The Librarian of Burned Books is a captivating WWII-era novel about the intertwined fates of three women who believe in the power of books to triumph over the very darkest moments of war.
Book Description
Following the success of her debut novel, American writer Althea James receives an invitation from Joseph Goebbels himself to participate in a culture exchange program in Germany. For a girl from a small town in Maine, 1933 Berlin seems to be sparklingly cosmopolitan, blossoming in the midst of a great change with the charismatic new chancellor at the helm. Then Althea meets a beautiful woman who promises to show her the real Berlin, and soon she’s drawn into a group of resisters who make her question everything she knows about her hosts—and herself.
Paris 1936. She may have escaped Berlin for Paris, but Hannah Brecht discovers the City of Light is no refuge from the anti-Semitism and Nazi sympathizers she thought she left behind. Heartbroken and tormented by the role she played in the betrayal that destroyed her family, Hannah throws herself into her work at the German Library of Burned Books. Through the quiet power of books, she believes she can help counter the tide of fascism she sees rising across Europe and atone for her mistakes. But when a dear friend decides actions will speak louder than words, Hannah must decide what stories she is willing to live—or die—for.
New York 1944. Since her husband Edward was killed fighting the Nazis, Vivian Childs has been waging her own war: preventing a powerful senator’s attempts to censor the Armed Service Editions, portable paperbacks that are shipped by the millions to soldiers overseas. Viv knows just how much they mean to the men through the letters she receives—including the last one she got from Edward. She also knows the only way to win this battle is to counter the senator’s propaganda with a story of her own—at the heart of which lies the reclusive and mysterious woman tending the American Library of Nazi-Banned Books in Brooklyn.
As Viv unknowingly brings her censorship fight crashing into the secrets of the recent past, the fates of these three women will converge, changing all of them forever.
Inspired by the true story of the Council of Books in Wartime—the WWII organization founded by booksellers, publishers, librarians, and authors to use books as “weapons in the war of ideas”—The Librarian of Burned Books is an unforgettable historical novel, a haunting love story, and a testament to the beauty, power, and goodness of the written word.
THE LIBRARIAN OF BURNED BOOKS by Brianna Labuskes is an emotionally moving and provocative story that is about the important topics of censorship, the loss of freedoms and hate during this period from history that is as important today as it was then. Three women narrate their very different stories from pre-WWII Germany to Paris and then the United States in 1944.
Young American writer Althea James and Hannah Brecht meet in Berlin in 1933 and their story is told by Althea. Hannah Brecht is Jewish and a lesbian who has fled Germany and in 1936 is in Paris working at the German Library of Burned Books before the Germans invade. Vivian Childs is in New York in 1944 and working to fight an amendment to a bill that censors Armed Service Editions shipped to the millions of service men overseas. As Vivian works to set up a rally to fight censorship and gain attention to her battle, she unknowingly is about to shine a light on other’s secrets and change all their lives forever.
I am surprised this is the debut novel from this author. Even carrying three different storylines at different times and locations, the narratives never seemed to lose focus. The historical research is evident, and I was checking out actual pictures on-line of the Book Burning Memorial in Germany when I finished. And when I finished, I was so moved I had tears in my eyes and had to grab a tissue. Each of the women in this story are believable characters with very different journeys and yet their love of books brought them all together. There is a budding lesbian romance in this book and descriptions of the liberal cabarets in pre-WWII Germany which some may find offensive as well as some graphic violence.
This is a intriguing historical fiction tale that I could not put down. If you love books and abhor past and present censorship, I believe you will love this book as much as I did. I will be looking for future books by this author.
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Author Bio
Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Brianna Labuskes graduated from Penn State University with a degree in journalism. For the past eight years, she has worked as an editor at both small-town papers and national media organizations such as Politico and Kaiser Health News, covering politics and policy. Her historical romance novel, One Step Behind, was released by Entangled Publishing. She lives in Washington, DC, and enjoys traveling, hiking, kayaking, and exploring the city’s best brunch options. Visit her at www.briannalabuskes.com.
