In the spirit of We Were the Lucky Ones and We Must Be Brave, a heartbreaking World War II novel of one mother’s impossible choice, and her search for her daughter against the odds.As a Russian Jewish émigré to France, Vera’s wealth cannot protect her or her four-year-old-daughter, Lucie, once the Nazis occupy the country. After receiving notice that all foreigners must report to an internment … must report to an internment camp, Vera has just a few hours to make an impossible choice: Does she subject Lucie to the horrid conditions of the camp, or does she put her into hiding with her beloved and trusted governess, safe until Vera can retrieve her? Believing the war will end soon, Vera chooses to leave Lucie in safety. She cannot know that she and her husband will have an opportunity to escape, to flee to America. She cannot know that Lucie’s governess will have fled with Lucie to family in rural France, too far to reach in time.
And so begins a heartbreaking journey and separation, a war and a continent apart. Vera’s marriage will falter under the surreal sun of California. Her ability to write–once her passion–will disappear. But Vera’s love for Lucie, her faith that her daughter lives, will only grow. As Vera’s determination to return to France and find Lucie crystalizes, she meets Sasha, a man on his own search for meaning. She is stronger with Sasha than she is alone. Together they will journey to Lucie. They will find her fate.
more
A profound and engaging story — Landau writes of the endurance of parental love in the face of Nazi occupation and terror, of finding those who were lost. I loved it.
This book is one that a mother could equate with: What would you do if you chose to separate from your child, instead of taking them with you to an internment camp? This is an answer I hope no mother has to make.
Gorgeously written… An unforgettable story of heartbreak, but ultimately of hope, resilience, and love — I could not put this book down!
Imbued with vivid, lush imagery and written with enormous sensitivity and heart, this gem of a novel has everything that I love in historical fiction, and it is one of the best I’ve read this year. I treasured every page.
I love books that are written about WWII. This story is told from a mother’s perspective. What Vera is forced to do in order to protect her daughter, the guilt and grief she experiences, and the devastation she witnesses when she returns to France after the war is emotionally moving. Definitely a heartwrenching tale of a mother’s ultimate love.
Thank you to NetGalley and G. P. Putnam’s Sons for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.
Lustrous prose and tight pacing… Those Who Are Saved binds the reader into a story of maternal love, erotic desire, and sweeping romance. I was carried away from beginning to end.”
A heartrending story of the unbreakable bond of maternal love… This gripping and compassionate novel continues to haunt me.
Subtle and skilful… Absolutely haunting.
An achingly beautiful epoch about love’s endurance. I was hooked from the start… Alexis Landau is an amazing storyteller and her novel will whisper to you long after you finish.
A mother who must make a decision that could save her daughter or put her at greater risk. Vera and her husband are being forced into a internment camp as the Germans take full occupation of France. Vera has heard how horrible the children are treated so she is going to leave her four year old daughter Lucie with her trusted governess.
Poor Vera thinks that she is only going for a short interlude to this camp. After a time, the couple escape and manage to get to the United States. They are in California where her husband is working, but Vera is only thinking of how can they get their daughter safely out of France. Things start to deteriorate and spiral between the couple and Vera meets Sasha.
Sasha is consistent with Vera in the belief that there is a probability her daughter is alive. It’s been four years since the day she made the decision to part with her Lucie.
The author has written a emotional book about a mothers love and the choices and decisions one makes to keep them safe. I found the book slow and not cohesive that I had to read some sections over.
However, overall the storyline was good, but I wish there was more of Sasha and his family dynamics. I think there was parts that could have been tightened in order to allow more space for that.
I would still recommend this book.
Little Golden America
This story tugs at the heart. In dire circumstances choices need to be made, do we always make the right ones? What if our choices come back to haunt us? In an effort to keep her child safe, this mother sacrifices years of her life with that child. The guilt stays with her until she makes it right in her heart.
Max and Vera and their four year old daughter are vacationing with friends when the Nazi’s occupy France. Vera is a Russian Jewish Immigrant to France. When the Nazi’s occupy France a notice is received that all foreigner’s must report to an internment camp. Vera makes the choice to leave her daughter Lucie with the governess instead of subjecting her to the camp. Max and Vera escape from the camp and are able to make their way to America, but they could not go and retrieve Lucie.
After reading the newspaper where the town Lucie was in with the governess is burned to the ground and all the residents perish Max believes Lucie is lost. Vera will not give up searching for her. Their marriage dissolves. Vera meets a Jewish American filmmaker named Sasha and together they go to France after the war to search for Lucie. What will they find? Is Lucie gone forever or did she manage to escape and if so will they find her?
The story is about choices and regrets. It is about feelings and wounds left after the war. It is a story of the aftermath of war. Those returning from camps in their changed bodies and minds. It is about the facing of the horrors of the horrors of war after the war. Families searching for information and sometimes it is heartbreaking. No one escapes the consequences of war it changes people and nations.
This was a good book to read it brought it home as to the horrors of war and the power of a mother’s love. A belief in a better life and a new start. I would recommend it.
Thanks to Alexis Landau, Penguin Group Putnam books, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a copy for an honest review.
Those Who Are Saved by Alexis Landau is an excellent historical fiction that takes place during and immediately after WWII. This novel tells the story of love, loss, difficult decisions, acceptance, forgiveness, family, sacrifices, and the enduring spirit and hope of a better tomorrow and a second chance.
This book is at one time both beautiful with glimmers of radiating light and also heartbreaking and difficult to read. This is a story that represents what so many went through during this most difficult time: separation of family members in hopes of survival and eventual reunion. In this specific story, it is the deliberate separation of mother and child in hopes that both will be able to escape the Nazis at some point in occupied France to safe territory and back into each other’s arms and lives again.
Vera makes the most difficult decision possible: to send her young daughter, Lucie, with her trusted governess off in hopes of keeping her out of what she thinks is probable imprisonment and significant danger as they are part of a Jewish family that now has find a way out of occupied France, if possible.
The twist is that after the devastating separation, Vera and her husband Max are able to actually escape to the US, but not until after it is impossible to get word to Lucie. Thus, mother and daughter are separated by land and sea and the journey to finding one another, and forgiveness in each other, and within themselves, is the story we as readers get to experience.
This is a decision that no parent should ever have to make, and I cannot even begin to fathom how it must have felt for Vera to not only make this choice, but to also know that it may have been made unnecessarily and the years lost by being a part thereafter. The cascading events and effects that happened from this decision are also difficult to read. The author does a wonderful job depicting this journey with a wonderfully complex set of characters. The emotions were real, they were raw, they were imperfect. I really enjoyed reading this story of love, loss, reunion, and redemption. I also truly enjoyed the satisfying ending.
Excellent novel. 5/5 stars.
Thank you EW and G.P. Putnam’s Sons for this wonderful ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.
I am posting this review to my GR, Bookbub, and Instagram accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon, B&N, and Instagram (again) accounts upon publication.