The Invisible Woman by Erika Robuck

The publishing world is saturated by WWII novels. And yet there always seems to be one more story to be told, a story unlike the others we have read. The Invisible Woman offers readers a character so amazing that it is hard to believe she is based on a real woman. 

In The Invisible Woman, Erika Robuck brings to life Virginia Hall Goillot who went into occupied France as a "pianist," coordinating and supplying the Marquis as they sabotaged the Nazis. She was the only civilian woman to be award the U. S. Distinguished Service Cross, and one of the first women to work for the C.I.A.

It is a riveting read. 

The average lifespan of a pianist was six weeks. "You will receive no praise or accolades for your service," Virginia was warned, "Without military uniform, if captured, you will not fall under Geneva protection." 

She would starve. She would feel guilt over the deaths of those involved in her work. She could be jailed, raped, tortured, or put to death.

Virginia accepted the challenge. She had a debt to pay.

Virginia wore a prosthetic leg but it did not stop her from her work. Masquerading as an elderly woman, she rode a bicycle for hours, trekked through deep mountain snow, endured danger and grief, gained the trust of the boys and men she worked with, and was aided by women and children. 

The "nameless and faceless" army of common folks were true heroes, enduring suffering and loss. A village of pacifist Christians hid thousands of evacuated Jewish children. 

Virginia struggles with what she has seen. How do men become monsters? Is humanity redeemable? Can small acts overpower it? Was resisting worth dying for? Will her humanity be another victim of the war?

Readers will be gratified by the ending.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

I previously read and reviewed Robuck's novel House of Hawthorne.

The Invisible Woman
by Erika Robuck
Berkley Publishing Group
Pub Date: February 9, 2021  
ISBN: 9780593102145
hardcover $16.00 (USD)

from the publisher

In the depths of war, she would defy the odds to help liberate a nation…a gripping historical novel based on the remarkable true story of World War II heroine Virginia Hall, from the bestselling author of Hemingway’s Girl

France, March 1944. Virginia Hall wasn't like the other young society women back home in Baltimore—she never wanted the debutante ball or silk gloves. Instead, she traded a safe life for adventure in Europe, and when her beloved second home is thrust into the dark days of war, she leaps in headfirst.

Once she's recruited as an Allied spy, subverting the Nazis becomes her calling. But even the most cunning agent can be bested, and in wartime trusting the wrong person can prove fatal. Virginia is haunted every day by the betrayal that ravaged her first operation, and will do everything in her power to avenge the brave people she lost.

While her future is anything but certain, this time more than ever Virginia knows that failure is not an option. Especially when she discovers what—and whom—she's truly protecting.

Sergeant Salinger by Jerome Charyn

The inimitable Jerome Charyn has turned his pen to probe the transformative war experiences of one of America's most famous writers, J.D. Salinger. Like so many of his generation, WWII left its indelible footprints on Salinger, as manifested in his stories and his troubled life. 

Charyn begins with Sonny Salinger as a love-struck Park Avenue boy with a few stories under his belt. Sonny was smitten with teenage vamp Oona O’Neill (daughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill), but Oona had big plans; he was merely a pleasant diversion. 

The army decided to overlook Sonny's heart murmur and called him to duty. Sonny went overseas, a secret counterintelligence agent whose job was to seek out and interrogate Nazi collaborators. 

Oona went to Hollywood where her life plans were altered by Charlie Chaplin. In England, the heartbroken Sonny frequented a local pub, scribbling a story about Holden Caulfield at war.

Sonny experienced the most atrocious killing fields of WWII.

There was Devon's Slapton Sands where 1700 GIs rehearsing for Utah Beach were killed by friendly fire. He was at Utah Beach on D-Day, and at the Battle of the Bulge, and he saw the first liberation of a concentration camp.

Sonny was tasked with sniffing out Nazis and Nazi collaborators in every hamlet. He knew that the people he interrogated were as broken by the war as he was.

The depravity and waste of war was overwhelming. Sonny became a ghost. Frayed, he secretly checked into a German civilian hospital.

Back at work as 'the grand inquisitor,' one of the doctors who had nursed Sonny was brought before him for interrogation. He married her, and with fake papers, brought his German Nazi bride home to America to meet his Jewish family.

The marriage failed.

Charyn includes images from Salinger's fiction, especially the Nine Stories--an Eisenhower coat, Sonny at the beach making sand castles with children and remembering Bananafish, hanging in British pubs to write. Salinger's Glass family are referenced, and the carousel in Central Park. Guest appearances are made by Hemingway and Teddy's son General Roosevelt.

In 2018 I reviewed Eberhard Alsen's book J.D.Salinger and the Nazis. When I last read The Catcher in the Rye for book club in 2016, I considered how PTSD influenced the novel. 

Charyn  draws readers on a journey into the darkness of monstrous carnage. As I read, joy was sucked from my world, colors faded, I felt cheerless. Sonny's disillusion and trauma leaves him a tin man, and we understand, because we feel it, too.

A glimmer of hope comes at the end."Whatever music he had lost in the carnage at Slapton Sands, at Hurtgen, and among the smoldering corpses at Kaufering IV had come back."

We know the books that Salinger would write and their impact. Instead of Holden Caulfield's war death, he wrote a novel about a teenage Holden who dreams of protecting children from the adult world. He had seen the devaluation of human lives sacrificed to false gods. And we know how damaged he was, how he became an unsettling, mysterious hermit. Charyn's novel leads us to understand the forces that shaped Salinger and inform his writing.

I was given an ARC by the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Read Charyn's article J. D. Salinger The Lost Bar Mitzvah Boy here.

Sergeant Salinger
by Jerome Charyn
Bellevue Literary Press
Publication January 5, 2021
Trade Paper US $16.99 ISBN: 9781942658740
Trade Cloth US $28.99 ISBN: 9781942658825
Ebook ISBN: 9781942658757

from the publisher

J.D. Salinger, mysterious author of The Catcher in the Rye, is remembered today as a reclusive misanthrope. Jerome Charyn’s Salinger is a young American WWII draftee assigned to the Counter Intelligence Corps, a band of secret soldiers who trained with the British. A rifleman and an interrogator, he witnessed all the horrors of the war—from the landing on D-Day to the relentless hand-to-hand combat in the hedgerows of Normandy, to the Battle of the Bulge, and finally to the first Allied entry into a Bavarian death camp, where corpses were piled like cordwood.