Spring, 1938: Café Mozart in the heart of Vienna is beloved by its clientele, including cousins Mathias Kraemer and Johannes Namal. The two writers are as close as brothers. They are also members of Freud’s Circle—a unique group of the famed psychiatrist’s friends and acquaintances who once gathered regularly at the bright and airy café to talk about books and ideas over coffee and pastries. But dark days are looming.
With Hitler’s annexation of Austria, Nazi edicts governing daily life become stricter and more punitive. Now Hitler has demanded that the “hidden Jews” of Vienna be tracked down, and Freud’s Circle has been targeted. The SS aims to use old group photos to identify Jewish intellectuals and subversives. With the vise tightening around them, Mathias and Johannes’s only option appears to be hiding in plain sight, using assumed names and identities to evade detection, aware that discovery would mean consignment to a camp or execution.
Faced with stark and desperate choices, Mathias, Johannes, their families and friends all find their loyalties and courage tested in unimaginable ways. But despite betrayal, heartache and imprisonment, hope remains, and with it, the determination to keep those they love alive, and Mathias and Johannes at the same time discovering that what originally condemned them—their writing—might also be their salvation.
THE VIENNA WRITERS CIRCLE by J.C. Maetis is an incredibly intense historical fiction that kept me unnerved and on the edge of my seat through most of the book. This book is not for the faint of heart and describes scenes of man’s inhumanity to man is a stark way through the lens of two Jewish thriller writers in Vienna during WWII.
Cousins Mathias Kraemer and Johannes Namal are thriller writers and members of famed psychiatrist Sigmund Freud’s Circle; intellectuals who meet at the Mozart Café to discuss books and current ideas on a variety of topics. When the Germans annex Austria, Freud is able to leave for England, but others must find their own ways to leave the country, hide under fake identities or be rounded up and deported to a concentration camp or be executed.
Mathias and Johannes are faced with anguishing choices to protect their families and friends. With the continual pursuit of an ambitious and sadistic SS officer and the constant fear of their true identities being revealed, their writing may be what ultimately saves them.
This book is a stark look at the daily terrorism faced by these two main characters and what they did to survive. I found the story more intriguing and disturbing because it is told only through the victims’ eyes. There are not a lot of breaks from the intensity of the plot pace and I found I had to put this book down a few times, not because it is not good, but to calm down emotionally. The research is evident and the characters memorable.
I highly recommend this WWII historical fiction!
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About the Author
J.C. Maetis is better known as British thriller writer John Matthews whose books have sold over 1.6 million copies and been translated in 14 languages. Maetis is his father’s original Jewish family name, which he felt was more fitting for this novel. His father’s family left Lithuania for London in 1919 in the wake of Jewish pogroms there, but many of his extended family perished when Hitler invaded Lithuania in 1941. Maetis lives in Surrey, UK.
THE SOUND OF LIGHT by Sarah Sundin is a suspenseful inspirational historical fiction story featuring two memorable main characters in Nazi occupied Denmark during WWII. Make sure you have plenty of time when you start this standalone story because I found it impossible to put down.
American physicist Dr. Elsebeth “Else” Jensen is working under the famous physicist Niels Bohr when the Germans march in to occupy Denmark. She has dual American and Danish citizenship and refuses to leave her work at the Institute. Her best friend, mathematician Laila who is Jewish and lives with her in a boardinghouse asks for her assistance in printing resistance papers. Also living their boardinghouse in the quiet giant Hemmey who works at the shipyard and befriends Else.
Hemmy is actually Baron Henrik Ahlefeldt who until the Germans came lived his life as a spoiled aristocrat. Now he risks his life and keeps a secret as the people whisper of the legendary Havmand (Merman) helping the Danish resistance by rowing messages to Sweden across the sound. As acts of sabotage occur in the shipyards and town, the Germans declare martial law and begin to round up the Danish Jews. Henrik and Else have become close and are determined to help Jewish families escape to Sweden.
As the danger increases, Henrik and Else respond to their extraordinary circumstances with their strength of faith and love. They continually face the question of following the laws of man or the morally just laws of man and God as they risk their lives.
