When I was six years old, my Dutch relatives visited. Stories swirled about their bravery in getting secrets from the Germans and sharing the intel with the Allies, about their privation during the hunger winter, and their work hiding their Jewish countrymen. I studied abroad in 1977-1978 and took the opportunity to visit my Dutch relatives. They told me more stories of their resistance work, their escapades, and, most importantly, their “why” during my time with them. Such stories don’t leave you–ever. They percolated in my head for years until a voice came to me, Rika’s voice, and I began to write. Sixty Blades of Grass is the result.
This is the Dutch Underground at its finest. The “why” people would risk their lives and resist the German persecution of the Jews came through loud and clear here.
Based on a true story, Corrie Ten Boom ran an underground cell out of her home in Harlem with the support of her family. Her religion sustained her through tremendous losses and suffering but enabled her to find peace for herself and others post-war.
It's World War II. Darkness has fallen over Europe as the Nazis spread hatred, fear and war across the globe. But on a quiet city corner in the Netherlands, one woman fights against the darkness.
In her quiet watchmaking shop, she and her family risk their lives to hide Jews, and others hunted by the Nazis, in a secret room, a "hiding place" that they built in the old building.
One day, however, Corrie and her family are betrayed. They're captured and sent to the notorious Nazi concentration camps to die. Yet even…
Gorgeous in its scope, passions, and history, this is all a WWII book should be. I was enraptured by the landscape, the action, and the passions within. Pino Lello morphs from a reluctant teen to a German soldier, to a guide over the mountains for the underground railroad, to a spy for the Allies in his position as a driver for the German commander.
It is a must-read for anyone interested in WWII resistance stories. I learned what works and what, perhaps, might not in this read.
Soon to be a major television event from Pascal Pictures, starring Tom Holland.
Based on the true story of a forgotten hero, the USA Today and #1 Amazon Charts bestseller Beneath a Scarlet Sky is the triumphant, epic tale of one young man's incredible courage and resilience during one of history's darkest hours.
Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He's a normal Italian teenager-obsessed with music, food, and girls-but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape…
I love this book because it breathes WWII in a way I’ve never read. This book is a story about the siege of Leningrad. I loved the imagery captured by a curator of the Hermitage, skillfully interwoven with a back story in the United States.
As the Hermitage is dismantled in anticipation of the German bombs, the women commit the placement of the precious artwork to memory in images and story form. The tension rises with the scarcity of food and fuel and the loss of friends.
It is a love story told in imagery and heartbreak: an excellent emotional capture and an example for Sixty Blades of Grass.
“An extraordinary debut, a deeply lovely novel that evokes with uncommon deftness the terrible, heartbreaking beauty that is life in wartime. Like the glorious ghosts of the paintings in the Hermitage that lie at the heart of the story, Dean’s exquisite prose shimmers with a haunting glow, illuminating us to the notion that art itself is perhaps our most necessary nourishment. A superbly graceful novel.” — Chang-Rae Lee, New York Times Bestselling author of Aloft and Native Speaker
Bit by bit, the ravages of age are eroding Marina's grip on the everyday. An elderly Russian woman now living in America,…
Berlin is under siege. Those who have not left cannot escape. Bombs rain down, water is scarce, and food is more so.
A woman strives to survive the Russian soldiers out to avenge their losses by offering everything in exchange for their protection. You feel the cold, the fear in the basements, the terror of bombs, and the triumph of the human spirit to put the worst of the worst aside and continue to live. I loved the raw triumph of surviving.
For eight weeks in 1945, as Berlin fell to the Russian army, a young woman kept a daily record of life in her apartment building and among its residents. "With bald honesty and brutal lyricism" (Elle), the anonymous author depicts her fellow Berliners in all their humanity, as well as their cravenness, corrupted first by hunger and then by the Russians. "Spare and unpredictable, minutely observed and utterly free of self-pity" (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland), A Woman in Berlin tells of the complex relationship between civilians and an occupying army and the…
This book brought me to boots on the ground as it supplied me with a first-hand account of life in The Netherlands during WWII. I loved every word.
Diet Eman resists the German occupation by moving her beloved Jewish friends and forged documents, at great danger to herself. Sustained by her faith, hatred of the Germans, love for The Netherlands, and her love for her fiancé, Hein, she works until her capture by the Germans.
Passionate, true, loving, suspenseful, and honest, this is a must-read for those who need to know more about the war in Holland.
Things We Couldn't Say is the true story of Diet Eman, a young Dutch woman, who, with her fiance, Hein Sietsma, risked everything to rescue imperiled Jews in Nazi-occupied Holland during World War II. Throughout the years that Diet and Hein aided the Resistance--work that would cost Diet her freedom and Hein his life--their courageous effort ultimately saved hundreds of Dutch Jews.
Now available in paperback, Things We Couldn't Say tells an unforgettable story of heroism, faith, and--above all--love.
The bond between a Dutch teenager and her father is tested as the Resistance wages its secret war against the Nazis in this suspenseful and moving novel. During the Second World War, Rika, a seventeen-year-old Dutch Resistance fighter, paints in fields overlooking the busy rail yards. Hidden in her artwork is information about the Jewish prisoner transports.
Across town, her German-born father is also living a double life. But his desire to keep his daughter safe proves inadequate when he invites a German colonel into his home with terrible consequences. Inspired by the author’s own family history, this is a riveting, heartrending novel of danger and betrayal that explores what it takes to lay down one’s life for another in the most harrowing circumstances.
I’m passionate about helping people see the incredible beauty of God’s unfolding plan of redemption and restoration that unfolds in the pages of the Bible. In the Old Testament, this plan is hidden in mystery and symbolism. But then in the New Testament, this great mystery is unveiled in all its glory, and the symbolism emerges from the shadows and steps into the light! For the past 15+ years, it has been my great honor to read the Bible with people for their very first time and help them watch this great mystery unfold. These books do that very same thing!
The Bible is the greatest mystery novel ever written. It begins in the Old Testament with seemingly random accounts of ancient people in far away places with strange customs. There’s the prophecy of a coming Hero who will conquer the villain and restore peace to the land. The mystery reaches its climax of anticipation as the Old Testament comes to a close and 400 years of silence ensues and the world longingly waits for its deliverer. Then, in a stable outside a small village in a conquered nation, a peasant woman gives birth to a baby boy. And the great…
The Essence: A Guided Journey of Discovery through the Bible
The Unfolding Story of God's Ultimate Plan of Restoration
The Bible is the greatest book ever written, and it's more than just a book-it's the very Word of God. It unveils the unfolding story of God's ultimate plan to restore mankind's relationship with Him. The answers to life's deepest questions are found within its pages. It reveals who we are, why we are here, who God is, and how we can know Him. However, for many people, the great riches of the Bible remain undiscovered and its exquisite beauty, unseen. The relevance of the peculiar accounts of ancient people in…
