Leon H. Gildin is an award-winning author, producer and retired entertainment attorney. While practicing law in New York for more than 40 years, Mr. Gildin served as general counsel to actors, writers and composers, produced on and off-Broadway, and collaborated with authors and musicians in the development of scripts and musical material for the stage. Leon is the 2010 International Book Awards winner in the Historical Fiction category for his novel, The Polski Affair. The award-winning story continues in The Family Affair, scheduled for release in November 2011. Leon is not quite retired, always in creative pursuit of his next compelling writing project. He resides in Paradise Valley, Arizona, with his wife, Gloria.

How can a woman’s struggle to reconcile her guilt of survival both unite and divide her family for years to come? It is some two years since Anna Adler returned from a reunion of the survivors who were “guests” of the Hotel Polski after the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto. At the reunion, she was applauded for her courage in testifying against the Commandant of the Polski at his War Crimes Trial. Despite the accolades, Anna’s obsession with what took place at the hotel during her period of imprisonment continues to haunt her.

The Family Affair, a sequel to The Polski Affair, tells of the fortuitous discovery of new members of Anna’s family, bringing her both joy and torment. For Anna, the ties that bind run deeper than she cares to remember … or admit. This results in explosive revelations and a family forever changed, proving that some things are better left unsaid.

Winner of the International Book Award for Historical Fiction, The Polski Affair is the story of Rosa Feurmann and others who found themselves as “guests” of the Hotel Polski during the Nazi occupation of Warsaw. Rumor had it the Nazis were attempting to lure Jews out of hiding by the sale of exit visas from Poland; the Hotel Polski drew in Jewish survivors who wished to buy their way to freedom. Rosa, a Jewish partisan, goes undercover as a maid and infiltrates the hotel. She is detected and comes under the personal control of the hotel’s Nazi Commandant.

Living in Israel as Anna Adler some thirty years later, she can’t escape the memory of what she did to survive. She is called as a witness at the Commandant’s War Crimes Trial in Heidelberg and years later, she attends a reunion of the surviving hotel “guests” . It is upon her return to Israel that Anna must reconcile her inner conflicts of guilt, survival and haunting secrets.