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June 1940. As Paris, the City of Light, approaches its darkest hour, a young woman treads the line between survival and collaboration. Londoner Cora Masson has reinvented herself as Coralie de Lirac, using a false claim to aristocratic birth to launch herself as a fashionable milliner. When the Nazis invade, the influence of a high-ranking lover protects her business. But the cruel demands of war - and of love - cannot be kept at bay forever.
In 1930s Berlin, choked by the tightening of Hitler's fist, the Klein family are gradually losing everything that is precious to them. Their 15-year-old daughter, Rosa, slips out of Germany on a Kindertransport train to begin a new life in England. Charged with the task of securing a safe passage for her family, she vows that she will not rest until they are safe. But as war breaks out and she loses contact with her parents, Rosa finds herself wondering if there are some vows that can't be kept....
One of six sisters, Dortchen Wild lives in the small German kingdom of Hesse-Cassel in the early 19th century. She finds herself irresistibly drawn to the boy next door, the handsome but very poor fairy-tale scholar Wilhelm Grimm.
Imprisoned in the Lodz Ghetto, Elsi discovers her mother's desperate attempt to end her pregnancy and comes face-to-face with the impossibility of their situation. Risking her own life, Elsi joins a resistance group to sabotage the regime. Blonde, blue-eyed Matilda is wrenched from her family in Romania and taken to Germany, where her captors attempt to mold her into the perfect Aryan child. Spirited and brave, she must inspire hope in the other stolen children to make her dreams of escape a reality.
All her life, Hannah Sterling longed for a close relationship with her estranged mother. Following Lieselotte's death, Hannah determines to unlock the secrets of her mother's mysterious past and is shocked to discover a grandfather living in Germany. Thirty years earlier, Lieselotte's father is quickly ascending the ranks of the Nazi party, and a proper marriage for his daughter could help advance his career.
Charlotte-Rose has been banished from the court of Versailles by the Sun King, Louis XIV, after a series of scandalous love affairs. She is comforted by an old nun, Sister Seraphina, who tells her the tale of a young girl who, 100 years earlier, was sold by her parents for a handful of bitter greens. After Margherita's father steals from the walled garden of the courtesan Selena Leonelli, he is threatened with having both hands cut off unless he and his wife give away their little girl.
June 1940. As Paris, the City of Light, approaches its darkest hour, a young woman treads the line between survival and collaboration. Londoner Cora Masson has reinvented herself as Coralie de Lirac, using a false claim to aristocratic birth to launch herself as a fashionable milliner. When the Nazis invade, the influence of a high-ranking lover protects her business. But the cruel demands of war - and of love - cannot be kept at bay forever.
In 1930s Berlin, choked by the tightening of Hitler's fist, the Klein family are gradually losing everything that is precious to them. Their 15-year-old daughter, Rosa, slips out of Germany on a Kindertransport train to begin a new life in England. Charged with the task of securing a safe passage for her family, she vows that she will not rest until they are safe. But as war breaks out and she loses contact with her parents, Rosa finds herself wondering if there are some vows that can't be kept....
One of six sisters, Dortchen Wild lives in the small German kingdom of Hesse-Cassel in the early 19th century. She finds herself irresistibly drawn to the boy next door, the handsome but very poor fairy-tale scholar Wilhelm Grimm.
Imprisoned in the Lodz Ghetto, Elsi discovers her mother's desperate attempt to end her pregnancy and comes face-to-face with the impossibility of their situation. Risking her own life, Elsi joins a resistance group to sabotage the regime. Blonde, blue-eyed Matilda is wrenched from her family in Romania and taken to Germany, where her captors attempt to mold her into the perfect Aryan child. Spirited and brave, she must inspire hope in the other stolen children to make her dreams of escape a reality.
All her life, Hannah Sterling longed for a close relationship with her estranged mother. Following Lieselotte's death, Hannah determines to unlock the secrets of her mother's mysterious past and is shocked to discover a grandfather living in Germany. Thirty years earlier, Lieselotte's father is quickly ascending the ranks of the Nazi party, and a proper marriage for his daughter could help advance his career.
Charlotte-Rose has been banished from the court of Versailles by the Sun King, Louis XIV, after a series of scandalous love affairs. She is comforted by an old nun, Sister Seraphina, who tells her the tale of a young girl who, 100 years earlier, was sold by her parents for a handful of bitter greens. After Margherita's father steals from the walled garden of the courtesan Selena Leonelli, he is threatened with having both hands cut off unless he and his wife give away their little girl.
Six-year-old Gretl Schmidt is on a train bound for Auschwitz. Jakób Kowalski is planting a bomb on the tracks. As World War II draws to a close, Jakób fights with the Polish resistance against the crushing forces of Germany and Russia. They mean to destroy a German troop transport, but Gretl's unscheduled train reaches the bomb first. Gretl is the only survivor.
THE PRESENT - After her mother’s death, Emilie de la Martiniéres finds herself the sole inheritor of a chateau in the south of France. There she discovers an old notebook which leads her along a journey to unravel the tragic love story of the mysterious Sophia. THE PAST (1943). Constance Carruthers, arrives in occupied Paris at the height of conflict. There she stumbles into the heart of a wealthy family and is drawn into a web of deception, the repercussions of which will affect generations to come.