This is a suspenseful story of resistance during war and an inspirational romance that are perfectly intertwined. I could not stop turning the pages. Else and Henrik are courageous, strong, and memorable characters. Henrik’s character is based on an actual Danish Olympic rower who helped get Jewish people to Sweden in his boat during the war. All the secondary characters are realistic, both good and bad. The author brought the Danes of Copenhagen during WWII to life in this story with scenes of bravery and courage as well as treachery. The historical research is evident. The inspirational elements of faith, redemption, and forgiveness are believable without being preachy. I did not want this book to end.
I highly recommend this inspirational historical fiction story!
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About the Author
Sarah Sundin enjoys writing about the drama and romance of the World War II era. She is the bestselling author of The Sound of Light (February 2023), Until Leaves Fall in Paris (2022), When Twilight Breaks (2021), and four WWII series. Her novels have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist. Until Leaves Fall in Paris, received the 2022 Christy Award, When Twilight Breaks and The Land Beneath Us were Christy Award finalists, and The Sky Above Us won the 2020 Carol Award.
A mother of three, Sundin lives in Southern California and teaches Sunday school and women’s Bible studies. She enjoys speaking to community, church, and writers’ groups. Sarah serves as Co-Director for the West Coast Christian Writers Conference.
The Tower House. Down a secluded path, hidden by overgrown vines, the crumbling villa echoes with memories. Of the family who laughed and sang there, until the Nazis tore them from their home. And of the next woman to walk its empty rooms, whose courage in the face of evil could alter the course of history…
Germany 1940. As secretary to the leader of the SS, Magda spends her days sending party invitations to high-ranking Nazis, and her evenings distributing pamphlets for the resistance. But Magda is leading a dangerous double life, smuggling secrets out of the office. It’s a deadly game, and eventual exposure is a certainty, but Magda is driven by a need to keep the man she secretly loves safe as he fights against the Nazis…
Forty years later. Nina’s heart pounds as she steps into an uncertain future carrying a forged passport, a few bank notes, and a scribbled address for The Tower House taken from an intricate drawing she found hidden in her grandmother’s wardrobe. Separated from her family and betrayed by her country, Nina’s last hope is to trace her family’s history in the ruins of the past her grandmother ran from. But, when she finally finds the abandoned house, she opens the door to a forgotten story, and to secrets which will change everything: past, present, and future…
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Elise’s Thoughts
The Secretary by Catherine Hokin is a gripping novel spanning four decades. It has a dual timeline covering Germany during WWII and East Berlin after the war. Throughout the book readers will wonder would they be brave like the two heroines or remain a neutral bystander? Did the heroines take enough action, or should they have done more?
Magda Aderbach became the personal assistant to factory owner Walther Tiedemann, reminding readers of Oskar Schindler who saved Polish-Jewish refugees from the Holocaust. Because of her efficiency Magda impresses Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS and architect of the Holocaust, and she volunteers to be his secretary. She leads a dual life, pretending to enjoy hob-knobbing with the powerful Nazis, but also working for the resistance because she hates the Nazis and what they stand for. She smuggles reports, forges documents, arranges fake IDs to smuggle Jews out of Germany, and has organized safe houses for the Jews as well.
Fast forward forty years where Magda now lives in East Berlin, behind the Berlin Wall with her daughter, her husband, and her granddaughter, Nina Dahlke. Both Magda and Nina have similar personality traits, wanting to fight injustice, although the granddaughter is more impulsive and a lot less cautious. Beyond that, Nina does not understand why her grandmother is so secretive about her life in Germany during WWII. She knows there is a house in question, that was once lived in by Magda, but there are secrets involved with that house, and more secrets that Magda has kept to herself. After the Wall falls, Nina takes a journey to West Berlin to find the Tower House, hoping to trace her family’s history in the ruins of the past her grandmother ran from. But, when she finally finds the abandoned house, she finds out who owned the house, and wonders if her grandmother had a dual life, seeing pictures of her with Himmler. To make matters worse, Nina meets Elsa, the former wife of an SS officer, who lies and tries to pin her atrocities on Magda.
What the author does brilliantly is show parallels and similarities between the Nazi regime and the Communists control of East Berlin, the Stasis. As with both regimes there were spies everywhere, no freedom, a life lived under guards and rifles, terrible atrocities, and inhuman behavior where there was oppression, imprisonment, and killings. Readers understand the heroism of Magda and Nina as they were brave enough to stand up to tyranny even if it meant a harsh imprisonment or execution. Once the wall falls, the two worlds of Nina and Magda collide in a major revelation.
