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I’m going to forego my usual spiel regarding historical fiction. You can find it on most of my other reviews of other novels in this genre.

Suffice to say that once again, I was introduced to a new arena of conflict from WWII. This time it’s Greece and boy, did I learn a lot.

The author has once again done her homework to create vivid scenes and characters, evoking the fear and desperation of people who are in the path of the Nazis.

However, this book concentrates on more than that. In fact, that is almost a side note, in the sense that everyone knows the Nazis were the bad guys. What I didn’t know (and I’m betting several other readers didn’t either, is that Greece was torn by warring factions trying to fight the Nazis.

There were the communist rebels, but there was also the republican governmental army. It’s too complicated to explain in this review, but the author does a tremendous job of detailing each of the factions and how they related to (and fought) each other.

In the contemporary storyline (there always is one), Ava has traveled to Greece – the home of her grandmother, Sophia – after a great personal loss. This part of the plot details Ava’s time in Greece, living in the house her grandmother grew up in and finding out information about her grandmother from local townspeople.

We get Sophia’s story in flashbacks, but there is no connection between past and present (i.e., no diary, no secret stash of letters, etc.). Just a strange interaction between an old woman in town and Ava, that sets Ava on a slight hunt for info on her grandmother.

I liked that the two stories were independent of each other in this way. It felt more natural than some of the ones with the above-mentioned catalysts. And it allowed me to appreciate each of the women’s stories individually instead of constantly trying to figure out where each part might tie in.

I was very taken with the descriptions of townspeople both past and present. They reminded me of the people I met the times that I traveled to Greece. There was an air of resilience in them…a knowledge that their history is older than almost any other on earth. And they have been through a lot.

But they fight. They get through it all, one way or another. There is grief, there is despair. But there is hope and the knowledge that it all continues. And somehow, things can turn out okay. By the time Sophia’s story (and Ava’s for that matter) comes to an end, that is made crystal clear.

I love that message, especially in today’s world.

Pick up this book. You won’t regret it.

Author Bio:
Kate Hewitt is the author of many romance and women’s fiction novels. A former New Yorker and now an American ex-pat, she lives in a small town on the Welsh border with her husband, five children, and their overly affectionate Golden Retriever. Whatever the genre, she enjoys telling stories that tackle real issues and touch people’s lives.

Just when I think that I have a handle on how treacherous and dehumanizing Nazi concentration camps were during WWII, I find another perspective in a historical fiction novel that shows me differently.

I now believe that there will never be an end to the depths of the inhumanity of those camps. The inmates were tortured in every sense of the word, and as the cunning of the German leaders is revealed, so is their utter lack of humanity.

In the case of this book, I learned that one of the cruelest forms of torture was psychological. And the author did an excellent job of detailing the methods without being overtly obvious about it.

As mentioned in the introduction, the plot is based on a true story (for the most part). The Kanada work detail was tasked with sorting the meager possessions of the people who came to the camp on the transports.

It was a cushy assignment by all reports, and the author describes the “benefits” of working in Kanada. However, even if on the surface other inmates felt that working there was preferable, it is difficult to imagine the psychological impact of such tasks.

In Helena, we get a sense of just how infuriating and sickening such assignments were. On the one hand, a woman got to live and even got a few perks out of it – certainly preferable to forced hard labor or death.

However, they were also expected to sort the clothing and belongings of people who were just like them – taken to the camps with the intention of extermination. So, can someone truly enjoy being alive while being constantly reminded that it could end in a second?

The psychological impact is huge: some women started to believe that they were special, and embraced their bits of freedom, forgetting their place. Others kept their heads down and were just thankful to be alive, even as they had to sort the personal items of dead people.

Talk about existential crises of the largest magnitude.

The author writes thoughtfully about all of this but adds a twist that could have seemed hokey or contrived. An SS officer falling in love with an inmate working in Kanada detail? Preposterous!

But as I read the story of Helena and Franz, I realized that the author was using a familiar theme in WWII historical fiction (hope) and presenting it in a different manner.

To me, their story is an illustration that humanity does still exist even in the darkest of places and that the heart wants what it wants. I know that sounds trite, but if ever there was a situation where it applied this is it.

From the powerful descriptions of the Kanada detail to the odd (yet sometimes charming) courtship, I was totally taken in by Helena and Franz’s story. The interspersed chapters (set in 1947) were a good reminder of how complicated the immediate post-war years were.

Truthfully, you have to allow yourself to be immersed in this one. I can’t pinpoint specific events without giving away where the story leads. But it does present several aspects to consider, including the strength of survivor’s guilt, the complicated nature of the camp system, the psychology of the inmates and their oppressors, and many more.

But most importantly, I think it illustrates that people need to be looked at as individuals. Status, uniform, rank…none of those are what really make a person. Helena and Franz eventually realized that in each other – if more people had been like them, history would be different.

And so might our future.

Author Bio

Ellie Midwood is a USA Today bestselling and award-winning historical fiction author. She owes her interest in the history of the Second World War to her grandfather, Junior Sergeant in the 2nd Guards Tank Army of the First Belorussian Front, who began telling her about his experiences on the frontline when she was a young girl. Growing up, her interest in history only deepened and transformed from reading about the war to writing about it. After obtaining her BA in Linguistics, Ellie decided to make writing her full-time career and began working on her first full-length historical novel, The Girl from Berlin.’ Ellie is continuously enriching her library with new research material and feeds her passion for WWII and Holocaust history by collecting rare memorabilia and documents.

In her free time, Ellie is a health-obsessed yoga enthusiast, neat freak, adventurer, Nazi Germany history expert, polyglot, philosopher, a proud Jew, and a doggie mama. Ellie lives in New York with her fiancé and their Chihuahua named Shark Bait.