Late on a frozen February evening, a young woman is running through the streets of London. Having fled from her abusive boyfriend and with nowhere to go, Jess stumbles onto a forgotten lane where a small, clearly unlived-in old house offers her best chance of shelter for the night. The next morning a mysterious letter arrives - and when she can't help but open it, she finds herself drawn inexorably into the story of two lovers from another time.
When Grace Hansen finds a box belonging to her beloved grandfather, she has no idea it holds the key to his past - and to long-buried family secrets. In the box are his World War I diaries and a cryptic note addressed to her. Determined to solve her grandfather's puzzle, Grace follows his diary entries across towns and battle sites in northern France, where she becomes increasingly drawn to a charming French man - and suddenly aware that someone is following her....
In 1930s Berlin, young Henrik, the son of a Jewish father and Aryan mother, watches the world around him crumbling: people are rioting in the streets, a strange yellow star begins appearing in shop windows, and friends are forced to move - or they simply disappear.
Of all the desperate women in German-occupied Paris, Gabriela Reyes is the least likely to scratch out her survival as a whore for a Gestapo agent. After fascists murdered her mother and brother and tortured her father in an insane asylum, she hates the Germans as much as she fears them. But when she discovers the man responsible for destroying her family, she decides to become his mistress to try to free her father and avenge her family.
As children, Eva Rosselli and Angelo Bianco were raised like family but divided by circumstance and religion. As the years go by, the two find themselves falling in love. But the church calls to Angelo and, despite his deep feelings for Eva, he chooses the priesthood. Now, more than a decade later, Angelo is a Catholic priest and Eva is a woman with nowhere to turn. With the Gestapo closing in, Angelo hides Eva within the walls of a convent.
The golden skies, the translucent twilight, the white nights all hold the promise of youth, of love, of eternal renewal. The war has not yet touched this city of fallen grandeur or the lives of two sisters, Tatiana and Dasha Metanova, who share a single room in a cramped apartment with their brother and parents. Their world is turned upside down when Hitler's armies attack Russia and begin their unstoppable blitz to Leningrad.
Jack Sommers was just an ordinary accountant from Chicago - that is until his wife passed away, his young daughter was kidnapped, and he became the main suspect in an $88 million embezzlement case. Now Jack is on the run, hoping to avoid the feds long enough to rescue his daughter, Sophie, from her maternal grandfather, a suspected terrorist in Palestine.
In early 1943, Magda Ritter's parents send her to relatives in Bavaria, hoping to keep her safe from the Allied bombs strafing Berlin. Young German women are expected to do their duty - working for the Reich or marrying to produce strong, healthy children. After an interview with the civil service, Magda is assigned to the Berghof, Hitler's mountain retreat. Only after weeks of training does she learn her assignment: she will be one of several young women tasting the Führer's food, offering herself in sacrifice to keep him from being poisoned.
Inspirational Readers Choice Award winner Cathy Marie Hake, CBA best-selling author of Bittersweet,/i>, blends wholesome humor and timeless truth into historical novels that ring with authenticity. When 17-year-old Lady Sydney Hathwell arrives in 1890 New York City, she never imagines she'll soon be galloping about the Wild West, unchaperoned - and dressed as a man.
A historical novel of love and survival inspired by real resistance workers in World War II Austria and the mysterious love letter that connects generations of Jewish families. A heartbreaking, heartwarming story for fans of The Nightingale, Lilac Girls, and Sarah's Key.
Ava fell in love the night the Nazis first showed their true nature to the world. A retelling of the Grimms' Beauty and the Beast, set in Nazi Germany.
It's August 1939 in Germany, and Ava's world is in turmoil. To save her father, she must marry a young Nazi officer, Leo von Löwenstein, who works for Hitler's spy chief in Berlin. However, she hates and fears the brutal Nazi regime and finds herself compelled to stand against it.
Ava joins an underground resistance movement that seeks to help victims survive the horrors of the German war machine. But she must live a double life, hiding her true feelings from her husband even as she falls in love with him. Gradually she comes to realise that Leo is part of a dangerous conspiracy to assassinate Hitler.
As Berlin is bombed into ruins, the Gestapo ruthlessly hunt down all resistance, and Ava finds herself living hand to mouth in the rubble of the shell-shocked city. Both her life and Leo's hang in the balance.
Filled with danger, intrigue and romance, The Beast's Garden, a retelling of the Grimm brothers' Beauty and The Beast, is a beautiful, compelling love story set in a time when the world seemed on the brink of collapse.
I found this book to be very compelling. An obscure fairy tale told against the backdrop of WWII Berlin. This is a version of beauty and the beast, but not the one we are so familiar with from Disney Studios. This is the tale told by the Brothers Grimm, where the heroine follows her beloved, who has been transformed into a lark, for seven years. At the end of the seven years she must outwit the witch who has put the spell on him in order to release her beloved from that spell.