This novel is riveting throughout. Readers will not be able to put the book down, wanting to find out how the stories end for both Nina and Magda. The portrayals of these characters who must make impossible choices will keep people on the edge of their seats. A bonus is the history sprinkled throughout the novel.
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Author Interview
Elise Cooper: Did you get the idea from The Lost Mother?
Catherine Hokin: This book follows my previous novel, The Lost Mother, since it is still in Germany, this time after WWII. I also spent a lot of time in Berlin. They have a wonderful museum dedicated to the heroes of the silent resistance. What interests me is what happened because of WWII.
EC: What was your experience like when you went to Germany?
CH: I come from a tiny village in England. When I was seventeen, I went there and saw the wall, in about 1979. I never have seen people with machine guns. I spoke with a local woman who told me that her sister lived in East Berlin, and she has not seen her in over twenty years. The wall went up overnight and if someone was caught on the other side that was it. My mind fast-forwarded to this story. There are a lot of flash points for me which I write about in my books.
EC: Did the book have similarities between Communists and the Nazis?
CH: They both were oppressive, used surveillance, and censorship, controlling people’s lives and minds. I did the comparison intentionally. I find it fascinating how in a short period of time society moved from one dictatorship to another. When East Germany was born there was hope behind it, but it turned into something people had fought to get rid of, such as the genocide.
EC: How did you do the research?
CH: I read a huge number of books, spent a lot of time in London’s Holocaust Library, and saw on the Internet people who told their stories. With every book I spent six months of research to understand the nuance.
EC: How would you describe Magda?
CH: She is reliable, steady, impulsive, loyal, brave, and chose to fight injustice. But I do not think she realizes the scale of what was the cost of her involvement. She has a naïve view that she can stand up to the Nazis who she worked with. Magda questions if she did enough? She did arrange escape routes and wrote reports, forging IDs, and had safe houses.
EC: Magda’s saving of Jews-was it based on reality?
CH: Yes. About 6000 Jews survived in hiding in Berlin. People found them a cellar to hide in and had them move around. I even put in a scene where Magda tried to go back out to help more. I wanted to show how the Nazis treated the Jews.
EC: How would you describe Nina?
CH: I felt a kinship with her. I was a lot like her. She felt she did not fit in her world. She fought back although clumsily, putting others at risk. Nina is a feisty character. To write the scenes where she was imprisoned, I spent a lot of time at the Hohenschonhausen Prison in East Berlin, a horrible place. She is spunky, innocent, conflicted, and hot-headed. She did not have choices and control over her life. After the Wall came down, she felt alienated.
EC: What was the role of Elsa in the story?
CH: She is horrible, hard, vicious, dangerous, and cruel, an adversary of Magda. I wrote her to show how someone during those times was immersed in the Nazi life. She loved the lifestyle. Elsa was caught up in the cause and jealous of Magda. Elsa liked being in control of the chess board, pulling people’s strings.
EC: Next books?
CH: This is the third book published by Grand Central in the US. I have written seven books, the seventh one coming out this month in the UK. People can get any of my books in E format in the states. I also write a series where the third book comes out in the UK in January. The series is about a photographer and a Jewish detective, taking place from 1933 to 1963, set in Berlin and Prague. The first two books involve serial killers, taking revenge on what happened to them. The fourth book in the series comes out in May. Each book has crimes that came of WWII.
THANK YOU!!
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BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for THE LIPSTICK BUREAU by Michelle Gable on this Graydon House Books blog tour.
Below you will find an author Q&A, an about the book section, my mini book review, an excerpt from the book, an about the author section and the author’s social media links. Enjoy!
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Author Q&A
Q: How did you learn about Barbara Lauwers? How did you come to discover this piece of history?
I don’t remember when or how I first heard about Barbara, she was just in my file of “interesting people to eventually write about” when it came time for book #6. Most likely, she was in a listicle along the lines of “fascinating women from history you don’t know about.” Whatever the case, she made my file because of her intriguing role in the OSS (precursor to the CIA) and the misinformation campaigns she participated in. The website https://www.psywarrior.com/ has photographs of many of their campaigns, and that sucked me right in.
