Padlocked: Large Print Edition

By P.M. Terrell

In the afterlife, your past isn't over. It's waiting for you.

Ordinary people are swept into an extraordinary storm of life-altering circumstances as Nazi Germany invades Poland in 1939. Each decision they make seals a fate, binding strangers in an unbreakable chain of consequence. In this tense, visionary tale, every action echoes into the afterlife.

Two foreign photojournalists, an American and a Spaniard, are trapped between armies at Festungsfront Oder-Warthe-Bogen, along Poland's western border with Germany. It is Hank's last overseas assignment, and he's been counting the days until he can go home to North Carolina to be with his family. Rafe fled Spain after the dictator, Francisco Franco, targeted his family. They will find themselves embedded with the Polish, Nazi, and Soviet forces at varying times, forcing them to face moral and ethical decisions in their struggles to survive.

A young woman is separated from her sister in Warsaw as the Nazis encircle it. Agata made a vow that she would return to take Elsa to safety, but soldiers and barbed wire prevent her from entering the newly established Jewish sector. When she discovers her sister was taken by train to a work camp near Krakow, she navigates her war-torn country in search of her. Her quest will force her to confront a Hell on Earth to find her.

A young man joins the Jungdeutsche Partei, or the Young German Party. Once bullied as a child, Max's new affiliations promote him to a position where he can dictate life or death and settle scores. In order to thrive under Nazi occupation, he makes daily choices that have the power to erode humanitarian principles and scruples.

While they don't know one another at the start of their journeys, each will make decisions that have the power to transform them and place them on paths that ultimately converge on January 27, 1945, as the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front opened the gates to Auschwitz-Birkenau for all the world to witness.

This is ultimately a story about the strength of love, courage, faith, and resilience in the face of unimaginable hatred and obsession with power, and how every decision we make places us further along specific paths.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1935970593
• ISBN13: 9781935970590
• Release Date: March 2026
• Publisher: Drake Valley Press
• Length: 778 Pages
• Weight: 2.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

‘Everything happened gradually until it happened all at once.’

Be prepared to be challenged by this excellent work of historical fiction by p.m. Terrell: Padlocked. If you have thought you would stand strong and make good and righteous decisions when everything is stripped away, this author transports you to the unfolding events of WWII through the eyes of Hank, Rafe, Agatha, and Max. For the sake of survival, each will make compromises they will have to live with. The compromises Hank, Rafe, and Agatha make will differ from those of Max, all arising from different understandings of purpose, morals, and ethics. Padlocked naturally lends itself to the pondering of deeper questions. The author leaves interesting notes about how the book came to be— fascinating. Also, a comprehensive list of sources used in research is found in the back of the book for further exploration.