The Book of Lost Names

De: Kristin Harmel

Narrado por: Madeleine Maby

“A fascinating, heartrending page-turner that, like the real-life forgers who inspired the novel, should never be forgotten.” —Kristina McMorris, New York Times bestselling author of Sold on a Monday

Inspired by an astonishing true story from World War II, a young woman with a talent for forgery helps hundreds of Jewish children flee the Nazis in this “sweeping and magnificent” (Fiona Davis, bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue) historical novel from the #1 international bestselling author of The Winemaker’s Wife.

Eva Traube Abrams, a semi-retired librarian in Florida, is shelving books when her eyes lock on a photograph in the New York Times. She freezes; it’s an image of a book she hasn’t seen in more than sixty years—a book she recognizes as The Book of Lost Names.

The accompanying article discusses the looting of libraries by the Nazis across Europe during World War II—an experience Eva remembers well—and the search to reunite people with the texts taken from them so long ago. The book in the photograph, an eighteenth-century religious text thought to have been taken from France in the waning days of the war, is one of the most fascinating cases. Now housed in Berlin’s Zentral- und Landesbibliothek library, it appears to contain some sort of code, but researchers don’t know where it came from—or what the code means. Only Eva holds the answer, but does she have the strength to revisit old memories?

As a graduate student in 1942, Eva was forced to flee Paris and find refuge in a small mountain town in the Free Zone, where she began forging identity documents for Jewish children fleeing to neutral Switzerland. But erasing people comes with a price, and along with a mysterious, handsome forger named Rémy, Eva decides she must find a way to preserve the real names of the children who are too young to remember who they really are. The records they keep in The Book of Lost Names will become even more vital when the resistance cell they work for is betrayed and Rémy disappears.

An engaging and evocative novel reminiscent of The Lost Girls of Paris and The Alice Network, The Book of Lost Names is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of bravery and love in the face of evil.

Narration did not add to the story

While I appreciated the attempt to create a wide variety of accents, languages and characters, the reading felt forced and choppy. While one dimensional, the story was worth the read.

Never again

Found the protagonist to be whiny. She annoyed me despite her heroics. Her mother too.
The love story was sweet.

riveting story!

This starts a little slow but the, as the story builds, it moves more quickly and grips your attention! Especially as and Audible book, I could picture the surrounding s and each character drew me in to their own complexities.

A must read

I loved this book so much. Was a little slow getting into it but after a few chapters I was hooked. Another great WWll story. This was my 1st Kristin Harmel book and I will definitely read another one by her. She is a very gifted writer.

Excellent ending!

I like historical fiction around WWII. A few spots in the story seemed very similar from other stories but then it finds its own unique twist & has a beautiful ending.