A Flicker of Light

By: Roberta Kagan

Narrated by: Alan Burton

In 1935, the Nazis established a program called "The Lebensborn". Their agenda: To genetically engineer perfect Aryan children. These children were to be the new master race, once HItler had cleared all undesirable elements out of Europe. Within a year the first institution was built.

The year is 1943.... The forests of Munich are crawling with danger under the rule of "The Third Reich", but in order to save the life of her unborn child, Petra Jorgenson must escape from the Lebensborn Institute. Alone, seven months pregnant, and penniless, avoiding the watchful eyes of the armed guards in the overhead tower, she waits until the dead of night. Then, Petra climbs under the flesh-shredding barbed wire that surrounds the institute and at the risk of being captured and murdered she runs headlong into the terriying desolate woods.

Even during one of the darkest periods in the history of mankind, when horrific acts of cruelty became commonplace and Germany seemed to have gone crazy following the direction of a madman, unexpected heros came to light. And although there were those who would try to destroy it, true love would prevail. Here, in this lost land ruled by human monsters, Petra will learn that even when one faces what appears to be the end of the world if one looks hard enough one will find that there is always A Flicker of Light.

©2010 Roberta Kagan (P)2012 Roberta Kagan

horrible narration

it's a shame such a well written story was so poorly narrated. the heroine, petra, was read as an emotionless dimwit. as well, the rest of the story lost all emotion due to the slow monotonous voice of the narrator.

I Got Through It...

Interesting choice for a narrator. His accent was not what one might expect in a story about a Norwegian and Germans, and he seemd bored at times.
The story could’ve been better. Wondered if there was an editor...why imtroduce another character at the end of the story. Oh right, to get in a sex scene. And the blurbs mentioned the genetic engineering, but that was a very small part of the story. And at a few places the story just wasn’t believable . Some corny dialogue, too.
But yes, I got through it.

Great storyline just not “clean”

This story was well written and characters well developed. The background was well researched but there were some things that I could have done without. Sex scenes and descriptions leave me unable to recommend this to friends.

Nazis, Jews, and Gypsies

This tale of the Holocaust was interesting and held my attention, particularly throughout the first two thirds of the book. The narration was strange, as the narrator had an English accent, not German. The overall story could have been better had the author not introduced so many different issues and people into it, particularly near the end of the book. I would have enjoyed more about the main characters and how they fared after enduring all they had during the war. The needless descriptions of the sexual encounters made the story less appealing to me. The best parts were when Aaron was befriended by the Jewish doctor and began studying to become a doctor himself, and when he came to the farm where Petra had taken refuge with Siegland and Klaus. The bones of the story are very good, just not fleshed out enough to my liking. For some reason, the author seems to think that readers/listeners want to hear every detail of love making and the details of sexual assaults by the SS. We don’t. The horrid acts that took place in Dachau needed to be told, and I applaud her for accurately describing those. I would have also liked more details of “The Lebensborn", the Nazis program to bring as many perfect, genetically engineered Aryan children into the world as possible. All in all, I’m glad that I listened to the book.