Q: Why do you believe there continues to be a fascination for writers exploring and writing WWII novels for readers? Why are readers so interested?
I think people are drawn to WWII stories because there are so many different countries and continents involved, and therefore thousands of angles. For Americans in particular, though we were involved in the war, it was not fought on our shores, so I think there’s a yearning to know what it was like to live with war on a more day-to-day basis. 100 million were deployed and there are millions of stories of ordinary people showing heroism when facing the worst.
Q: Many women were part of the OSS. Did they experience sexism?
The sexism was outrageous! Many of the quotes I included in the book were actually said. Like Niki (the Barbara character) being told to sew her travel documents into her girdle, and the trainers telling the women not to mess this up.
When I started out in corporate America in the late 90s, sexism was rampant enough that we more or less accepted it as part of our jobs. I can only imagine (and tried to do this in the book!) how much worse it was in the 40s, amidst the stress of war, when men were away from their families.
Q: Did many women join these groups to escape difficult marriages?
It’s possible! Many husbands were sent to fight, so I think a lot of women wanted to contribute. Stateside, women were being asked to chip in and many unmarried women viewed it as a more interesting way to help versus working in a missile factory or something along those lines.
Q: What specifically stood out in the time and place of Rome during WWII?
Rome is my favorite city so I was excited to set another book there! I also found it a fascinating time…after the city was liberated from the Nazis, and before the war was over. Also the fact Italy changed alliances partway through the war, and half the country was still under Axis control, heightened the tensions in the city, and people were extremely suspicious, all around.
Q: What challenged you about writing THE LIPSTICK BUREAU?
I try very hard to keep as close to real facts as possible, building fiction around the truth. This can be very limiting, and so it’s always a challenge for me to remember I’m telling a story, not writing a biography. It’s a big reason I changed Barbara’s name–so I could go a little more “rogue.”
A smaller challenge was finding out what was happening in Niki’s hometown in Czechoslovakia during the war. As in the novel, no news was getting out. Also, I use a lot of first-hand accounts and government records in my research, and many of these were destroyed in the war. Not that I can read Czech, but I’ve definitely had records translated in the past.
Q: Which character do you most relate to and why?
There was no character I related to outright, but I appreciated Niki’s gumption and how she wanted to prove herself on her own terms.
Q: What are you hoping readers will come away with after they’ve read THE LIPSTICK BUREAU?
As always, I want people to get swept up in the story but also learn something new along the way.
Q: What research did you do to bring the history to life in this fiction?
Anything I could get my hands on. Several OSS women wrote memoirs, and I read these, along with interviews, biographies of the major OSS players, and thousands of internal memos and documents (some of which are included in the novel), including all of Allen Dulles’s wartime intelligence reports (this was pretty boring!) I read the Stars & Stripes newspapers published during this time (fun fact: my dad wrote for Stars & Stripes in Vietnam), among other things. My favorite was a biography of Saul Steinberg (the inspiration for Ezra) by Deirdre Bair.
Q: How do you think this conversation into the use of misinformation plays in today’s politics?
In real life as in the novel, the OSS used Hitler’s own rules for propaganda/misinformation when creating theirs. There were three key strategies: 1) the disinformation must be easy to comprehend (not too highbrow), 2) it must be addressed to the masses (NOT the intellectuals), and 3) it should hit on emotions, not logic or fact. These are very effective strategies, as we’ve seen, and it’s been reported that Trump has also specifically followed Hitler’s rulebook for spreading disinformation. The OSS folks were the “good guys” and would say they were doing this for a greater purpose (e.g. ending the war), and the ends justify the means. And maybe it does, but perhaps Trump believes the same thing?
Q: What are you working on next?
A book set in the 1960s Jet Set, about a failed San Francisco debutante who becomes assistant to beloved society photographer Slim Aarons as a way to social climb her way to a rich husband, but is instead drawn into the complicated inner circle of young Palm Beach socialites, and to the star at its center, heiress and rising fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer.
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About the Book
Inspired by a real-life female spy, a WWII-set novel about a woman challenging convention and boundaries to help win a war, no matter the cost.
