Tag: World War II

The war had taught Lena de Vries to do many things. Hard, impossible things.

Book Review | Chasing Shadows by Lynn Austin

It’s been a while since I read a Lynn Austin novel, and I’d forgotten what a brilliant writer she is. In Chasing Shadows, she takes on what I think is a new time period for her: World War II.

She also introduces a setting that I haven’t seen before in WWII Christian fiction: the Netherlands.

The story stars at the end of the war, as the Allies finally free the Netherlands from the tyranny of the Nazis. We are introduced to Lena, a farmer’s wife, and to her (mostly absent) family, and to the shadow people … the people she hides in her barn and cellar.

The novel then slips back in time by six years, to June 1939, shortly before the war started (yes, American readers: World War II started in September 1939).

There are three main characters in the novel: Lena, a farmer’s wife; Ans, her rebellious eighteen-year-old daughter; and Miriam, a Jewish musician from Germany. Chasing Shadows follows each of them through the war – escaping from Germany, the outbreak of war, the invasion of the neutral Netherlands. Each woman is faced with hard, almost impossible choices, choices which challenge and refine their faith. They have to choose to do the hard thing over and over because it’s the only right thing.

In many ways, Chasing Shadows was a difficult novel to read.

While Lena, Ans, and Marian are all fictional characters, history has already taught us that these things happened, and that normal women like these had to make impossible choices to survive themselves and protect those they loved. And while we know the end of the story (the Allies were victorious and the Netherlands was freed), we don’t know what is going to happen to the characters in the story. At times, that tension was almost unbearable.

Chasing Shadows is a brilliant World War II novel that shows how the Dutch people reacted to the Nazi occupation, the choices they made, and the trials they faced. It highlights the oustanding yet dangerous work of the Dutch Resistance movement.

Most of all, it shows how much of this work was done by everyday Christians working to protect the Jews and other enemies of the Nazis. As such, it is both encouraging and challenging as it shows Dutch Christians loving their neighbours—Jewish and otherwise—as the Bible commands.

Overall, Chasing Shadows by Lynn Austin is a powerful novel about the trials and triumphs faced by the Dutch in World War II, shown through the eyes of three very different women.

Chasing Shadows by @LynnNAustin is a powerful novel about the trials and triumphs faced by the Dutch in World War II. #BookReview #ChristianFiction Share on X

Recommended.

Thanks to Tyndale Publishing and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

About Lynn Austin

Lynn AustinFor many years, Lynn Austin nurtured a desire to write but frequent travels and the demands of her growing family postponed her career. When her husband’s work took Lynn to Bogota, Colombia, for two years, she used the B.A. she’d earned at Southern Connecticut State University to become a teacher. After returning to the U.S., the Austins moved to Anderson, Indiana, Thunder Bay, Ontario, and later to Winnipeg, Manitoba.

It was during the long Canadian winters at home with her children that Lynn made progress on her dream to write, carving out a few hours of writing time each day while her children napped. Lynn credits her early experience of learning to write amid the chaos of family life for her ability to be a productive writer while making sure her family remains her top priority.

Along with reading, two of Lynn’s lifelong passions are history and archaeology. She and her son traveled to Israel during the summer of 1989 to take part in an archaeological dig at the ancient city of Timnah. Lynn resigned from teaching to write full-time in 1992. Since then she has published 24 novels.

Find Lynn Austin online at:

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About Chasing Shadows

For fans of bestselling WWII fiction comes a powerful novel from Lynn Austin about three women whose lives are instantly changed when the Nazis invade the neutral Netherlands, forcing each into a complicated dance of choice and consequence.

Lena is a wife and mother who farms alongside her husband in the tranquil countryside. Her faith has always been her compass, but can she remain steadfast when the questions grow increasingly complex and the answers could mean the difference between life and death?

Lena’s daughter Ans has recently moved to the bustling city of Leiden, filled with romantic notions of a new job and a young Dutch police officer. But when she is drawn into Resistance work, her idealism collides with the dangerous reality that comes with fighting the enemy.

Miriam is a young Jewish violinist who immigrated for the safety she thought Holland would offer. She finds love in her new country, but as her family settles in Leiden, the events that follow will test them in ways she could never have imagined.

The Nazi invasion propels these women onto paths that cross in unexpected, sometimes-heartbreaking ways. Yet the story that unfolds illuminates the surprising endurance of the human spirit and the power of faith and love to carry us through.

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Freedom without order, without justice—it leads to chaos and violence. But order without freedom, without kindness—it makes you hard. Cruel.

