Tales Storyالعربية

❄️ The Return of Winter 1871

The Return of Winter 1871
Age: 18+127 pagesA historical human novel in chapters — idea & editing by Dheiab Alawfi, written with AI assistance

Paris, autumn 1939. A quiet watchmaker named Henri Dubois lives with his family as war breaks out, until a mysterious letter and a silver watch revive a secret his grandfather Auguste buried in the winter of 1871: five men, one promise, a child who bore many names, and a woman who waited at the window all her life. A twelve-chapter novel about war, loss, waiting and family. (For adults: contains sad events, death and war)

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How it begins: Paris Before the Storm

Autumn 1939 — France No one in Paris could have imagined that the city which was used to waking to the cries of street sellers and falling asleep to the lights of its cafés would one day see times when a loaf of bread became a dream, and the sound of unfamiliar footsteps in the middle of the night was enough to wake an entire family. On the morning of the third of September 1939, the sky was heavy with grey clouds. A light rain fell on the stone pavements, and the fronts of the old shops were reflected in the wet streets. Carts moved slowly, people hurried to work under their umbrellas, and the smell of fresh coffee drifted from the little cafés along both sides of the road. In a quiet alley in the east of Paris, Henri Dubois stood in front of the window of his small watch-repair shop. He raised his hand, wiped the raindrops from the glass, then rearranged a gold watch displayed near…

The lesson: Silence doesn't always protect; the truth deserves to be known, however late

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