From USA Today bestselling author A.W. Hartoin comes a series perfect for the fans of Kristen Hannah’s The Nightingale, Martha Hall Kelly’s Lilac Girls, and Kit Sergeant’s The Spark of Resistance: Women Spies in WWII.On the eve of WWII, a honeymoon turns treacherous.For Stella Bled Lawrence being wealthy and stylish in 1938 is exactly what it’s cracked up to be. She’s blissfully unaware of the … unaware of the rising tensions in Europe even as she travels to Vienna on the eve of the Kristallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass. Stella and her husband, Nicky, witness the night’s atrocities first hand. Even as they watch the horror, they never imagine it will touch them personally, a pair of wealthy Americans on their honeymoon but touch them it does. In the chaotic aftermath, Stella finds passion and purpose in the form of a package with a Paris address. She promises to deliver it, not knowing what it contains or who wants it. Soon Stella must decide who and what she’s willing to sacrifice to keep a secret that has been quietly guarded for five hundred years.
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A little to contrived to be really good.
Very well written. Set in Paris against the back drop of WW 2. Great characters .
One of the best books I’ve ever read. It was hard to put it down!!
Predictable. Okay for pandemic reading…escapism reading
The book has some highs, but also has some lows. There are parts that are hard to conceive of as realistic. The coverage of the Nazis is real and frightening! Overall I was entertained enough to want to read the sequel.
The descriptions of Paris brought back the sounds and smells of the wonders of that city. The time period was frightening but the resilience of the main characters carried the reader through plot turns and twists and left me wanting more.
A good read!
Thumbs down on the main characters. So so read.
A slow (and slightly annoying) start, but it gets better and better. It is sometimes necessary to suspend disbelief. The characters begin to grow on you, and you find that you have to keep reading. I am now looking forward to reading the next books in the series.
I loved what I learned about the “pre-WWII” era of the world during that time.
Loved it! Historical fiction and a female heroine in WWII era. So unique!
While I kept reading this book, I found it hard to believe and some of the things that happened just weren’t realistic or believable – too many “lucky escapes” – but characters were interesting and I did finish it.
A little far fetched, but a pleasant way to spend a few hours.
enjoyed this so much I wrote my girlfriend who lives in MT (I’m in NC) and told her it was something I knew she’d enjoy. Looking for more from you. Thanks for a good story.
shallow characters, silly plot, childish writing
I’m always skeptical about authors who use “gripping/thrilling tale/story about blah, blah, blah’ in their titles/book descriptions/ad blurbs, and usually I dismiss them, but I’m a sucker for WWII stories, especially resistance and survivor stories. Over the course of this novel, I’ve grown to really like and respect both Stella and Nicky.
Having read many biographies and autobiographies of survivors of WWII and their accounts, some of the scenes in this fiction novel sound almost too-good-to-be-true, but I’ve come to acknowledge that oddities like this did occur ~ look at some of the most famous survivors and what they endured! Much of that sounds too good to be true, too! Yes ~ this IS FICTION. But much of the heart and soul of this book is about Stella and Nicky and their love during their Kristallnacht ‘wake-up’ call. Nobody outside of Germany at this point could conceive of the heinous atrocities occurring and to come; most socialites without heart bolted from Europe, to never look back and forget what they’d seen. Not Stella and Nicky. No. They rush headlong into the fray to help. I admire this, even in fiction characters and would say to the pooh-poohers and naysayers: truth is often stranger than fiction. Who is to say this didn’t happen in one form or another?
Talk about riveting! I was on the edge of my seat. I bought this book on sale and had to immediately buy the next two in the series right after I finished this one.
Drat it, having read all three in quick time I now have to wait for the next installment. But this author has a new fan following her work. Ma’am, please write the fourth book in this set quickly, but with as much care and attention to detail as you did the first three. I’m waiting with bated breath.
This was or is one of the best I have read It was a different type of story.
Well worth the time to read. Informative as to the period setting.
Twists and turns with wittiness