Arva and Leo are the lovers, and the story begins on the night of broken glass when Jewish businesses, synagogues, and homes were broken into and destroyed. Arva is a beautiful girl, a singer who.lives with her father and two half sisters. They take in a Jewish family with whom they've been life-long friends because the Jews are not allowed to stay in their own home any longer. Arva and the family's son, Rupert, are essentially brother and sister. They both love music, especially American Jazz and Swing, which is illegal in Nazi Germany. This passion eventually gets them, especially Rupert, into serious trouble. Arva asks Leo, who is a German Army officer for help, even though she's not sure she can trust him. This is the basic premise of the story, and from that point we get taken deeper and deeper into the horrors and deprivations of that awful war.
It's a wonderful story, but very dark and viscerally wrenching in it's journey. It's interesting to note that all of the characters (With the exception of Arva and her family and friends.) and historical happenings are real people and actual events. The timeline is accurate, and I recognized several major and minor historical personages as I read.
This is literary fiction at its finest, and is NOT a story for the squeamish or easily disturbed. It details the horrors, madness, and brutality of war in a cold-blooded fashion. The author pulls no punches about those occurrences. But it's also a story of humanity at its finest and most loving. A story of undying love, of self-sacrifice, and the redemption we can only achieve through love. If you appreciate beautiful writing, outstanding narration, and characters you won't soon forget, I think you'll love this one.
18 of 18 people found this review helpful
Based around the real events inside the Nazi machine, the numerous assasination plots and the number of near misses. Interesting events inside the Abwehr, the SS, Heidrich's assasination combined with struggles of those marked for death by the Nazis.. Highly recommend for historical fiction fans with a bit of background on WW2.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful
The author clearly did her research and this book took me to and from work in my car with enjoyment. The narrator was also good and with the exception of her grating "little kid voice" I liked her style. I have to give this book 4 stars for being an engrossing story. But the end was so utterly implausible that I just couldn't go that extra star. I won't be a spoiler, but it could NEVER have happened. Ever.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful
I really enjoyed this book. The characters were compelling and I was captivated by the historical storyline. It was written so well & I look forward to reading other books by the author.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
I loved this book. It has everything. Suspense, action, romance and intrigue. Also you will learn more facts about the Nazis and WWII.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
Lovely and just short of 5 stars for me...story is wonderfully researched, but a bit slow at times. Writing is beautiful and lyrical. I felt the characters and relationships could have been more developed, especially with the length of the novel as well as certain plot holes, and that is the only thing that kept it from being 5 stars for me. Overall, I was absolutely entranced by the prose and the atmosphere. My first Kate Forsyth novel and I will definitely read more!! Also, the narrator, Julie Vuletic, is absolutely phenomenal!!!! She did an absolutely fantastic job with the various array of accents and personalities of the characters - so, so good!!!!
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
The writing, the story, the narration were all sublime. This story has left it's mark on me,.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful
I met this author this summer au the US Historical Novel Society 2017 semi-annual conference in Oregon. Everyone was oohing and ahing over her, and then she got up at the final Dinner and told an old Irish Tale that was handed down in her family. She was amazing so I bought this book. It's a retelling of Beauty and the Beast (actually, the Grimm Brother's version) set in Nazi Germany. It was wonderful and so much more than I thought I'd get based on the cover. Also, I loved the Narrator. Forsyth is Not just a story-teller, but a writer. She is also a heck of a researcher. (This book includes many many historical figures, including some side glances of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.) I am officially a fan. Don't miss this.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Wow, this book was so good. I love WWII era history, and any book I can get my hands on I'll read. This book was great because it was a perspective I'd never really encountered before. you always read books about English or American people of WWII, or maybe another country that was occupied by he Nazis. But this story was right in the heart of Nazi Germany, an insider view. I never even really knew there was a German resistance because you just never hear of it. this story was thrilling ad kept me interested the whole time. I was honestly a bit sad when it ended. best book I've listened to in a while.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
This book was fantastic. It's a twist on one of the original fairy-tales that Beauty and the Beast is based off of, and it's set in Berlin during World War 2. The book covers so much of a time in Germany when so much was so wrong, and one girls fight as she lives a double life fighting the Nazi regime and falling in love with the German Officer she was forced to marry in order to save herself and her family.
This book is filled with so much emotional, historical relevance, and deep deep thought. What would I do in that situation? How terrifying, and how much we can learn from even fictional characters about who we are, and a what we must prevent from ever happening again.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
The story is based in Berlin Germany and is about the life of those who opposed Hitler and all he stood for. The story is well written and I was deeply moved by the portraying of live in Germany at this terrible time. The story moves along a a good pace with action and emotion in every chapter. I would recommend this book to all who would like to understand what life was like in Berlin dur ww2.
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3 of 3 people found this review helpful
Very much enjoyed this well researched story. It brought this difficult historical period to life. This was heightened by the authors artistic flair in descriptive language and creating her own tale within the historical truths.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
This book was captivating from beginning to end. Jennifer Vuletic's narration was fabulous. I chose this book mostly because she was the narrator. She certainly didn't disappoint. The story was gripping and very informative about the evil done by the Nazis. I thoroughly recommend this book.
The narrator is amazing.
The story is very harrowing. The author has researched the story well and is based on real events during WWII.