Catherine Hokin – 5/5 Stars
Read this if you:
· want a WW2 story from a different perspective
· need some strong women inspiration
· enjoy an unpredictable ending
Synopsis:
Magda is the secretary to the leader of the SS, spending her days with high-ranking Nazis. In the evenings, she spends her time recruiting people to the resistance. This double life is incredibly dangerous, but Magda is determined to help as many people avoid the ‘resettlement’ trains that she has seen being developed as possible.
Forty years later, Nina sets off with a fake passport over the Berlin Wall to try to find the house in the West she heard so much about from her grandmother. She faces many obstacles in her journey but when she finally makes it there, she discovers even more secrets that she’s not sure if she’s ready to face.
My thoughts on the book:
This book was so different from any other WW2 fiction I’ve read in the past. Magda’s story was so heartbreaking but she also showed incredible resilience in the face of all the danger she was in. I loved the addition of Nina’s story and thought it was great how the author showed the parallels between how the two women handled the adversity facing their shared home of Germany.
The writing in this book was also beautiful. Everything flowed together so perfectly that I found it difficult to put down. I felt as though I was sucked in to the book and had to keep going to find out what happened next. I really enjoyed the experience of having to make connections between the two stories to see where they would start to overlap. The way both women in this story were written was also incredibly inspirational and really made me stop and think how I would have reacted to being in the same position.
The twists at the end of this book left me totally shocked. I found that they added to the overall excitement of the book and really made all of the storylines come back together full circle!
Thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this book!