After the war, interned in a Nuremberg psychiatric clinic, Salinger became enchanted with a suspected Nazi informant. They married, but not long after he brought her home to New York, the marriage collapsed. Maladjusted to civilian life, he lived like a “spook,” with invisible stripes on his shoulder, the ghosts of the murdered inside his head, and stories to tell.

Grounded in biographical fact and reimagined as only Charyn could, Sergeant Salinger is an astonishing portrait of a devastated young man on his way to becoming the mythical figure behind a novel that has marked generations.

The Splendid and the Vile by Eric Larson

I have enjoyed Erik Larson's books ever since reading The Devil in the White City. I previously read and reviewed Dead Wake and also have read Isaac's Storm. (I have In The Garden of Beasts on Kindle.)

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz is his best book ever! And the timing is perfect. The world needs to be reminded of what true leadership is and the importance of cohesive single-minded resistance in facing catastrophe.

Larson presents the cold, hard numbers of losses but concentrates on the human side of Churchill's personal family and closest aides and the experience of the common people of England.

Citizens trudged through the rubble to work after sleepless nights in air raid shelters. They planted gardens and kept farm animals to grow their own food. The volunteered their service. They lost everything and carried on.

Churchill was idiosyncratic, the Nazis delighting in making fun of his penchant for pink silk underwear and habitual clenching of a cigar between his teeth. Arriving in Washington, D.C. and staying in the White House, the president opened the door to a naked Prime Minister who quipped, I have nothing to hide, and went on to converse clad in a towel.

Churchill was fearless, watching the Blitz from rooftops, touring the devastated cities in an open car, never concerned for his personal safety. His example and his words inspired the people to find courage.

Churchill showed compassion and sorrow, he truly felt for the people he represented.

Churchill knew that Britain could not win a war against Germany. He kept up morale while desperately working to secure the American assistance that would save his country.

Drawing from her diary, Larson includes the personal life and romantic interests of the prime minister's daughter Mary Churchill. And we read of the doomed marriage of Randolph Churchill, a gambling addict and womanizer, his wife Pamela falling for the American Averell Harriman who was negotiating the Lend-Lease program.

Readers also follow Nazi leaders, whose idiosyncrasies outpaced even Churchill's. Goring liked to dress in costumes and makeup and amassed a huge collection of stolen art. Hesse traveled with a collection of pills on his clandestine flight to Britain, hoping to forge a peace agreement.

The book is everything you have heard it is.

I received an ARC from the publisher through Goodreads. My review is fair and unbiased.

from the publisher

The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when–in the face of unrelenting horror–Churchill’s eloquence, strategic brilliance, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
by Erik Larson
Crown
ISBN-10: 0385348711
ISBN-13: 978-0385348713

Paris Never leaves You by Ellen Feldman

Paris Never Leaves You by Ellen Feldman is a quick reading page-turner filled with conflicted characters who are damaged survivors of WWII.

In occupied Paris, Charlotte runs her family's book shop. A war widow, she struggles to keep her baby daughter Vivi alive. A German army doctor visits the shop and takes an interest in her baby daughter, secreting in food and medicine. Charlotte reluctantly accepts his gifts and trust and friendship grow, putting them both at risk.

Years later, Charlotte's choices come back to haunt her in her new life in New York City where she works for a publishing house. Teenaged Vivi is pressing to know more about her father and heritage. Charlotte's boss, a paraplegic, knows that war destroyed the enlightened man he had been. Charlotte has been trashing the unopened letters from the German doctor.

I appreciated how Feldman incorporated less known WWII history, including the privations of occupied France and post-war retaliation against collaborators. Her handling of the character's moral struggles was of special interest to me. There are several strong romance stories that will appeal to readers of women's fiction.

Surviving the war brings guilt for having survived, their decisions and actions kept secret. Admitting their shameful truths brings healing and the possibility of a new life.

I was given a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Paris Never Leaves You
by Ellen Feldman
St. Martin's Griffin
Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 9781250622778
PRICE: $16.99 (USD) trade paperback

Phantoms by Christian Kiefer

Gorgeous writing, foreshadowing that draws the reader to turn pages, wonderful characters, and an exploration of deeply American themes propelled me to read

Phantoms  by Christian Kiefer in two sittings.

John Frazier returns from Vietnam a shattered man. He moves in with his grandmother and takes a job pumping gas. He becomes involved with two formidable women whose husbands were once best friends--a confidence man, becoming the bearer of the secrets of their entwined family histories dating to the 1940s.

Aunt Evelyn Wilson's husband ran an orchard. Kimiko Takahashi was a Japanese picture bride. Their husband worked together, friends over their shared love of the orchard. Their children grew up together.

The ugliness of racism underlies the story of star-crossed lovers separated by WWII and the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the Japanese Removal Act, a story that ends in tragedy.

They would love each other. In secrecy and in silence. And then all of it would blown away, not only because of history but because of their very lives, adrift as they were in the swirling spinning sea between one continent and another.~ from Phantoms by Christian Kiefer

John has struggled for years to contain his experiences through his writing. His early promise as a 'war writer' has not been fulfilled. It is time to tell this other story, Ray Takahashi's story.

If the kind of experiences I had in Vietnam have already become a tired American myth, over told, overanalyzed, then perhaps this is a good enough reason to justify what I am trying to do in these pages, returning to the 1969 of my memory not to write about Vietnam at long last but instead to narrate the story of someone I did not know but whose time in Place County has come to feel inextricably tied to my own. ~from Phantom by Christian Kiefer

I love the language of this book. John notes that he had read Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe twice,"its sentences consuming me. O Lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again," and was reading it again after the war. I believe I have read it four times! I discovered Wolfe at sixteen in 1969, and fell in love with his language.

This grim story also is a celebration of life. The ending is a beautiful affirmation that brought strong emotions and a catch in my throat.

There are days--many of them--when golden light seems to pour forth from the very soil.~from Phantoms by Christian Kiefer

I purchased an ebook.