1944, Rome. Newlywed Niki Novotná is recruited by a new American spy agency to establish a secret branch in Italy’s capital. One of the OSS’s few female operatives abroad and multilingual, she’s tasked with crafting fake stories and distributing propaganda to lower the morale of enemy soldiers.
Despite limited resources, Niki and a scrappy team of artists, forgers and others—now nicknamed The Lipstick Bureau—find success, forming a bond amid the cobblestoned streets and storied villas of the newly liberated city. But her work is also a way to escape devastating truths about the family she left behind in Czechoslovakia and a future with her controlling American husband.
As the war drags on and the pressure intensifies, Niki begins to question the rules she’s been instructed to follow, and a colleague unexpectedly captures her heart. But one step out of line, one mistake, could mean life or death…
The Lipstick Bureau : A Novel Inspired by a Real-Life Female Spy
Michelle Gable
On Sale Date: December 27, 2022
9781525811470
Trade Paperback
$16.99 USD
464 pages
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My Mini Book Review
RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars
THE LIPSTICK BUREAU by Michelle Gable is a historical fiction story loosely based on a real female spy during WWII working for the fledgling OSS (Office of Strategic Services) later to become the CIA.
I loved the premise and the extensive historical research, but the characters never hooked me emotionally, the writing at times seemed disjointed and the pace was slow. I really wish the characters had been more developed and intrigued me as much as the plot regarding U.S. political propaganda developed and distributed during the war to undermine the Nazi Party and Hitler.
I feel I would have enjoyed this story much more if it had been an actual biography of the fictionalized main characters. The history and information surrounding the OSS and Department of Morale Operations was the reason I continued reading this book to the end.
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Excerpt
NIKI
May 1989
Washington, DC
Niki’s stomach flip-flops, and there’s a wild fluttering in her chest. You’re fine, she tells herself. In this buzzing, glittering room of some three hundred, she’s unlikely to encounter anyone she knows. Not that she’d recognize them if she did. It’s been almost forty-five years.
“Jeez, what a turnout,” her daughter, Andrea, says as Niki takes several short inhales, trying to wrangle her breath. “Did you know this many people would show up?”
“I had no idea what to expect,” Niki answers, and this much is true. When the invitation arrived three months ago, she’d almost pitched it straight into the trash.
You are invited
to a Black-Tie Dinner
Honoring
The Ladies of the O.S.S.
The ladies of the OSS. A deceptively quaint title, like a neighborhood bridge club, or a collection of wives whose given names are not important.
“You should go,” Niki’s husband had said when she showed him the thick, ecru cardstock with its ornate engraving. “Relive your war days.”
“Manfred,” Niki had replied sternly. “Nobody wants to relive those.”
Though he’d convinced Niki to accept the invitation, it hadn’t been the hardest sell. Manfred was ill—dying, in fact, of latestage lung cancer—and Niki figured the tick mark beside “yes” was merely a way to delay a no.
The week before the event, Manfred was weaker than ever, and Niki saw her chance to back out. “I’ll just skip it,” she’d said. “This is for the best. You’d be bored out of your skull, and no one I worked with will even be there!”
“Zuska,” Manfred said, using her old pet name. As always, he’d known what his wife was up to. “I want you to go. Take Andrea. She could use a night out. It’d be like a holiday for her.”
“I don’t know…” Niki demurred. Their daughter did hate to cook, and no doubt longed for a break from her two extremely pert teenagers.
“You can’t refuse,” Manfred said. “What if this ends up qualifying as my dying wish?” It was a joke, but what could Niki possibly say to that?
Now she regrets having shown Manfred the invitation and is discomfited by the scene. Niki feels naked, exposed, as though she’s wearing a transparent blouse instead of a black sparkly top with double shoulder pads.
“Do you think you’ll spot anyone you know?” Andrea asks as they wend their way through the tables, scanning for number eighteen. Every Czech native considers eighteen an auspicious number, so maybe this is a positive sign.
“It’s unlikely,” Niki says. “The dinner is honoring women, and I mostly worked with men.” Most of whom are now dead, she does not add.
Soon enough, mother and daughter find their table, and exchange greetings with the two women already seated. Niki squints at their badges and notes they worked in different theaters of operation. Onstage is a podium, behind it a screen emblazoned with O.S.S. Beneath the letters is a gold spade encircled in black.
