Dark times in Germany!

The Lost Book of Bonn: A Novel by Brianna Labuskes      

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Gripping story about sisters who lived in Bonn just before WWII.

Annalise the older loved to hike and party with her friends in a group called the Edelweiss Pirates. Later they took more and more subversive action against the ruling Nazi party

Christina, the younger sister liked to follow rules. She became a member of the Bund Deutscher Mädel, promoting young Aryan women who followed rules, who fit in, who presented the ideal woman who embraced her place in the social fabric.

Widowed Emmy Clarke is a librarian who’s sent to Berlin in 1946 to look through the acres of books seized by the Nazis. Many are valuable. The scope of looting by the Nazis is phenomenal. Here she meets Major Wesley Arnold, part of the Monuments Men team.

Emma chances upon a book on her first day that has an inscription, beginning “to Annelise” ending with Eitan.” Emmy senses a deeper story behind the inscription. Emmy is inspired to see if she can find out more about these people.

The story moves from one character’s viewpoint to another’s —Annelise and Christina, Both interspersed with Emmy’s search in 19476.

What it tells us is that not all people are the enemy and that when they stood together they might prevail. The story of the Aryan women married to Jews who protest against their husbands being detained and held in the Jewish community center on Rose Street, awaiting transportation, is harrowing and admirable.

Such a sensitive novel about evil times that aren’t as cut and dried as we would wish.

A superb read!

A William Morrow ARC via NetGalley.                                              

Many thanks to the author and publisher.