Phantoms
by Christian Kiefer
Liveright
ISBN: 978-0-87140-481-7
$26.95 hard cover; $14.55 Kindle
published April, 2019

from the publisher:
In the panoramic tradition of Charles Frazier’s fiction, Phantoms is a fierce saga of American culpability. A Vietnam vet still reeling from war, John Frazier finds himself an unwitting witness to a confrontation, decades in the making, between two steely matriarchs: his aunt, Evelyn Wilson, and her former neighbor, Kimiko Takahashi. John comes to learn that in the onslaught of World War II, the Takahashis had been displaced as once-beloved tenants of the Wilson orchard and sent to an internment camp. One question has always plagued both families: What happened to the Takahashi son, Ray, when he returned from service and found that Placer County was no longer home—that nowhere was home for a Japanese American? As layers of family secrets unravel, the harrowing truth forces John to examine his own guilt.

In prose recalling Thomas Wolfe, Phantoms is a stunning exploration of the ghosts of American exceptionalism that haunt us today.

The Light After the War by Anita Abriel

Inspired by her mother's story, Anita Abriel's The Light After the War takes readers across the world following the paths of girlhood friends Vera and Edith from Budapest to escaping the Nazis and hiding out in Austria, to Italy and Venezuela.

Believing they had lost their families and loved ones, the girls try to move on with their lives after the war. Edith dreams of becoming a fashion designer and Vera had hoped to be a playwright but settles for copywriting.

The background of Jews migrating to more tolerant societies was new and interesting. There is referred violence and death relating to the Holocaust and the girls must resist predatory men, but there is nothing graphic in the story. The concentration is on their determination and friendship, and the charmed luck their beauty brings in the form of helpers and aides along their journey.

Easy to read and easy to digest, with star-crossed lovers and jealousy, the novel felt more like a romance than heavier WWII-era historical-fiction fare. The resolution will satisfy those who believe in fate and true love.

I was given access to a free book by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The author has published under Anita Hughes with several books becoming Hallmark Channel movies.

The Light After the War
by Anita Abriel
Atria Books
Pub Date 04 Feb 2020
ISBN 9781982122973
PRICE $36.00 (CAD)

Lady Clementine by Marie Benedict

Wrong book--wrong time--There are many reasons for me to walk away from a book. 

Marie Benedict is a best selling author who writes historical fiction about remarkable women. I had previously read her novels The Other Einstein and The Only Woman in the Room. I am not a huge fan of her writing style, but commend her for bringing the women she writes about to a public who might not know their stories.

Lady Clementine is about Winston Churchill's wife, usually portrayed as long-suffering and anxious for Winston to put aside politics and enjoy his life--and give her more of his attention. Benedict shows a woman who understood what she was taking on in marrying Winston.

"In that moment, I knew with utter certainty that I could make a life with him. It would not be an easy life--no, it would be one of striving and ambition--but it could be an important and purposeful one.~from Lady Clementine by Marie Benedict

Twenty-three-year-old Clementine married the thirty-four-year-old Winston, with wanting to "write my own chapter." The novel takes their story through WWII, told by Clementine, in episodic scenes.

I just did not feel compelled to pick up the book, and half-way through decided to move on.  It just couldn't compete with the other books I was reading at the time.

Read an excerpt and judge for yourself:
https://www.sourcebooks.com/uploads/1/1/5/5/115507011/9781492666905.pdf

I was given access to a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

from the publisher:In 1909, Clementine steps off a train with her new husband, Winston. An angry woman emerges from the crowd to attack, shoving him in the direction of an oncoming train. Just before he stumbles, Clementine grabs him by his suit jacket. This will not be the last time Clementine Churchill will save her husband.
Lady Clementine is the ferocious story of the ambitious woman beside Winston Churchill, the story of a partner who did not flinch through the sweeping darkness of war, and who would not surrender either to expectations or to enemies.

Lady Clementine
by Marie Benedict
SOURCEBOOKS Landmark
Pub Date 07 Jan 2020
ISBN 9781492666905
PRICE $26.99 (USD)

Cesare: A Tale of War-Torn Berlin by Jerome Charyn

They would embroider, multiply, manufacture, until I was their Caligari with his slave, Cesare, who strangled enemies of the Reich at will and then returned to his coffin at Tipitz-Ufer. ~Admiral William Canaris in Cesare by Jerome Charyn

From the beginning, I knew I had entered a noir world of tales and terror where fantasy and fact spun a deeper journey into the known, for surely nothing can convey truth better than fiction.

Reading Cesare by Jerome Charyn I knew I had to see The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari again, for the imagery of the doctor and his sleepwalking murderer is central to the novel. It is set in a world gone mad and filled with madmen. Yes, I am talking about the movie--and I am talking about the novel.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 1920 German film in which horror builds upon horror, the action set against contorted Expressionist Art sets. A doctor is monomaniacally obsessed with controlling a somnambulist, Cesare, who in his sleep murders on command. In the end, we are unsure who is really mad.

We were all madmen at the Abwehr. We had to be. How else could we have survived the Furher's fiery wind day after day? ~ Admiral William Canaris in Cesare by Jerome Charyn 

In Jerome Charyn's Cesare, we met the orphan Erik Holdermann, raised by whores who pool their money to send him to school. There he is discovered by a benevolent department store baron who sends Eric to his an estranged uncle--only to be treated like a household slave. But the Uncle's daughter, the imperious Lisalein, bewitches the boy. Lisalein is fierce and beautiful, a cruel Estella toward men; under the Nazis she becomes a crusading angel for the Jews.

While at cadet school Eric unwittingly saved the life of Admiral Canaris, the head of the "asylum called the Abwehr," the German Military Intelligence. Canaris brings Eric into the Abwehr to eliminate their enemies, becoming Dr. Caligari to Eric's Cesare.

Dr. Caligari's will controls Cesare in his coffin

Eric is Admiral Canaris' liaison with the Nazi Gestapo and SS; the Abwehr was at odds with them, hiding and protecting select Jews, one Jew at a time. Eric was protected and feared by his reputation, for the enemies of the Abwehr disappeared.

Hitler's mad dominions meant nothing to Erik. He was loyal to Uncle Willie and played Cesare for him. ~ from Cesare by Jerome Charyn

To rescue Lisalien, Eric enters the contorted reality of Theresienstadt, a PR facade constructed to hide the truth of the Nazi death camps.

The book reads like a twisted dark fairy tale, stepped in the details of a time in history so chillingly horrific some deny it ever happened. And like all good horror stories, it will disturb your sleep.

I was given access to an egalley by the publisher through Edelweiss in return for a fair and unbiased review.

