Henry Tersen, Author

From The Would-Be Mariner, Henry Tersen's true childhood story:

Sometimes what they call recess is a lot of fun when they don’t have to do anything organized but can just run around chasing each other. As at some other times, today again they hear it, over their laughing and loud yelling the sound of engines and propellers growing louder before they can see the planes. Straining to match sight to sound everybody is combing the sky. There! There they are, just visible in the distance, heading up into the sun and then swooping down, howling and then away and up, up again. A pause and then the two planes hurtle straight down their sirens howling even louder now. Before the Stukas crash they level out, faint puffs appearing on the ground, and then pull up again. Awed, the children watch as the two planes repeat the acrobatics. Then there is a different sound; one of them is banking and a long plume trails behind. Screaming a long arc towards the horizon the plane disappears and a few moments later a muffled explosion echoes and a black cloud rises. By this time the teacher is rounding up the students and hustling them inside. Yes, Heinz. No, Heinz. Don’t ask so many questions Heinz.

The Would-be Mariner: never ein Matrose but many shores The tides of war set adrift little Heinz and his Mutti and Oma. From Stalin's Soviet Russia to N**i occupied Poland to post-war Eastern Germany, they become victims of world events, refugees without a harbour. This is the true story of a boy surviving World War II, sometimes dreaming about being ...

With the skates flaring out at an unstable angle, he feels his way along the wall out into the hallway, and then along the next wall until he gets to the gate leading to the ice surface. He stops to wait for a gap in the traffic on the ice. Getting impatient, he opens the door. One awkward stride and disaster! His legs fly out from under him and he lands on the ice, making hard contact with his backside. Most of the skaters fly by, ignoring him as he crawls back to the boards and claws himself upright; others slow down to gawk as if at an auto accident. He tries again. The old, worn-out skates provide little support, and his legs splay out and his tailbone takes more punishment.

Humiliated, he fights his way back to the bench and exchanges the skates for his more comfortable winter moccasins. Henry hears some snickering so on the way out he throws the skates in the garbage. His mother, a little abruptly he thinks, explains that there is absolutely no money for new skates and elaborates at length about their more basic needs.

Henry Tersen, When Tracks End. Available on Amazon:

When Tracks End When Tracks End

Oh, the troubles boys can get into! From When Tracks End - a true story by Henry Tersen:

Long after dark they finish with the third log, sliding it down the bank at Fisher’s Lake, one for each to make their own raft. This last log had been the easiest because of a packed, icy trail to follow. Such pride and relief that they spare no time to consider future challenges, like the question of how to cut the thick logs or even the possibility of not getting leave from the owners of the lake to practise naval exercises. The next day when their parents compare notes, the stories about why the boys were late coming home embrace different excuses.

Several weeks later atmospheric changes tantalize the boys into imagining that spring is imminent, and that it is time to think about rafting. The blow comes Friday after school. His uncle, the semi-official sheriff of the village, taps Jack on the shoulder and passes on a message from unnamed authorities: the ‘stolen’ property was to be replaced where found. Too late to be modified into a declaration of ignorance in the matter, Jack blurts out the instinctive protest that the logs were obviously salvage. This is sufficient to establish the identity of the gang of culprits. Ominous repercussions are implied.

When Tracks End When Tracks End

Today is such a day. Having been assured the halt would be for several days, Mama and another woman are gone on an expedition to a village several kilometres distant, hoping to impose on the noted hospitality of Ukrainian peasants and be able to buy some beets or maybe even some potatoes. The food brought for the trip, carefully rationed out, lasted for many weeks, but now all that remains is some dark bread getting mouldy. Awkwardly, Oma and Heinz climb down the makeshift steps and by the hand she leads him on a short walk to stretch cramped legs. There is no exuberance to restrain; he has no excess energy because like everyone else by now he is starving. Shortly Heinz ‘guides’ Oma back to their car where they find a huddle of people beside the train tracks.

- an excerpt from Henry Tersen's true story: The Would-Be Mariner, available on Amazon

The Would-be Mariner: never ein Matrose but many shores The tides of war set adrift little Heinz and his Mutti and Oma. From Stalin's Soviet Russia to N**i occupied Poland to post-war Eastern Germany, they become victims of world events, refugees without a harbour. This is the true story of a boy surviving World War II, sometimes dreaming about being ...

