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.

A Thought-provoking Work of Historical Fiction

There's something about learning history through the eyes of fictional characters that engages our senses and crystallizes the impact world affairs have had in humanity in ways no history class ever could.

Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in our obsession with WWII novels. The scale of that tragedy is so unfathomable that there's always hope that one more story could help us make sense of it all. In The Women In The Castle author Jessica Shattuck offers a nuanced perspective of Post-war Germany told through the lives of three unique female characters.

The story begins on November 9th, 1938 in Burg Lingenfels, a beautiful isolated Bavarian castle. Marianne von Lingenfels is hosting the annual harvest party thrown by her husband's Albrecht aunt, an elderly countess known for her rebellious spirit and anti-German views.

Albrecht Lingenfels and Connie Fledermann, Marianne’s childhood friend, are part of a group of German men involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler. As they conspire, they make Marianne promise that if the plot fails, she must do everything she can to help the wives left behind, including Benita, Connie's soon to be young wife.

The Women in the Castle is at its core a complex moral story but is also a tale of resilience and survival. It narrates how three widows, from very different backgrounds, become the most unlikely of friends trying to navigate the tumultuous, confusing aftermath of WWII.

Thus, mostly forced by their extraordinary circumstances, an unlikely alliance is forged and the castle becomes a temporary refuge for these women and their children, as they painfully and slowly attempt to put their lives back together.

I think the author gets many things right, especially that sense that for many ordinary Germans, the rise of Hitler and Nazism had a slow-boiling kind of feeling and so, by the time many people realize what was happening it was already too late. This is not to absolve those that were directly or indirectly involved, but this novel certainly provides a more nuanced perspective on how the Germans allowed for the Holocaust to occur.

Cassandra Campbel is a seasoned, talented narrator and she proves it once again on this remarkable performance.

Recommended for anyone looking for an engaging, thought-provoking work of historical fiction.

Just okay

This book had promise but fell flat for me. I had just read The Nightingale, which I had given 5 stars and then I read this one and was disappointed. The plot was jumpy and didn't flow well for me. Some characters and plot pieces felt missing or could have been developed better. I appreciate learning about aspects of World War II, so that part was interesting but overall it didn't work for me.

Heartbreaking study of the ambiguity of war

I started this book several times before finally getting into it. I didn't love the narrator, but she did a very good job of narrating a book with many, many characters in it. This is one of the best books I've read about World War II. I suggest that you hang in there until it finally grabs you. This is a wonderful book and an important insight into moral ambiguity.

A good book but not one i'd read again

This seemed to be an honest portrayal of life in Europe after World War II of women surviving and rebuilding. The book did seem to skip over large periods of time througout the book

Outstanding

Beautifully written and beautifully performed. A haunting and thought-provoking story. I strongly recommend this novel.