“What a beautiful outfit!” says one of their tablemates in a tight Texas twang.
“Thank you.” Niki blushes lightly, smoothing her billowy, bright green chiffon skirt.
“You’re the prettiest one in the place,” Andrea whispers as they sit.
“What a load of shit,” Niki spits back. In this room, it’s sequins and diamonds and fur for miles. She pats Andrea’s hand. “But thank you for the compliment.” And thank God for Manfred, who’d raised their girl to treat her mother so well.
Manfred. Niki feels a quake somewhere deep. She is losing him. She’s been losing him for a long time, and maybe this is the reason she came tonight. Those three letters on-screen call up—rather, exhume—a swarm of emotions, not all of them good. But they also offer a strange kind of hope, a reminder that Niki’s survived loss before, and this old body of hers has lived more than one life.
MICHELLE GABLE is the New York Times bestselling author of A Paris Apartment, I’ll See You in Paris, The Book of Summer, and The Summer I Met Jack. She attended the College of William & Mary and spent twenty years working in finance before becoming a full-time writer. She grew up in San Diego and lives in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California.
Today I am sharing My Feature Post and Book Review for THE SECRET SOCIETY OF SALZBURG by Renee Ryan from Harlequin Love Inspired Trade.
Below you will find a book description, my book review, an about the author section and the author’s social media links. Enjoy!
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Book Description
Inspired by true events, comes a gripping and heart-wrenching story of two very different women united to bring light to the darkest days of World War II.
London, 1933
At first glance, Austrian opera singer Elsa Mayer-Braun has little in common with the young English typist she encounters on tour. Yet she and Hattie Featherstone forge an instant connection—and strike a dangerous alliance. Using their friendship as a cover, they form a secret society with a daring goal: to rescue as many Jews as possible from Nazi persecution.
Though the war’s outbreak threatens Elsa and Hattie’s network, their efforts attract the covert attention of the British government, offering more opportunities to thwart the Germans. But Elsa’s growing fame as Hitler’s favorite opera singer, coupled with her secret Jewish ancestry, make her both a weapon and a target—until her future, too, hangs in the balance.
From the glamorous stages of Covent Garden and Salzburg to the horrors of Bergen-Belsen, two ordinary women swept up by the tide of war discover an extraordinary friendship—and the courage to save countless lives.
THE SECRET SOCIETY OF SALZBURG by Renee Ryan is an emotionally riveting historical fiction story primarily set in WWII Salzburg and London featuring two talented artists who risk everything to save as many Jewish lives as possible from persecution. Loosely based on a true story, I was unable to put this book down. Make sure you have some tissues handy.
Hattie and Vera Featherstone are sisters who have been working clerical jobs to survive, but they both have bigger dreams. Vera, being the oldest has also been a mother figure to the younger Hattie since their mother’s death. Even as she does everything in her power to encourage Hattie’s dream of being an accomplished artist, she works on her own dream behind closed doors. Hattie’s art is good, but there is still an emotional depth missing until she and Vera are introduced to a young opera singer’s work.
Elsa Mayer-Braun has worked her entire young life in Salzburg to reach operatic recognition and fame. As her fame rises, so does the threat from the new Nazi party. When Elsa meets the two sisters Featherstone on tour, she forms an instant bond with Hattie. Elsa and Hattie refuse to ignore the threat to the Jewish population and set up network to help as many as possible escape to England.
This dangerous alliance will test both women’s courage and bond of friendship forged in a time of danger with spies, traitors, and informers around every corner.
This is an inspirational historical fiction story beautifully written with memorable characters, acts of bravery and of human depravity and treachery which kept me on an emotional roller coaster. Hattie and Elsa displayed courage, bravery, and an unbreakable bond of friendship. All the secondary characters are as realistic and fully fleshed as the main characters. The plot is divided between two timelines that merge into an uplifting and triumphant ending.
I highly recommend this inspirational historical fiction!
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About the Author
Multi-published, award-winning author Renee Ryan grew up in Florida. She’s written nearly thirty books in several genres, including historical fiction, historical romance and contemporary romance. She currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with her husband and a large cat many have mistaken for a small bear.