Cesare: A Novel of War-Torn Berlin
Jerome Charyn
Bellevue Literary Press
Publication January 7, 2020
ISBN: 9781942658504, 1942658508
Hardcover $26.99 USD, $35.99 CAD, £19.99 GBP

The Winter Army by Maurice Isserman: The WWII Odyssey of the 10th Mountain Division

Over twenty years ago I met Floyd Erickson, born in the Upper Penninsula Michigan. During WWII Floyd served in the 10th Mountain Division. His life-altering experience under fire on Mt. Belvedere was legendary; everyone knew of his bargain with God which led to his becoming a well-beloved patriarch of the church.

I recall how Floyd, still trim, proudly donned his uniform to join his fellow soldiers at a reunion. And the stories his wife Elizabeth told of how Floyd supported his large U.P. family and the alteration in his character when he returned from war.

Maurice Isserman quotes Floyd in his history of the 10th Mountain Division, The Winter Army, in the chapter concerning the Allied invasion of Kiska. After months of training in extreme conditions, the Army was uncertain of what to do with this 'winter army' of men trained for mountain snow and ice. Their first deployment was to oust the Japanese from Kiska in the Aleutian archipelago.

"It was a terrible night, that first one," Floyd said, recalling the twelve-hour ascent carrying his gear and machine gun ammunition, then digging a foxhole in the pouring rain. The Americans did not know that the Japanese army had already abandoned Kiska. Nineteen mountain troopers died from 'friendly fire'. It was a demoralizing blow.

Floyd Erickson in Italy

Isserman narrates the history of this legendary division with details drawn from oral histories that bring the story to life.

Toward the end of the war, the 10th Mountain was sent to the Italian Alps. They were there to keep the German army busy. Climbing the iced mountains, crossing the open Po Valley the Po River, and the final battle was horrific.

Floyd saw his best friend killed in action and suffered permanent hearing loss from a blast.

Isserman's book focuses on the extraordinary men, the "mix of Ivy League students, park rangers, Olympic skiers, and European refugees," who "formed the first specialized alpine fighting force in US history."

After the war, these men impacted the ski industry. One became the first executive director of the Sierra Club; another co-found The Village Voice. One co-founded Nike; another became a renowned historian. And there was Bob Dole, US senator, and presidential candidate.

And there were men like Floyd, an ardent skier from a small town with a large impoverished family, a good man whose life was dedicated to his family and church and community.

I was given access to a free book by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Winter Army: The World War II Odyssey of the 10th Mountain Division, America's Elite Alpine Warriors
by Maurice Isserman
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Pub Date 05 Nov 2019 
ISBN:9781328871435
hardcover $28.00 (USD)

Cilka's Journey by Heather Morris

"What you are doing, Cilka, is the only form of resistance you have--staying alive." ~from Cilka's Journey

In 1974 when I was twenty-two I met a woman who had come from Russia after World War II. I was new in town and not even half her age. In the morning when she saw my husband had left for work she would run across the street to my door. She asked why I did not have children yet, whispering that I should ask my husband--he'll know what to do. And she puzzled over my husband's job as an assistant pastor, asking "why two priests?"

One day, in broken English, Nadya told me that when she was a teenager she volunteered to go to a German work farm in her father's stead. She told me she never could have children and thought that she had been sterilized at that camp. When the war ended she was given the choice of three places to go and she chose New Jersey in America. On the ship, she met a man who had also been in a camp and had no family left and they married. She could not read English or drive. I am now surprised she even told me this much of her story.

I was ignorant of the details of modern history at that time. I knew about Nazi Germany and the concentration camps from books I had read such as Anne Frank's Diary. Still, I had little appreciation of the horror Nadya had endured. I later realized that Nadya was perhaps was Polish or from another country taken over by the Nazis and not Russian. That the work farm was a prison camp. That she had no family or home to return to after the war.

We are surrounded by people with stories that they keep to themselves for many reasons. Sometimes because the stories are too painful to speak. Perhaps they don't have the words to express their experience. Sometimes people fear that their past will bring judgment from those who weren't there.

When Heather Morris talked with Lale Sokolov, listening to his story that would become her best-selling novel The Tattooist of Auschwitz, he told her that Cilka Klein saved his life. Morris knew she had to learn about Cilka and write her story. How did this teenager survive years in prison camps? Not only survive but have the strength to help others survive?

The people Morris interviewed gave conflicting stories about Cilka's character. She was a collaborator. She slept with the Nazis for favors. She helped them, saved them, sacrificed for others. Which was the real Cilka?

Cilka was only sixteen in 1942 when the Nazis rounded up Slovakian Jews and she was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. She was young and beautiful and soon slated to become a sex slave.

At the end of WWII, Russia rounded up people they feared had collaborated or spied for the Nazis and sent them to Siberia. Cilka had 'slept with the enemy' and knew several languages. Deemed an enemy of the state, she was sent to a prisoner camp near the Arctic Circle where mistreated prisoners mined coal by hand.

In Cilka's Journey, Morris recreates life in the Gulag interspersed with flashbacks revealing Celia's life before and during WWII. The book is filled with memorable characters, women who have lost everything and yet strive for a sense of order, community, and even beauty. They bond over the hope represented by a baby and forgive each other's frailties.

"History never gives up its secrets easily," Morris writes, but Cilka's story needed to be told. It is the story of a girl cast into the unimaginable, not once but twice in her young life. And it is the story of courage, the pragmatism needed to survive, the shame of survivor's guilt, and the empathy that spurs personal sacrifices to help another.

Lale never forgot Cilka. Thanks to Morris, neither will we.

I received an ARC through Bookish First in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Cilka's Journey
by Heather Morris
St. Martin's Press
$27.99 hardcover
Publication Date: Oct 01 2019
ISBN: 9781250265708

The Violent Century by Lavie Tidhar

You have a choice. We all have a choice. We can give in to the darkness, or we can fight it, and elect to try and make the world a slightly less terrible place than it is. from The Violent Century by Lavie Tidhar

The Violent Century by Lavie Tidhar is one of those out-of-my-genre reads that I indulge in regularly. Tidhar imagines an alternate reality in which humans with special powers--superheroes--are conscripted for use by the Axis and Allies during WWII.