Book Review | When Twilight Breaks by Sarah Sundin

When Twilight Breaks is set in 1938 Munich, Germany. Each chapter starts with the day and date, which gave the novel a sense of urgency, as though it was all leading up to some fateful day in history (but which day? I couldn’t remember, and that helped with the suspense).

Evelyn Brand is an American journalist working in Germany as a foreign correspondent.

That was two pluses in her favour: she was a professional woman, and her profession was why she was in Hitler’s Germany.

(This is important, as many years ago I read another novel about an American novel in Hitler’s Germany which made no sense, because the character had no compelling reason to be there. The result was I didn’t much care whether she succeeded in escaping or not).

Evelyn sees the dark underbelly of fascism and wants to report that to her American readers. However, that leaves her having to find the narrow line between telling the truth and not telling so much of the truth that the Germans will find out and expel her from the country … or worse.

Unfortunately, as the sole female in her news office, she’s often given the ‘softball’ assignments. One of these introduces her to Peter Lang, an American professor at the nearby university who is pursuing his PhD.

Peter admires what Hitler has done for the German people. He reduced unemployment and brought prosperity back to a country suffering from the losses of World War I and the subsequent global depression. He wishes America were the same.

In hindsight, we all know Hitler’s Germany was evil.

The Nazi regime killed undesirables—the ‘work shy’, the disabled, the Jews, anyone who spoke out against the government. So it’s interesting to see Peter’s early perspective, and see how he has been deceived by outward appearance. At the same time, he’s obviously the hero, which means he has to change his mind …

Peter was not alone in his views. I heard a podcast interview with Sarah Sundin where she commented that those Americans who travelled to Germany in the 1930s expecting to find a successful society found one, and those who expected to find a facade with a sordid underbelly found that. It shows the importance of looking at both sides of an issue, and how politics is often more grey than black and white.

Free speech is an issue Evelyn and Peter debate:

“Free speech had its problems. Free speech could work people into a frenzy, leading to violence. But where did you draw the line? All he knew was that the Germany government had drawn the line in the wrong place.”

This highlights a current issue: where do we draw the line? What is the difference between free speech and hate speech? Do we allow hate speech as part of our effort to protect free speech? And what happens when hateful speech leads to hateful action and people die?

Yes, When Twilight Breaks asks big questions, questions that don’t have easy answers. That made for a fascinating read.

However, I did find he last quarter slow going. I don’t want to give spoilers, but it felt like the story petered (sorry!) out at around the 75% mark. An earlier minor conflict was reintroduced, and it felt like it was added and magnified in an attempt to drag the story out. The last quarter wasn’t bad. It just didn’t match the strength and pace of the first three-quarters of the novel.

When Twilight Breaks by @SarahSundin is both an excellent Christian historical romance, and a thought-provoking metaphor for our modern world. #ChristianFiction Share on X

But I still recommend When Twilight Breaks, both as an excellent Christian historical romance, and as a thought-provoking metaphor for our modern world. May we learn from the lessons of the past and not repeat them.

Thanks to Revell and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

About Sarah Sundin

Sarah SundinSarah Sundin is the author of The Sea Before Us and The Sky Above Us, as well as the Waves of Freedom, Wings of the Nightingale, and Wings of Glory series. Her novels have received starred reviews from BooklistLibrary Journal, and Publishers Weekly. Her popular Through Waters Deep was a Carol Award finalist, and both Through Waters Deep and When Tides Turn were named on Booklist‘s “101 Best Romance Novels of the Last 10 Years.” Sarah lives in Northern California.

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About When Twilight Breaks

Munich, 1938. Evelyn Brand is an American foreign correspondent as determined to prove her worth in a male-dominated profession as she is to expose the growing tyranny in Nazi Germany. To do so, she must walk a thin line. If she offends the government, she could be expelled from the country–or worse. If she fails to truthfully report on major stories, she’ll never be able to give a voice to the oppressed–and wake up the folks back home.

In another part of the city, American graduate student Peter Lang is working on his PhD in German. Disillusioned with the chaos in the world due to the Great Depression, he is impressed with the prosperity and order of German society. But when the brutality of the regime hits close, he discovers a far better way to use his contacts within the Nazi party–to feed information to the shrewd reporter he can’t get off his mind.

This electric standalone novel from fan-favorite Sarah Sundin puts you right at the intersection of pulse-pounding suspense and heart-stopping romance.

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The power of words does not lie in the stories we tell but in our ability to connect with the hearts of those who read them.

Book Review | The Librarian of Saint-Malo by Mario Escabar

The Librarian of Saint-Malo features, unsurprisingly, the town librarian from the small French town of Saint-Malo as a main character. Jocelyn and Antoine Ferrec marry on 1 September 1939, the day Germany illegally invades Poland, the event which creates World War II.

