The Curator’s Daughter is a story of how women often find themselves in the most impossible situations and manage to rise above them to create a better world for themselves, those they love and all who come after them. Hanna Tillich is not a Nazi, but she is reluctantly employed by them. She worked all…
I’ve reread Sarah Sundin’s first novel (A Distant Melody) so often that there are parts of it I could quote by heart. What I love about that story, and many of her books since, is that they remind me of the 1950s era WWII movies my parent’s loved. They are sweet, innocent, romantic and revolve…
Jillian Cantor’s In Another Time takes us tastefully into the romance of Hanna and Max, two young people who meet and fall in love in Germany on the brink of the outbreak of World War II… and then introduces an awkward plot point that nearly wrecks the proceedings. In 1931, Hanna Ginsberg, a wannabe composer…
“I have just taken an overly large bite of iced bun when Callum slices his finger off” – Opening line, The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy. Mackenzi Lee introduced her readers to the wily and amusing Montague siblings in her bestselling The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue. In that book, Felicity, her brother…
I’ve long been fascinated by the story of Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov, and so, when Ariel Lawhorn’s I Was Anastasia came up for review, I was thrilled to get a chance to read it. I had really high hopes for this book, but, because of some quirks in the storytelling, I found myself quite disappointed….
There is an old saying that states: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. In The Taster, V.S. Alexander shows that it takes many good men doing the right thing to triumph over powerful evil. Unfortunately, Germany at the time of the Second World War did not…
I have loved Jane Porter’s women’s fiction since I read the almost autobiographical Flirting with Forty and Odd Mom Out. Ms. Porter is able to convey emotions in all their raw intensity so well, she puts my heart through the wringer while also providing it solace. I cannot turn the pages of her books fast enough….
I’ve been on a bit of a World War II kick lately, so Jessica Shattuck’s latest novel, The Women in the Castle, seemed like something that would be right up my alley. I relished the idea of seeing how a group of women and children rebuilt their lives and created a cohesive family unit after…
World War II is a period in history that fascinates me. Every time I read a book set during this bleak period, I learn something new. In The Orphan’s Tale, author Pam Jenoff explores the role German circuses played in hiding Jewish people and smuggling them out of Germany. Since I absolutely love circuses and…
This third book in Lillian Marek’s Victorian Adventures series takes place in the small – fictitious – German state of Sigmaringen and is basically a gender-swapped version of Anthony Hope’s classic, The Prisoner of Zenda (which the author acknowledges as her inspiration). In that book, an English gentleman traveller who could be the twin of…