I was not a superhero comic book reader as a girl, was mildly interested in the Superman movie and television shows, saw some X-Men and Spiderman movies when my son was growing up. Early, I wasn't really in the flow with the novel. But there came a point in the book when the tide shifted, and instead of reading because I had committed to reading it, I was reading because I was truly intrigued and driven to read.

Tidhar imagines the creation of a machine that transforms humans, giving them superpowers, preventing them from aging but not from being killed. In Britain, The Old Man brought these misfits to a special school. Friendship circles formed. There is Oblivion who can evaporate objects and Fogg who produces a visual shield, and Tank, Mr. Blur, Mrs. Tinkle.

I'm here to take you to a special school. For special people. People like you. Where you will be happy, the Old Man says. from The Violent Century by Lavie Tidhar

During WWII, these Übermenschen were tracked down by spotters working for the Germans and Russians to be used in the war effort. Oblivion and Fogg are sent to 'observe' what is going on in Berlin.

Berlin in '46 was an insane asylum. from The Violent Century by Lavie Tidhar

They encounter others with superpowers, The Green Gunman, Frogman, Girl Surfer, The Electric Twins, Whirlwind, and Tigerman dressed in a bright costume, the Russians Red Sickle and the wolf man, and others who wreak havoc on behalf of the Nazis, including Schneestrum.

Fogg meets Sommertag--Klara--the daughter of Vomacht who created the transformer device; he realizes her power is unaltered pureness and innocence. Fogg falls under her spell. The novel centers around Fogg being called to account for a series of events after the end of WWII involving Summertag.

The history and atrocities of Nazi Germany and actual events inform the novel. Fogg's and Oblivion's school friend Tank is captured and used in Mengele's experiments at Auschwitz. Nazi scientists are repatriated to the United States, and war criminals tried and justice meted out.

The story leaps back and forth in time, revealing the back story of the men's boyhood in 1926 and school days in 1936, the war years, and later 20th c wars and events. Then, it leaps into the future, to the Berlin Wall, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and 9-11.

It is too fantastical, this world, with its marching armies and its rockets and its death camps. It's just the world of a cheap novel, surely. from The Violent Century by Lavie Tidhar

The superhero myth appeals in times of crisis; the first superhero comics came onto the scene in 1938. Hitler banned American comic books; he thought the heroes were Jewish. Superman's creators were Jewish. Superhero movies took off after 9-11, a time when America again needed heroes.

Meeting one's hero is always such a disappointment, Schneestrum says. from The Violent Century by Lavie Tidhar

And throughout the book, the questions are raised. What makes a man? What makes a hero?

We expect a hero to rescue us. In real life, sometimes no one comes.

The publisher gave me access to a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

I previously reviewed Tidhar's sci-fi novel Central Station, my review found here, and alternate reality sci-fi novel Unholy Land, my review found here.

from the publisher:

A bold experiment has mutated a small fraction of humanity. Nations race to harness the gifted, putting them to increasingly dark ends. At the dawn of global war, flashy American superheroes square off against sinister Germans and dissolute Russians. Increasingly depraved scientists conduct despicable research in the name of victory

British agents Fogg and Oblivion, recalled to the Retirement Bureau, have kept a treacherous secret for over forty years. But all heroes must choose when to join the fray, and to whom their allegiance is owed—even for just one perfect summer’s day.

From the World Fantasy and Campbell award-winning author of Central Station comes a sweeping novel of history, adventure, and what it means to be a hero.

The Violent Century
by Lavie Tidhar
Tachyon Publications
Pub Date 02 Aug 2019
ISBN 9781616963163
PRICE $25.50 (CAD)

Wickwythe Hall by Judithe Little

In the award-winning Wickwythe Hall, Judithe Little brings to life events few Americans know about. I loved the writing and these original and sympathetic characters. Little gives us a wonderful balance of the personal and the political, the carnage and romance. 

In 1940, Nazi Germany pushed the British troops to the English Channel, saved only by the Miracle of Dunkirk. But France was left at the mercy of the Germans.

As Germany plans to take over France, a party converges at Wickwythe Hall, the country home of the Spring family, Tony and his American wife, Mabry.

Foremost is in the party is Winston Churchill, accompanied by Reid Carr, his American contact with President Roosevelt. Churchill pressures Carr to make America understand that the Battle for Britain can't be won without American warships. 

Reid and Mabry were once in love, and perhaps still are. Mabry is no longer the vivacious and spirited girl Reid knew. Unable to bring a pregnancy to full term, feeling a failure, Mabry's garden is her therapy and escape. 

Then there is the beautiful Annelle LeMaire, an orphan taken in by the nuns. Just as she was to take her vows she joined the throng of refugees fleeing France. Annelle finds her way to the English coast where she would be rounded up as a suspicious immigrant. But Mabry, organizing to provide refreshments for the battle-weary and wounded soldiers, takes Annelle home to Wickwythe. 

Annelle takes up work as a cook and gardener. Her only family are her brothers in the Foreign Legion and she is desperate to find them. Perhaps Reid Carr, a Foreign Legion veteran, can track them down.

Covering four years of the war, the novel brings to life the horrific scenes of warfare, the tensions and privations on the homefront, and the terrible choices war entails.

At the center of the novel is Operation Catapult, sanctioned by Roosevelt and directed by Churchill, the destruction of the French navy deemed necessary to prevent Germany from the control of the ships.

I received an ebook from the author through a giveaway on the Facebook group Breathless Bubbles and Books. My review is fair and unbiased.

A Forgotten Hero: Folke Bernadotte, the Swedish Humanitarian who Rescued 30,000 People from the Nazis

Folke Bernadotte. The name wasn't at all familiar. Who was this Swedish humanitarian? Why have we forgotten him?

Readers of the popular historical fiction novel The Lilac Girls  by Martha Hall Kelly know about the Polish women interred in Ravensbruck who were used for medical experiments, called 'rabbits' because they were merely lab 'animals.'''
In Kelly's novel, the women are told to board white trucks from the Red Cross, but some doubt their legitimacy. Another noted that "Himmler himself authorized Count Bernadotte of Sweden to take us."

A Forgotten Hero is the story of that Count Bernadotte of Sweden!

Shelly Emling begins the book with the German invasion of Poland and the removal of Poles to concentration camps through the personal story of Manya Moszkowicz. In the last days of the war, the Germans wanted to cover up the atrocities of the concentration camps, evacuating prisoners or killing them. Manya was taken on a forced march to Ravensbruck. And one morning she was in a group taken to the gate and told to board a white truck with red crosses. It didn't seem real. The women were given CARE packages, and that night they slept in real beds, clean and warmly clothed. Manya learned she had been rescued because of Count Folke Bernadotte.

