Rachel Lance Writes

Rachel Lance (Dr. Lance if you’re sassy) aims to bring to the world previously untold stories from history and science so wild they can only be true. She builds her non-fiction books using her love of in-depth research to scrounge up lost tales, then sneaks in the occasional metaphor about cake.

Chamber Divers – available now

as heard on Fresh Air with Terry Gross

Most Americans picture the start of WWII as boots on the sand, Allied troops storming the beaches of Normandy on the windy morning of D-Day. But what made that day possible? Chamber Divers tells the previously classified story of a group of scientists (men and women, several of whom were Jewish refugees) who conducted hundreds of life-threatening, permanently injurious experiments to figure out the underwater physiology necessary to make D-Day a success- and they did all the experiments on themselves.

 “Meticulously researched, the unbelievable yet true story of the eccentric, maverick submarine scientists whose courage and expertise ensured the success of D-Day”
— Dr. Helen Fry, author of MI9

In the Waves – available now

The diminutive, hand-powered HL Hunley was the first submarine ever to sink an enemy ship in combat, and it did so in 1864 during the heated final years of America’s bloodiest war. The little Confederate submarine disappeared immediately after its historic victory, leaving behind only muddled eyewitness reports and not one physical clue to the cause of its demise. It was recovered from beneath the ocean floor centuries later, in the year 2000, but the puzzle of its disappearance only deepened when the hull was opened to reveal that the remains of the crew were still seated peacefully at their battle stations, and seemed to be unharmed. This book finally answers one of American history’s most haunting questions: What sank the HL Hunley?

 “Harrowing, and inspiring” — The Wall Street Journal