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Tidal Wave
Ebook
Available on Nov 03, 2026 | 448 Pages
From the author of the New York Times bestsellers A Higher Call, Spearhead, and Devotion comes an astonishing true story set in an untold arena of World War II.
“Tidal Wave is epic in every way. Like all good WWII books, it reminds us again, in the starkest terms possible, how much we owe to those who won that war.”—Daniel James Brown, author of The Boys in the Boat
It’s summer 1943, and the world is on fire.
Lieutenant Ernie Poulson, a twenty-two-year-old outdoorsman from Utah, finds himself at the controls of America’s most advanced bomber, the B-24, brought to North Africa for a top-secret mission.
On the far side of Europe, Lieutenant Constantin Cantacuzino, Romania’s most daring ace, duels Soviet fighters on the Eastern Front while searching for purpose in an unwinnable war.
In Nazi-aligned Romania, Princess Catherine Caradja walks a perilous line between loyalty to her country and quiet defiance, as German forces dig in around the oil refineries in her backyard.
And in the royal palace, twenty-one-year-old King Michael of Romania—mocked and sidelined by a Nazi-backed dictator—quietly plots to seize his nation’s destiny before it is lost forever.
In Tidal Wave, Adam Makos brings these lives together in a sweeping saga of courage and survival, set against history’s most audacious air raid: the treetop assault on “Hitler’s gas station” at Ploesti, Romania. What begins in flames on August 1, 1943, sparks bonds no one could have foreseen—alliances between enemies—that will decide whether these men and women are consumed by war, or seize their chance at escape and redemption.
Drawn from years of extensive research and told with Makos’s signature cinematic intensity, Tidal Wave will remind you that even in war’s darkest hours, humanity has a way of breaking through.
“Tidal Wave is epic in every way. Like all good WWII books, it reminds us again, in the starkest terms possible, how much we owe to those who won that war.”—Daniel James Brown, author of The Boys in the Boat
It’s summer 1943, and the world is on fire.
Lieutenant Ernie Poulson, a twenty-two-year-old outdoorsman from Utah, finds himself at the controls of America’s most advanced bomber, the B-24, brought to North Africa for a top-secret mission.
On the far side of Europe, Lieutenant Constantin Cantacuzino, Romania’s most daring ace, duels Soviet fighters on the Eastern Front while searching for purpose in an unwinnable war.
In Nazi-aligned Romania, Princess Catherine Caradja walks a perilous line between loyalty to her country and quiet defiance, as German forces dig in around the oil refineries in her backyard.
And in the royal palace, twenty-one-year-old King Michael of Romania—mocked and sidelined by a Nazi-backed dictator—quietly plots to seize his nation’s destiny before it is lost forever.
In Tidal Wave, Adam Makos brings these lives together in a sweeping saga of courage and survival, set against history’s most audacious air raid: the treetop assault on “Hitler’s gas station” at Ploesti, Romania. What begins in flames on August 1, 1943, sparks bonds no one could have foreseen—alliances between enemies—that will decide whether these men and women are consumed by war, or seize their chance at escape and redemption.
Drawn from years of extensive research and told with Makos’s signature cinematic intensity, Tidal Wave will remind you that even in war’s darkest hours, humanity has a way of breaking through.
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Author
Adam Makos
Hailed as “a masterful storyteller” by the Associated Press, Adam Makos is the author of the New York Times bestsellers A Higher Call, Spearhead, and Devotion, the subject of the major motion picture. Inspired by his grandfathers’ service, Makos chronicles the stories of American veterans in his trademark fusion of intense human drama and fast-paced military action, securing his place “in the top ranks of military writers,” according to the Los Angeles Times. In the course of his research, Makos has flown a World War II bomber, accompanied a Special Forces raid in Iraq, and journeyed into North Korea in search of an MIA American airman.
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