Folke was related to Swedish royalty and made a career in the army. He became a volunteer for the Boy Scouts. He took on the leadership of the International Red Cross. Sweden was neutral during WWII, a choice made to preserve their freedom while Norway fell to the Germans and Finland to the Russians. Folke used this neutrality to gain access to Himmler. He wanted to rescue all the prisoners, but played his hand carefully, first asking to repatriate Swedish nationalists. The Gestapo head Himmler had vowed to remain loyal to Hitler but knew his country was losing the war; over time he allowed Folke access to more prisoners.

Folke's courage and faith were limitless as he bused the women out of the camp, coming under fire by Allied planes. He was able to secret out several thousand Jews, but his rapport with the Nazis and unwillingness to overplay his hand made him suspect by some Jewish groups. After the war, Folke was asked to mediate between the emerging country of Isreal and the dispossessed Palestinians. A radical Jewish group marked him for assassination.

For decades, Folke's legacy was forgotten by a chagrined Israel who buried the incident of his death.

Sixty years after his death Folke has reemerged from the shadows.

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased
review.

about the author:Shelley Emling is a senior editor at AARP.org and editor-in-chief of The Girlfriend from AARP. Previously she was a senior editor at the Huffington Post for five years. She has worked as a foreign correspondent for the Cox Media Group both in Europe and in Latin America for more than twelve years, based in London for eight years. Shelley lives in New Jersey and works in Washington, D.C. Shelley is the author of several other books including Marie Curie and Her Daughters, Setting the World on Fire, Your Guide to Retiring in Mexico, and The Fossil Hunter.

A Forgotten Hero: Folke Bernadotte, the Swedish Humanitarian Who Rescued 30,000 People from the Nazis
Emling, Shelley
ECW Press
Published: May 2019
ISBN: 9781770414495
$26.95 US/$32.95 CAD/#17.99 Kindle

The Road to Grantchester by James Runcie

I love the PBS series Grantchester. The main character, Sidney Chambers, is portrayed as a flawed man struggling with his faith and vocation. His becoming a priest has alienated him from his worldly friends who don't understand his choice. He must cope with the strictures of the organized church. He understands human frailty in others.

I have wanted to read the novels by James Runcie, and even bought the first book in the series but reviewing new books keeps me busy and it has languished in the TBR pile. 

But now I am not sorry because I can start at the very beginning with Runcie's newest novel in the series, a prequel titled The Road to Grantchester. 

How did the attractive, intelligent, lover of jazz end up in the priesthood? This novel shows us the events and internal anguish that brought Sidney to change his life.

The first section of the novel begins with Sidney and his London friends enjoying theater and fancy dinners and dancing. A quick jump five years later finds Sidney on a transport ship to Salerno. He is with his best friend from university, Robert Kendall, and Freddie Hawthorne, a theatrical star. These bright young men are thrown into bloody battle, Sidney set to being a sniper. They experience the destruction and misery of war.

The Episcopal priest Rev Nev is with the soldiers. "What does a priest do in the midst of this?" a friend asks him."I believe there is no higher calling than to be a priest in the service of God and God's people; to offer some kind of stability in a bewildered world," he explains. The soldiers are more than bewildered for the evil of war feels overwhelming and faith in a loving God flees. The men contend daily with mud and cold, seeing their comrades shattered and dying, and they long for the simple pleasures of clean dry clothes and a hot bath. And they wonder what it is like to have no enemy. The pleasant days of dancing with Amanda Kendall is a distant memory.

They arrive at the Gustav Line, a flooded valley without cover which they must cross. Then they must climb Monte Cassino with enemy fire raining down from the monastery at the top where the Nazis have buried in. During the battle, Robert Kendall dies, leaving a heartbroken Sidney with survivor's guilt and questions of culpability.

It is Rev Nev who helps Sidney, explaining the mystery of faith in a broken world. At war's end, Sidney realizes it is grace that he needs. His friends note the change in him. Oh dear, Freddie exclaims, either you've had too much to drink or you really have got religion.

I know about these battlefield faith experiences from my friend Floyd Erickson, a WWII veteran who was in the 10th Mountain Division. They were in Italy and had to climb Monte Belvedere at night. While advancing across the Po Valley in the foothills of the Apennines, his best friend was killed in a blast that left Floyd permanently deaf in one ear. While under fire, Floyd prayed to God for protection, offering a lifetime of service if he survived. Floyd made it home and changed his life. I knew him as a revered family man and leader in the local church. (Read more here.)

Part Two follows Sidney back home to England to face Robert's grieving family. Amanda can't reconcile a loving God with her brother's death. Sidney's family has expectations for his post-war career. Sidney lives with Robert's ghost and can't move on with his life. 

While Amanda and Sid's other friends only want to forget the war and have fun, Sidney finds that kind of life deadly and meaningless. He longs for a life with purpose. It's more than depression that ails Sidney--he is searching for peace and purpose. He continues to turn to Rev Nev for spiritual guidance. 

"I need to change my life," Sidney explains to Amanda. And in Part Three, Sidney explores his faith and a vocation as a priest.

There is a lot of God talk and faith talk in the novel. It is after all about Sidney's journey to the priesthood. I discovered that Runcie's father was Archbishop of Canterbury which explains the depth and realism of Sidney's journey. The rejection suffered from friends is also realistic. Amanda is unable to accept Sidney's choice and accepts the proposal from another man. I love that Freddie, who is gay, is the one friend who seems to 'get' Sidney and supports his decision.

Several episodes show Sidney's ability to understand people and know how best to counsel them and illustrate his native ability to notice what others don't see, both traits important to his ability to solve puzzles and crimes.

My favorite scene is Sidney's ordination which takes place in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral. A charred cross "symbolizes determination, survival, and above all, the possibility of Resurrection." He is presented with a cross made of nails gleaned from the ruined cathedral. 

The symbolism is vivid. Britain has suffered greatly, the world is broken. In taking orders, Sidney dedicates his life to the rebuilding of faith and hope in a devastated people. From these ruins, he is to raise up God's love to light the path forward. Sidney is trying to heal himself. He trusts he will also become a vehicle of healing to his flock.