One of their forays takes them quite some distance from town to a stand of tall aspen trees. A slow realization dawns that there is something strange about the area. Surrounding the grove is a large expanse of waving prairie grassland undisturbed by cultivation. In Henry’s eyes it becomes the African veld. Eager pursuit in all directions finds no sign of human habitation and their hopes rise; they may get to be explorers and conquerors after all. How to lay claim to this territory? For one thing, the next time they will bring hatchets and supplies to build a fort. However, since it is an inconvenient distance away, they do not return but twice more, never quite allowing for enough time for anything more than hunting rabbits. Eventually a mythology grows and their secret destination comes to be known as the ‘Lost Forest’.

- from When Tracks End, a true story by Henry Tersen

When Tracks End When Tracks End

When Tracks End by Henry Tersen (his true story):

Home? Heinz is unsure whether to hope as much; it has been six years since he could call a place ‘home’. The small house they come to, having been vacant for some time, is to provide them with free accommodation but will also be an uncomfortable introduction to a winter on the Prairies. The cast iron stove proves inadequate for keeping the combined front room and kitchen warm, much less the single bedroom in the back. Some mornings the bedroom has frost glistening on the north wall. Free wood and coal and groceries are brought by generous members of the local congregation. Mutti baulks at having their existence dependent on the goodwill of others, yet reluctantly concedes that for now she has no choice. They endure in that cold house for a month until someone takes pity and provides better accommodation.

When Tracks End When Tracks End

DIE FLUCHT, 1943 - The flight of the refugees will be with horse-drawn wagons driven by able-bodied boys and women and the few men that have miraculously survived Stalin’s cleansings; the old and weak and women with small children by train, in cattle cars. For Heinz it starts early on a glorious fall morning, September 11, 1943. After a night of frantic packing, with very scant notice for the departure, he is the last item to be hoisted up onto the wagon, into the secure arms of Mama. The father he would never know had fallen victim to the Soviets, destined for the Gulag. As the wagon starts to roll, he bolts upright and almost falls off. Mitzi! His cat, the orange and white and black Mitzi is still there in the yard. He refuses to understand and strongly voices his despair when told she cannot come along.

- from The Would-Be Mariner by Henry Tersen, his true story

Get your copy on Amazon today (it can still arrive before Christmas!)

The Would-be Mariner: never ein Matrose but many shores The tides of war set adrift little Heinz and his Mutti and Oma. From Stalin's Soviet Russia to N**i occupied Poland to post-war Eastern Germany, they become victims of world events, refugees without a harbour. This is the true story of a boy surviving World War II, sometimes dreaming about being ...

Still finding it hard to let go of the images of towering waves crashing over the ship, the eleven-year-old resigns himself to staring at the bleak view outside, mostly other dirty trains. The slow click-clack rhythm reminds him of another train that brought them out of Russia into Poland, half of his lifetime ago. That trip, with a whole lot of people squeezed into cattle cars, took almost two months.

He hopes this one will not take that long; he had overheard that the prairies were a long way away. At least on this train they get to sleep on a bed, even if it is only a bunk. And they will get to eat. Mutti tells them she was given some ‘vouchers’ for meals on the train, almost like the food coupons in East Germany.

~ from When Tracks End by Henry Tersen

Get your copy on Amazon!

When Tracks End When Tracks End

From The Would-Be Mariner:

SOVIET UKRAINE, 1938 - The slap startles the first breath and cry from the baby; Mama eagerly reaches out for her firstborn, a boy. There is no proud Papa to share the joy. A too short six months after the wedding and three months before the birth of a son he will never see or get to know, the father answers a knock at the door only to be hurried into the night by agents of the NKVD; the Gulag will swallow him up and turn him into a non-person with no past or future. In 1957 Mama hears from relatives that her husband succumbed in 1945 somewhere in the forests of Siberia.

This is the true story of Henry Tersen, his mother and grandmother and their escape from the Society Union during WWII.

