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.
Magnolia Merryweather, a horse breeder, is eager to celebrate Christmas for the first time after the Civil War ended even as she grows her business. She envisions a calm, prosperous life ahead after the terror of the past four years. Only, all of her plans are thrown into disarray when her secret lover returns and starts asking questions she can’t answer without disaster following.
Bryce Day comes home to Alabama after he’s discharged from the First Alabama Cavalry USA with guilt weighing on his heart. His neighbors won’t cotton to his Unionist bent, and the woman of his heart likely…
One terrible lie, a desperate measure to save her past, just might destroy her future…
Award-winning author of historical fiction presents a new novel of love and lies, secrets and sensuality, and the hands of fate weaving it all together.
The American Civil War is finally over and Christmas beckons. Magnolia Merryweather, backyard horse breeder, is eager to celebrate for the first time since the war began even as she continues to grow her business. She envisions a calm, prosperous life ahead after all the terror of the past four years. She’s preparing to follow in her mother’s matriarchal footsteps,…