History tells us the city and the country did not fare well in the war.

This novel shows us some of what happened from a French point of view. That was a new perspective for me. While I’ve read a lot of novels set in and around World War II, almost all of them have been set in the USA or England, and told from the American or English point of view–American or English authors, and American or English characters.

A smaller number have shown the war in Germany, but still from the American or English viewpoint. Where there have been German characters, they’ve either been “good” Nazis (which are about as believable as “good” slaveowners in American Civil War fiction) or the Nazis have been the evildoers (well, history).

It was refreshing to read a story showing the war from the point of view of the occupied French.

(The book is written by a Spaniard, who were neutral in World War II). It provided new insights into the occupation, and didn’t have the American need for a stereotypical heroic main character. It’s a welcome difference.

I’ve seen a couple of reviews moaning about this book as being yet another Nazi romance, with the subtext being that the Nazis were monsters and we shouldn’t be trying to romanticise them. While I agree we shouldn’t romanticise evil, I don’t think this book can truthfully be classed with other Nazi romances.

First, The Librarian of Saint-Malo is not a romance (it’s historical fiction).

Second, while one of the German soldiers clearly has feelings for Jocelyn, I didn’t think she was anywhere close to being in love with him. And finally, the story wasn’t written by a white American woman trying to show a redemption story. It was more a gritty war story written by a Spanish man. As such, the ending is more inevitable than the happy-ever-after of a romance novel.

The novel is introduced as a series of letters from Jocelyn, the Saint-Malo librarian, to her literary hero, the fictional Marcel Zola. She explains in the Prologue why she has chosen to write to him, and there is the occasional mention of the letters or reminder in the body of the novel that these are meant to be letters. But they’re not—not like in other epistolary novels, like Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster, Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay, Things We Didn’t Say by Amy Lynn Green, or The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel By Society by Mary Ann Safer and Annie Barrows.

The Librarian of Saint-Malo by Mario Escabar is a unique epistolary novel about World War II, set in France and written by a Spaniard. #HistoricalFiction #BookReview Share on X

Instead, the story read much like any other historical novel, albeit one written in first person point of view, as a letter would be. The story was exceptionally well researched (well, except for the line about “God Save the Queen”. The song changes names depending on who is on the throne, and the monarch during World War II was King George). I especially liked the fact the novel was written by a Spaniard—we need more historical fiction written from non-American perspectives.

We see the war progress through Jocelyn’s eyes.

We see the fall of France, the refugees (that was new to me), the arrival of the Germans, billetting, and the SS. The story takes us through the emotion of a lot of these events in a way a history book can’t, but the overall voice is still one of a person telling her story and trying to keep the emotion out of it. The French might mock the British for their stiff upper lips, but Jocelyn does a good impression. But the understated emotion makes it all the more powerful.

This is the first translated Mario Escabar novel I’ve read. I was impressed, and I will certainly watch out for future novels from him. Recommended for historical fiction fans.

Thanks to Thomas Nelson and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

About The Librarian of Saint-Malo

Through letters with a famous author, one French librarian tells her love story and describes the brutal Nazi occupation of her small coastal village.

Saint-Malo, France: August 1939. Jocelyn and Antoine are childhood sweethearts, but just after they marry, Antoine is called up to fight against Germany. As the war rages, Jocelyn focuses on comforting and encouraging the local population by recommending books from her beloved library in Saint-Malo. She herself finds hope in her letters to a famous author.

After the French capitulation, the Nazis occupy the town and turn it into a fortress to control the north of French Brittany. Residents try passive resistance, but the German commander ruthlessly purges part of the city’s libraries to destroy any potentially subversive writings. At great risk to herself, Jocelyn manages to hide some of the books while waiting to receive news from Antoine, who has been taken to a German prison camp.

What unfolds in her letters is Jocelyn’s description of her mission: to protect the people of Saint-Malo and the books they hold so dear. With prose both sweeping and romantic, Mario Escobar brings to life the occupied city and re-creates the history of those who sacrificed all to care for the people they loved.

You can find The Librarian of Saint-Malo online at:

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If you really love your country there's no need to surround yourself with its symbols or brag about your origins.

God has chosen this story for us, and not another one, and I mean to live this story as best I can with the time I'm given.

Book Review | Things We Didn’t Say by Amy Lynn Green

Things We Didn’t Say is an unusual novel with an unusual heroine.

Johanna Berglund, the main character, speaks seven languages (and is trying to learn Japanese) when she is “persuaded” to return to her hometown of Ironside Lake to serve as a translator for the Germans in the new prisoner of war camp.