You can get your own copy on Amazon!

The Would-be Mariner: never ein Matrose but many shores The tides of war set adrift little Heinz and his Mutti and Oma. From Stalin's Soviet Russia to N**i occupied Poland to post-war Eastern Germany, they become victims of world events, refugees without a harbour. This is the true story of a boy surviving World War II, sometimes dreaming about being ...

Check out Henry Tersen on Amazon:

The Would-be Mariner: never ein Matrose but many shores
(The true story of Henry's escape from the Soviet Union as a boy in WWII)

When Tracks End, the true story of a refugee boy (Henry) in Canada

and Henry's first novel: Noah Plays Golf

All are available on Amazon.

Amazon.ca: Henry Tersen: Books Online shopping from a great selection at Books Store.

If you enjoyed The Would-be mariner, you'll be excited to read the follow up: When Tracks End by Henry Tersen, Author

This is a true narrative about an unruly boy, a refugee from the terrors of WWII. As he travels by train, back and forth between two worlds, a small prairie town and a metropolitan city, he leaves childhood behind. Once he spurns the restrictions of railway tracks, he learns to become an adult and find a woman to love.

It's available on Amazon now and can be delivered before Christmas!

When Tracks End When Tracks End

Hans is not even going to hazard a guess how deep he is underground. In case of emergency, is there an exit? And if so, where? Since he is being put up as if in a hotel, he expects that somewhere there should be instructions for a fire escape route. He goes from room to room and even checks into the few drawers in the place. Only after he finds nothing and panic creeps into his mind and he gets a grip on himself, the obvious comes to him. Why should there be anything like that? M, or whoever it is that’s in charge, would know the way to safety. Back to the door he marches and authoritatively commands,
“Open!”

Want to find out if the door opens? Read more in your own copy of Noah Plays Golf
https://www.amazon.ca/Noah-Plays-Golf-near-future-novel/dp/B0B8VLQM14/ref=sr_1_1?crid=32XRVEQELL6BJ&keywords=henry+tersen&qid=1669823987&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIxLjAwIiwicXNhIjoiMC45MiIsInFzcCI6IjEuMDAifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=henry+tersen%2Caps%2C228&sr=8-1

“What about the car?”
Hans has a legitimate concern because the vehicle is special. It had been one more incentive for him to come to compete for a million dollars in some obscure kind of golf tournament. He could choose for his courtesy car whatever kind of vehicle he wanted to drive. Hans had tested the sincerity of the offer with a wild request for a red, two-seater sports car, an updated replica of a nineteen fifty eight rag top MGA. And there it had been, waiting for him at the airdome in Phoenix.
“The vehicle will be taken care of,” the voice responds, in a tone somewhat dismissive and with that Hans is suddenly aware that they seem to be in rapid transit...

Read more by getting your own copy of Noah Plays Golf, available in paperback or Kindle

https://www.amazon.ca/Noah-Plays-Golf-near-future-novel/dp/B0B8VLQM14/ref=sr_1_1?crid=32XRVEQELL6BJ&keywords=henry+tersen&qid=1669823987&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIxLjAwIiwicXNhIjoiMC45MiIsInFzcCI6IjEuMDAifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=henry+tersen%2Caps%2C228&sr=8-1

Suddenly dead. Is that why it has rolled to a stop without warning? The rental is dead, the batteries now useless like blocks of ice. No lights and no response irrespective of which screen he pokes at. As in a silly horror video he once had watched, Hans Pedders finds himself vulnerable on a gravel road devoid of traffic. What has been a hot afternoon in the Arizona desert now has him shivering; daylight is ending abruptly, the sun disappearing over the serrated horizon of the Rawhide Mountains. The occasional golfing holiday to escape a Canadian winter had taken Hans this far south before so the sudden darkness should not catch the northerner off guard. Of course, he knows better than to be surprised that at this latitude daylight does not linger in the evening.

