigates a baffling sickness at the U.S. Navel Aircraft Modification Unit, then the sabotage of a Liberty Ship carrying needed supplies to the European theater. At the same time Fergus attacks Livvy and her . At the same time Fergus attacks Livvy and her superior officer, US Navy Commander Barrington Drew II. Acquainted since high school, Livvy and the Commander are reunited through the Delphi Unit and romance buds. The stakes are high. Not only might she lose her friends and Trey, she might lose her own life. And worse, the Nazi’s might gain the upper hand and win the war.
Aside from author JoAnn Smith Ainsworth’s unique premise, I found the spells, powders and other magical elements used in the story to be fascinating. It appears the author did her homework. The attention to detail and setting is also a sign of sound research. I felt like I’d been dropped into 1943 and imbued with wartime zeal. Ainsworth captures both the mores of the times and the urgency of the horror facing the world.
Expect Deception is written in a straightforward style with the feel of a cozy mystery, although it’s what I call a soft thriller. Livvy’s job is to stop evil rather than solve a mystery and while violence is included in the book, the author doesn’t graphically describe every awful action or use language that might be offensive to some readers.
Each character has a unique personality, and while we see Livvy, Trey and Fergus most, the rest of the team comes alive in their scenes, and I felt that evil Fergus’s point of view added dimension to the plot.
I give a hearty “congratulations” on publication of a delightful sequel to the Operation Delphi Novels.
Kathy Nester (Penny for My Thoughts) Review
In this second book, the Reich throws in dark magic and recruits a wizard to fight Livvy and her team. The wizard uses his power to attack US facilities and causes personnel to fall ill with a variety of ailments. Only by combining their talents and powers are Livvy and the team at Hamilton House able to repel the evil that threatens them. Tragically, not all of the members of the team survive.
Ainsworth has crafted a fascinating series that drew me right in and kept me enthralled. Having grown up in Philadelphia, the landmarks are familiar and I found myself researching some of the tactics used by the enemy to see if the Third Reich recruited psychics and dark magic. I reached out to the author for more information and received this background from her publicist: Nazis and the Occult. By using search terms "Nazi and occultism" I am able to find other articles that seem to reference similar information, Nazi Occultism. This series is inventive, creative and a unique glimpse into the home front during World War II. I can't wait to see what comes next!
She was quite capable of taking care of herself...She appreciated everything he was doing for her and the Grandmothers Four, but she needed his help, not for him to take over.
She was quite capable of taking care of herself...She appreciated everything he was doing for her and the Grandmothers Four, but she needed his help, not for him to take over.