I was impressed with Runcie's ability to show Sidney's path to his vocation, from the hard to read horror of war to the emptiness of frivolous pleasure, the questionings and embracing the mystery, and the bafflement of old friends who stereotype the priesthood. 

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Road to Grantchester

by James Runcie

Bloomsbury USA

Pub Date 07 May 2019  

ISBN 9781635570588

PRICE $28.00 (USD) hardbound

The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner

For several years my husband's department secretary was a Japanese American who came of age in a WWII internment camp. Her stories were the first I had encountered. Later I learned that German Americans were also identified as suspect hostile aliens and sent to internment camps. But before reading The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner I had not heard of the repatriation program, exchanging interned families for POWs held by Germany and Japan.

The Last Year of the War is Elise's life story. Her parents were born in Germany and love their homeland but embraced America wholeheartedly. Elise is a typical American girl.

Mariko is another American born child of immigrant parents. Her Japanese parents have held to their heritage and identity.

Circumstantial evidence flag their fathers as potential alien enemies, their goods and money confiscated, and the fathers interned. At Crystal City their families can join them, but with the agreement that they may be repatriated to their homelands.

Elise is lost and angry until she meets Mariko. They bond and become best friends, sharing dreams of turning eighteen and moving to New York City together to pursue careers.

Through these sympathetic characters, readers learn about life at the internment camps, and, when Elise's family is sent to Germany, life in war-torn Germany.

Elise struggles with being an American in the land of her enemies, while to her parents it is their homeland. Mariko's America dreams are shattered by her traditional parents' expectations.

Readers of Historical Fiction will love this book. I commend Meissner for bringing this aspect of American history to light, especially in the context of America's current distrust of immigrants.

Meissner sidesteps vilification of the German people, noting that Elise's German family were required to hang a portrait of Adolph Hitler on the wall and describing the destruction of German cities and civilian losses and hardships. The perils of war are addressed, including the harassment and rape of German girls by the occupation army after the war.

Elise does find her place in the world, not the life she dreamt of as a teenager, and she finds love.

Learn more about Crystal City here.

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Last Year of the War
by Susan Meissner
Berkley Publishing Group
Pub Date: 19 Mar 2019
Hardcover $26.00 (USD
ISBN: 9780451492159

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See is the story of a girlhood friendship crushed and buckled by shifting political and cultural sands.

Set on a small volcanic island in Korea, and spanning from colonialism under the Japanese through the post-WWII division of the country and the resulting purge of Communist sympathizers in the South, the novel is a dazzling exploration of a little-known culture.

And it is also a testament to the strength of women.

In the 1930s, orphaned Mi-ja, daughter of a Korean who collaborated with the Japanese under colonialism, was sent to live with her aunt and uncle on the island of Jeju. Young-sook, a daughter descended from generations of haenyeo women who support their families by free diving to harvest the seas, befriends Mi-ja. Young-sook's mother teaches Mi-ja and Young-sook the traditional skills to become a haenyeo. 

The women led hard lives of toil, but were proud of their work and contribution. While the sea women culled their "ocean fields" and tended their "dry fields" of sweet potatoes, the menfolk watched the kids and prepared the evening meal, spending their free time in talk. Life was a simple cycle. The girls embrace this life and future.

But the life the girls hope for is under duress. During WWII the resources of Jeju are confiscated for the Japanese war effort, resulting in starvation. Mi-ja is forced into marriage with a collaborator with the Japanese, while Young-sook remains in her village, married to a childhood friend. The women drift apart as truths remain unspoken and assumptions lead to prejudice and bitterness that lasts Young-sook's lifetime--until Mi-ja's granddaughter arrives, determined to tell Mi-ja's story to Young-sook.

What I loved about this novel is what I love about the best Historical Fiction: through sympathetic characters and an engaging storyline, history comes alive and I gain insight into the past.

I had little knowledge of the history of Korea. My birth prevented my father's induction during the Korean War; he was already supporting his mother and sister and wife. The Korea of the television series MASH offered little insight. I kinda knew about colonization under the Japanese, and I knew about the devastation of WWII and how impoverished the country was, thanks to my investigation into a handkerchief that led me to Father Al Schwartz and his Korea Relief work. (read about it here.)

But I didn't realize that after WWII, with Korea divided against its will, the Soviets in the North, and America in the South, each led by puppet presidents, resulted in such horrible violence that was unchecked by America. There are scenes in the book that rivals any horrors I have read in history. 

The statistics, presented in the Acknowledgments, are staggering.

See informs us that Jeju's population of 300,000 was decimated by about 10%, with another 80,000 become refugees. Hundreds of villages disappeared. Talk about this dark time was banned for fifty years.

Under See's capable hands, the story is not weighed down by her research into her subject. She weaves the facts and history through the action.

See has a huge following and I expect The Island of Sea Women to become as popular as her earlier novels. It would be an excellent book club pick.

Read about her last novel The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane here.

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Island of Sea Women
by Lisa See
Scribner
March 5, 2019
ISBN 9781501154850, 1501154850
Hardcover $27.00 USD, $36.00 CAD

Daughter of Moloka'i by Alan Brennert

Alan Brennert's novel 2003 Moloka'i has a huge fan base and is much beloved among historical fiction readers. Now he continues the story in Daughter of Moloka'i.

In the first novel, we meet Rachel in the Hawaiian leper colony, her infant Ruth placed in a Catholic orphanage to protect her from developing her parent's leprosy. In this new novel, Brennert continues Ruth story as she is adopted by a Japanese couple. They move to California where they come up against anti-Japanese sentiment. The family is caught up in the horror of relocation camps during WWII, suffering a division when a loyalty oath compels the patriarch to make a choice that leads to repatriation. Ruth's story is continued as the family struggles to regain what they have lost. And in the end, Ruth is reunited with her birth mother and learns her heritage. Readers will learn a lot about Hawaiian and Japanese culture and religion.

Brennert does not shy from including gruesome stories of racist injustice, scenes that are far more disturbing than those shared in other recent novels about Manzanar which I have read. 

Years ago I read Brennert's novel Honolulu and enjoyed it. I already had Moloka'i on my Kindle and intended to read it before Daughter of Moloka'i but ended up reading only about half of it. Consequently, my emotional involvement in the reunion at the end of the novel was weaker.