- an excerpt from Noah Plays Golf.
Get your copy today (it makes a great Christmas present!)

https://www.amazon.ca/Noah-Plays-Golf-near-future-novel/dp/B0B8VLQM14/ref=sr_1_1?crid=32XRVEQELL6BJ&keywords=henry+tersen&qid=1669823987&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIxLjAwIiwicXNhIjoiMC45MiIsInFzcCI6IjEuMDAifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=henry+tersen%2Caps%2C228&sr=8-1

Noah Plays Golf: Hans is an unsophisticated yet inveterate golfer. Not only the challenge of playing golf as an amateur for that kind of money, but the persistence of the messaging intrigues him enough to accept the invitation to a mysterious golf tournament. What he encounters is an eerily stark environment where attempts are being conducted to have Mechanical Intelligence become true Artificial Intelligence; the anticipated results, along with those from some corollary experiments, would irrevocably change the future, if not the ultimate destiny, of the human race. Hans ends up entrapped as an involuntary participant by the reclusive, human-adverse genius who goes by the name of Daniel Noah Jakow.

Buy it online at Amazon
https://www.amazon.ca/Noah-Plays-Golf-near-future-novel/dp/B0B8VLQM14/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1665496427&sr=1-1

Noah Plays Golf: A near-future novel Noah Plays Golf: A near-future novel

It's now easier to send Henry Tersen, Author a message.

Henry Tersen, Author updated their website address.

Many of you know that my dad, Henry Tersen, has self-published two books. He’s always been a writer but didn’t get serious about writing until the last few years. He’s written two books that are available on Amazon, and you can find the links on his new page. Here’s his newest book!

Noah Plays Golf: A near-future novel Noah Plays Golf: A near-future novel eBook : Tersen, Henry: Amazon.ca: Kindle Store

Many of you know that my dad, Henry Tersen, has self-published two books. He’s always been a writer but didn’t get serious about writing until the last few years. He’s written two books that are available on Amazon, and you can find the links on his new page

The Would-be Mariner: never ein Matrose but many shores The tides of war set adrift little Heinz and his Mutti and Oma. From Stalin's Soviet Russia to N**i occupied Poland to post-war Eastern Germany, they become victims of world events, refugees without a harbour. This is the true story of a boy surviving World War II, sometimes dreaming about being ...

Published in 2020: The Would-be Mariner: never ein Matrose but many shores by Henry Tersen

The tides of war set adrift little Heinz and his Mutti and Oma. From Stalin's Soviet Russia to N**i occupied Poland to post-war Eastern Germany, they become victims of world events, refugees without a harbour. This is the true story of a boy surviving World War II, sometimes dreaming about being a sailor.

https://www.amazon.ca/Would-be-Mariner-never-Matrose-shores-ebook/dp/B0855JGCTK/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?crid=40F6HV1SOD5N&keywords=henry+tersen&qid=1664659650&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIxLjAwIiwicXNhIjoiMC44OCIsInFzcCI6IjAuOTcifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=henry+ter%2Caps%2C176&sr=8-2

The Would-be Mariner: never ein Matrose but many shores The tides of war set adrift little Heinz and his Mutti and Oma. From Stalin's Soviet Russia to N**i occupied Poland to post-war Eastern Germany, they become victims of world events, refugees without a harbour. This is the true story of a boy surviving World War II, sometimes dreaming about being ...

Noah Plays Golf, by Henry Tersen
Now available on Amazon!

https://www.amazon.ca/Noah-Plays-Golf-near-future-novel-ebook/dp/B0B95X4PCS/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=40F6HV1SOD5N&keywords=henry+tersen&qid=1664659650&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIxLjAwIiwicXNhIjoiMC44OCIsInFzcCI6IjAuOTcifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=henry+ter%2Caps%2C176&sr=8-1

Hans Pedders, a very private individual yet avidly curious, cannot resist responding to a strange email. A billionaire is inviting him to a 'golf resort’ in the Arizona desert to play in a tournament with prize money of a million dollars. Hans arrives to find unusual beings and reluctantly collaborates with attempts to have computers become human. Not until years later does he learn the real reason why he was duped into playing golf with Noah.

Noah Plays Golf: A near-future novel Noah Plays Golf: A near-future novel eBook : Tersen, Henry: Amazon.ca: Kindle Store

Henry Tersen, Author updated their business hours.