In a literary landscape where historical fiction often treads familiar ground, The Lebensborn Experiment, Book I by Joyce Yvette Davis dares to walk a more perilous path. It is a path forged through both the atrocities of Nazi Germany and the long-ignored heroism of Black soldiers in World War II. With her richly layered narrative and searing honesty, Davis delivers a novel that is as urgent as it is unforgettable.
Originally self-published and now re-released by Citi of Books, The Lebensborn Experiment is a work of staggering ambition.
Combining historically grounded research with speculative science fiction, Davis transports readers to the final days of World War II, where a Black American soldier, a Nazi scientist, and a young Polish boy become the central figures in a chilling exploration of race, power, and survival.
The novel opens with Sergeant Kapp Johnson, a member of the 761st Tank Battalion, an all-Black unit fighting in Hitler’s Europe, imprisoned in the dark recesses of a medieval castle. Awaiting execution, Kapp finds himself caught in a larger, even more terrifying experiment orchestrated by Nazi scientist Dr. Josef Weiss. When Kapp is inadvertently injected with an experimental serum meant to manipulate life and death, he gains superhuman strength and a curse of immortality in a world that barely sees him as human.
You can read the book on Amazon here.
A Voice Rooted in Legacy
For Davis, the novel’s inspiration stems not only from historical documentation but also from lived experience. Growing up in Detroit, she was shaped by an education that celebrated Black voices—Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, James Baldwin. These authors didn’t just entertain; they transformed her understanding of self and history.
“In college, I used to recite Langston Hughes’ The Negro Mother to elementary school kids,” Davis recalls. “That poem, those stories, they were food to me.”
It was a PBS documentary on the 761st Battalion that sparked her creative journey into The Lebensborn Experiment. That moment of discovery ignited a fire. “If I didn’t know their story,” she said, “I figured many others didn’t either.”
Blending Fact With Fiction
Though steeped in brutal history, The Lebensborn Experiment doesn’t play by traditional genre rules. Davis boldly introduces science fiction elements, allowing her characters, particularly Kapp Johnson, to embody symbolic power in very literal ways.
Yet Davis is quick to differentiate her work from typical superhero narratives.
“I didn’t want to write a Black version of Captain America,” she says. “I had to be realistic about how America, especially in the 1940s, would respond to a Black man with that kind of power. It wouldn’t be celebration. It would be fear.”
The result is a character who is as haunted as he is heroic. Kapp, with his unkillable body and wounded soul, becomes a living metaphor for the burdens carried by Black soldiers. These were warriors who fought for a country that refused to fight for them.
The Human Cost of Power
Davis brings psychological and emotional nuance to her characters in a way that deepens their symbolic roles. From the tormented scientist Dr. Weiss to the tragic child Adok, resurrected by science only to be reshaped by it, each figure is caught in a moral web spun by ambition, fear, and survival.
“Adok is just a little boy crying for his mother,” Davis says. “That image stayed with me. Because at their core, soldiers too are just children in crisis.”
This empathy permeates the entire novel. Even the villainous Colonel Otto Strass, the Nazi officer overseeing the human experiments, is portrayed with layered complexity. Davis doesn’t excuse atrocities, but she does illuminate how ideology corrupts even those who see themselves as patriots.
A Woman Writing Against Time
Remarkably, The Lebensborn Experiment was decades in the making. Davis first began developing the story in her twenties while balancing motherhood, work, and caregiving. “Writing has never come easy,” she admits. “It takes a concentrated effort,a singular focus that I haven’t always had the luxury to command.”
It wasn’t until after taking an early retirement that Davis completed Book I and followed it with Book II, The Lebensborn Alliance, which jumps forward to the Civil Rights era. “Kapp becomes Martin Luther King Jr.’s bodyguard in that one,” she shares. “He’s still hiding what he can do. But the struggle is now internal,when and how to use his powers.”
That inner conflict is a hallmark of Davis’ writing. Her characters are not invincible warriors but deeply human souls wrestling with morality and meaning in a world at war, politically, racially, and spiritually.
Literature as Resistance
Davis is passionate about the importance of representing Black history in literature. She believes it is not just about stories of suffering, but also about triumph, resilience, and untold contributions.
“History can be empowering,” she says. “But ignorance keeps people poor-mentally and spiritually. If you know what others who look like you have done, you know you can do it too.”
Through Kapp Johnson and the 761st, Davis challenges readers to reckon with the hidden chapters of American and world history. Her book is not just an imaginative retelling of past events. It is a demand to remember, to honor, and to rewrite the stories that have been erased.
Critical Reception and Looking Forward
The novel’s re-release under Citi of Books has reignited interest, and Davis is already seeing recognition across major platforms like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Though new reviews are still building under the updated edition, early readers have praised her storytelling as gripping, cinematic, and utterly original.
But for Davis, the true reward is seeing the legacy of the 761st brought into light.
“I hope this brings greater visibility to their story,” she says. “And that my books open the door for others to tell stories we haven’t heard yet.”
She is currently working on the third installment of the series, The Lebensborn Conspiracies, which will explore the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy, as well as the rise of global terrorism. The final volume, The Battle of the Lebensborn, will trace the legacy of the super-enhanced descendants into the Obama era.
A Message to Readers
In reflecting on her journey, Davis shares one simple but powerful message. “Be true to yourself as a writer. Don’t be afraid to take chances with your characters or your plot. There’s room for your story, exactly as you want to tell it.”
It is that courageous authenticity that defines The Lebensborn Experiment. A book born from decades of passion, fueled by personal truth, and shaped by rigorous historical inquiry. It is a novel that doesn’t just tell a story. It expands the conversation about who gets to be remembered, and how.
For more about Joyce Yvette Davis and her upcoming works, visit her website: www.joycedavisonceuponastory.com
To read The Lebensborn Experiment, Book I, order your copy on Amazon here. The book is also available on Audible—perfect for readers who prefer to listen on the go.
We found it gripping and compelling.