The Women in the Castle

De: Jessica Shattuck

Narrado por: Cassandra Campbell

Three women, haunted by the past and the secrets they hold

Set at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played host to all of German high society, a powerful and propulsive story of three widows whose lives and fates become intertwined—an affecting, shocking, and ultimately redemptive novel from the author of the New York Times Notable Book The Hazards of Good Breeding.

Amid the ashes of Nazi Germany’s defeat, Marianne von Lingenfels returns to the once-grand castle of her husband’s ancestors, an imposing stone fortress now fallen into ruin following years of war. The widow of a resister murdered in the failed July 20, 1944, plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Marianne plans to uphold the promise she made to her husband’s brave conspirators: to find and protect their wives, her fellow resistance widows.

First Marianne rescues six-year-old Martin, the son of her dearest childhood friend, from a Nazi reeducation home. Together, they make their way across the smoldering wreckage of their homeland to Berlin, where Martin’s mother, the beautiful and naive Benita, has fallen into the hands of occupying Red Army soldiers. Then she locates Ania, another resister’s wife, and her two boys, now refugees languishing in one of the many camps that house the millions displaced by the war.

As Marianne assembles this makeshift family from the ruins of her husband’s resistance movement, she is certain their shared pain and circumstances will hold them together. But she quickly discovers that the black-and-white, highly principled world of her privileged past has become infinitely more complicated, filled with secrets and dark passions that threaten to tear them apart. Eventually, all three women must come to terms with the choices that have defined their lives before, during, and after the war—each with their own unique share of challenges.

Written with the devastating emotional power of The Nightingale, Sarah’s Key, and The Light Between Oceans, Jessica Shattuck’s evocative and utterly enthralling novel offers a fresh perspective on one of the most tumultuous periods in history. Combining piercing social insight and vivid historical atmosphere, The Women in the Castle is a dramatic yet nuanced portrait of war and its repercussions that explores what it means to survive, love, and, ultimately, to forgive in the wake of unimaginable hardship.

Talk like a woman, please

Any additional comments?

Such strong female characters, such breathy portrayals. Cassandra Campbell performs every single woman in this book by going way up high and adding lots of air -- even the main character, who as written is forceful, driven and uncompromising. Drove me crazy.

The End - The Afterwards - The Blindspots

An excellent, provoking novel which manages to capture the complexities of the afterlives of the second world war.

An interesting book

I liked the book. I enjoyed seeing the story of the war told from a different perspective and if I could I would have given it a 3.5 star. I just didn't love the book. I didn't feel like I connected with characters, something that happens in books I thoroughly enjoy. in this case I believe this was due to the way the story was written and not the subject matter

Hard to like these characters

This was a hard book to listen to. There is so much sorrow and hardship and I wish there could have somehow been a reassurance from the ASPCA.

But for the most part, it was just so irritating that people kept getting in their own way.

Like they do in life. But still.

I was fascinated by some of the insights into WWII from the German standpoint. What I could not finally understand though, was the actual point. I felt as if I were dragged through a lot of awfulness just so we could have a few pages of reconciliation at the end. All of these women crossed a line for me at one point or another. All of them did things that were unforgivable.

There was much about this book that I couldn't enjoy, but I did manage to hang on until the end. It could be that it's just not my cuppa. I'd rather laugh. And there was nothing to laugh at here. It is rather unrelentingly sad.

The language was sometimes stilted as if Ms. Shattuck wanted us to be hearing a stiff translation from the German. Ms. Campbell read the entire thing with German accents, something I'll never understand. They are speaking German most of the time, right? This may have been directed so I can't fault her for that. Probably.
Also - she seems to have a sinus that pops at the end of every sentence. It's really distracting.

This one was definitely not for me. But it could be just right for someone else.

interesting perspective

a different perspective of the WW2 conflict
that highlights the complexity of the time and how people react to forces both in and out of their control.