Overall, my response to both novels was lacking. I don't know if I was just burned out by too much historical fiction, especially about these events, or if I was burned out by family sagas, or if the prose just didn't work for me. The events covered are certainly intense and relevant. But I didn't really *get into* the characters and often felt there was too much telling and not enough action. Scenes I wished were acted out were only referred to, and other scenes took up too much space.

But that's me, and I am often out of sync with mainstream readers. Because people love these novels and characters.

I can't find fault with Brennert's commitment to using fiction to broaden reader's knowledge of history and the ways the American government has grievously erred--and still errors-- practicing racism that employs unjust and cruel laws. So, kudos to Brennert! And may readers everywhere love these characters and pledge that America's past moral failing not continue to be perpetrated in the future.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

You can read an excerpt at 

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250137685

Daughter of Moloka'i

by Alan Brennert

St. Martin's Press

Pub Date 19 Feb 2019  

ISBN 9781250137661

PRICE $27.99 (USD)

Learning to See by Elise Hooper: A Novel of Dorothea Lange, the Woman who Revealed the Real America

I knew the photography of Dorothea Lange but little about her personal life so I was glad to be given the opportunity to read Learning to See by Elise Hooper.

Hooper's novel offers an accessible narrative of Lange's life from her point of view. Lange's childhood polio left her with a limp from a deformed foot. She established a successful portrait photography career until the Depression when her work dwindled. With two children and an artist husband, Lange had to give up her studio to work for the Farm Security Administration.

Migrant mother photo by Dorothea Lange

Using her portrait experience, Lange created iconic photographs that recorded the devastation of the Dust Bowl and the misery of farm migrants. During WWII she was employed by the Office of War Information to document the internment of Japanese Americans.

Internment camp photo by Dorothea Lange

Through Lange's eyes, readers experience the human suffering of poverty and systemic racism.

Lange's marriage to her first husband, artist Maynard Dixon, was strained. Her extensive traveling meant leaving her sons and the book addresses her son's anger and acting out. While photographing for the OWI she worked with Paul Taylor who became her second husband.

Famous photographers appear in the story's background, including Ansel Adams.

The novel is "inspired" by Lange's life. Hooper offers a woman filled with doubts and remorse while facing up to the authorities who repress the photographs that too honestly recorded atrocities and the forgotten.

Lange's life as an artist and a woman will enthrall readers.

Learning to See
Elise Hooper
William Morrow
On Sale Date: January 22, 2019
ISBN: 9780062686534, 0062686534
$15.99 USD, $19.99 CAD, £9.99 GBP

Learn more about Lange at

American Experience:
http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/bios/dorothea-lange/
MoMA:
https://www.moma.org/artists/3373
The J. Paul Getty Museum
http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/1656/dorothea-lange-american-1895-1965/
The Library of Congress:
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/wcf/wcf0013.html

The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict

There is nothing new under the sun. It was true in the Third Century B.C. when the writer of Ecclesiastes wrote it and it is true in 2018.

And some of those perennial truths is that women are valued for their beauty and preyed upon for sex and must fight for equality in their vocations and avocations.

Take Hedy Lamarr, the gorgeous Austrian-born star. Marie Benedict's new historical fiction novel The Only Woman in the Room peels back the Hollywood-packaged icon of female physical perfection and offers us a woman who would be in the #MeToo marches and fighting to be taken seriously as an inventor.

I had seen the fascinating American Masters show Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story and was interested to see how Benedict handled Lamarr's exceptional story. Although I have some issues with the writing, I believe that the importance of bringing Lamarr's story to the general public in an accessible venue is more important. The book is a page-turner, quick and easy to read. It hits all the hot-button issues in contemporary society: Antisemitism, abuse and control of women, the power used by Hollywood moguls over starlets, immigration and refugees. Throw in marriage and divorce, adoption, and single moms. And no, the book is not fiction written to address these issues! Hedy Lamarr's life touched on them all.

If all you know about Hedy Lamarr is her films or "It's Hedley!" from Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles, you need to read this book.

Benedict's previous books include The Other Einstein and Carnegie's Maid. Learn more about them here.

I received an ARC from bookreporter.com in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Only Woman in the Room
by Marie Benedict
Sourcebooks
Publication January 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-6686-8
Hardcover $25.00

All the Lives We Never Lived by Anuradha Roy

"It is the year 1937 that I feel on my skin." from All the Lives We Never Lived by Anuradha Roy

As a toddler, Myshin suffered from convulsions, which led his grandfather to nickname him after the character in Dostoevsky's The Idiot. The nickname stuck, even after the fits stopped--much to the boy's chagrin. "Innocents are what make humankind human," his grandfather explained.

In 1937 Myshkin's mother warned him to come straight home from school. Fatally, he was delayed. He never saw his mother again. She ran off with Walter Spies, a man who left his German homeland, an artist who had mentored her in her girlhood when traveling the world with her liberal-minded father.

Suffering so much loss in his life, Myshkin had turned to the things that make roots and last: trees. He became a horticulturist. He had planted a grove of flowering trees to add shade and beauty. Now the city wants to tear them down. Does anything last in this world?

Myshkin is in his sixties when a package arrives from his mother's best friend. The contents send Myshkin on a journey into his past.

All the Lives We Never Lived is Myshkin's story about how he came to terms with his past. Set in 1937 through WWII, in India and the Dutch East Indies, the setting is unfamiliar and exotic.

The human story is universal:

The life-long hollowness of a man whose childhood recurrent fear of abandonment became real.

How the conflict between private life and the work of political revolution split a family. Myshkin's father, an academic, was active in the Indian Independence Movement, an idealist who could not understand his wife's joy in painting and dance.

The motives, and costs, behind a young woman's breaking free of the constraints of her husband's expectations.

The fear that incarcerated non-hostile aliens during wartime.

I was moved by Myshkin's story. The intensity picks up when we learn the contents of the package, letters from his mother to her friend. From the personal suffering of a child, the novel turns to her tragic story.

Roy's research into the time period and the historical persons who appear in the novel bring to life a time few Americans know about. I am thrilled to have read it.

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Read or hear an excerpt at
 http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/All-the-Lives-We-Never-Lived/Anuradha-Roy/9781982100513

All the Lives We Never Lived
by Anuradha Roy
Pub Date 20 Nov 2018
ISBN: 9781982100513
PRICE: $26.00 (USD)