Johanna finds herself accused of treason, and the novel is the collection of documents she prepares for her lawyer to prove her innocence—letters to, from, and about her, and a collection of newspaper articles, editorials, and letters to the editor. The letters show Johanna’s virtues and faults in her own eyes, and through the eyes of friends, family, and foe.

I think this country needs a voice willing to speak up and question blind patriotism, and that's what you're doing.

The best historical fiction uses historical events and characters to highlight issues in the present.

Things We Didn’t Say does a masterful job of examining racism and our often irrational feelings towards those who are different to us—whether they look like us or not. It’s also telling that Green has chosen to set her story in a small town that’s home to Americans of Scandinavian descent—people who sometimes look more Aryan than their German enemies, yet people who also discriminate against Japanese Americans and African Americans.

What often has the most impact isn’t the obvious themes of the story, but the offhand comments—like the US Constitution’s definition of treason, or the kitchen hand who owns a copy of “The Negro Motorist Green Book, with safe hotels, filing stations, and eateries marked.” I’ve read my share of travel guides, but they have all aimed to sort the good from the less-good, not the safe from the unsafe.

The unusual structure gives the novel a more slow-paced feel than a “normal” novel might have. It’s also easier to stop reading than in a novel written in more traditional chapters with the cliffhanger or hook at the end of each chapter. Letters have a different structure, and mean it is a little easier to put the novel down. But it’s also easy to pick up again, and to only read one or two letters at a time. If anything, reading slowly is more representative of the timescale covered in the novel.

Every letter has two messages: the one written on the lines and the one written between them. Both are necessary.

The title is also apt, in that a lot of the story is hidden in the things the characters don’t say in writing—another reason to read it slowly. The Things We Didn’t Say is an excellent if unusual novel.

Recommended for historical fiction fans or those interested in a Christian novel written in a non-traditional style.

Thanks to Bethany House and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

About Amy Lynn Green

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About Things We Didn’t Say

Headstrong Johanna Berglund, a linguistics student at the University of Minnesota, has very definite plans for her future . . . plans that do not include returning to her hometown and the secrets and heartaches she left behind there. But the US Army wants her to work as a translator at a nearby camp for German POWs.

Johanna arrives to find the once-sleepy town exploding with hostility. Most patriotic citizens want nothing to do with German soldiers laboring in their fields, and they’re not afraid to criticize those who work at the camp as well. When Johanna describes the trouble to her friend Peter Ito, a language instructor at a school for military intelligence officers, he encourages her to give the town that rejected her a second chance.

As Johanna interacts with the men of the camp and censors their letters home, she begins to see the prisoners in a more sympathetic light. But advocating for better treatment makes her enemies in the community, especially when charismatic German spokesman Stefan Werner begins to show interest in Johanna and her work. The longer Johanna wages her home-front battle, the more the lines between compassion and treason become blurred–and it’s no longer clear whom she can trust.

You can find Things We Didn’t Say online at

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First Line Friday

First Line Friday | Week 155 | Things We Didn’t Say by Amy Lynn Green

It’s First Line Friday! That means it’s time to pick up the nearest book and quote the first line. Today I’m sharing from Things We Didn’t Say, a unique debut from by Amy Lynn Green. Here’s the first line from the Prologue:

If I were an expert in criminal law, I'd be sick to death of outraged clients claiming to be falsely accursed, and especially of weepy female clients wringing their hands.

What’s the book nearest you, and what’s the first line?

 

About Things We Didn’t Say

Headstrong Johanna Berglund, a linguistics student at the University of Minnesota, has very definite plans for her future . . . plans that do not include returning to her hometown and the secrets and heartaches she left behind there. But the US Army wants her to work as a translator at a nearby camp for German POWs.

Johanna arrives to find the once-sleepy town exploding with hostility. Most patriotic citizens want nothing to do with German soldiers laboring in their fields, and they’re not afraid to criticize those who work at the camp as well. When Johanna describes the trouble to her friend Peter Ito, a language instructor at a school for military intelligence officers, he encourages her to give the town that rejected her a second chance.

As Johanna interacts with the men of the camp and censors their letters home, she begins to see the prisoners in a more sympathetic light. But advocating for better treatment makes her enemies in the community, especially when charismatic German spokesman Stefan Werner begins to show interest in Johanna and her work. The longer Johanna wages her home-front battle, the more the lines between compassion and treason become blurred–and it’s no longer clear whom she can trust.

You can find Things We Didn’t Say online at

Amazon | ChristianBook | Goodreads | Koorong

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Share your first line in the comments, and happy reading!

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