Secret history of Audrey James by Heather Marshall

 

Published by Simon & Schuster on June 4, 2024

432 pages

I read the paperback version

Back Cover

Sometimes the best place to hide is the last place anyone would look.

Northern England, 2010

After a tragic accident upends her life, Kate Mercer leaves London to work at an old guest house near the Scottish border, where she hopes to find a fresh start and heal from her loss. When she arrives, she begins to unravel the truth about her past, but discovers the mysterious elderly proprietor is harbouring her own secrets…

Berlin, 1938

Audrey James is weeks away from graduating from a prestigious music school in Berlin, where she’s been living with her best friend, Ilse Kaplan. As she prepares to finish her piano studies, Audrey dreads the thought of returning to her father in England and leaving Ilse behind. Families like the Kaplans are being targeted, and the stakes grow higher by the day. Restrictions tighten, the borders close to Jews, and rumours swirl about people being apprehended in the street and shipped off to work camps.

When Ilse’s parents and brother suddenly disappear, two high-ranking Nazi party members confiscate the Kaplans’ upscale home, believing it to be empty. In a desperate attempt to keep Ilse safe, Audrey becomes housekeeper for the officers while Ilse is forced into hiding in the attic—a prisoner in her own home. As war in Europe threatens, it isn’t long before a shocking turn of events pushes Audrey to become embroiled in cell of the anti-Hitler movement: clusters of resisters working to bring down the Nazis from within Germany itself. But resistance comes with risk, and before the war is over, Audrey must decide what matters most: saving herself, her friend, or sacrificing everything for the greater good.

Inspired by true stories of courageous women and the German resistance during WWII, this is a captivating novel about the unbreakable bonds of friendship, the sacrifices we make for those we love, and the healing that comes from human connection.

My review

I read this book for the book club with the Turner Syndrome Society of Canada. I never heard of this author before, but the backcover caught my attention. I love historical books especially when the story happens during the World War Two. If you love romance, there is a few romantic moments in the book, but it’s not the main subject. It’s really about Audrey who is trying to make her way during this terrible period.

It's a two voices story, since you have the point of view of Audrey when she was living in 1939 and Kate who is talking with her in the 2010. Both of them lost their parents and have a few points in common, but my favorite character is Audrey, probably because most of the story is about her.

I suggest to be concentrated while you are reading it, since the story is happening during two different periods and sometime, I have to reread certain part because I forgot it was happening in 2010.

A lot happens in the third part of the novel; the author surprised me with the protagonist. I knew Audrey was a strong woman, but she has been thought more than I imagined when I started reading this book. The author found the right words to get thought the emotion of the reader. I admit I was scared for Audrey during certain scenes and I cried with her when she was going thought bad times.

I recommend it, if you love history. The novel is well-written and I put the author in my list of the one I must follow.

Excerpts

"You might find you want to get married one day, you know", Ilse said now. "People change. They grow."

"You mean they grow up," Audrey said wryly. "They concede to what’s expected of them." (p.17)

Audrey lifts her coffee. "Have you heard a cheery story of divorce and heartbreak? It’s always a sorry tale. I was going to ask you what a young woman like you is doing abandoning the hustle and bustle of London to come up here to work at a sleepy old guesthouse, but I think the divorce is responsible for the career change, too, isn’t it? " (p.68)

Life is so full of extremes. How often that happens, that you end up yearning in ironic desperation for the very thing that once irritated, exhausted, or overwhelmed you. (p.96)

"They will have been sent to one of the camps. Buchenwald. Dachau. Sachsenhausen. They are intended as permanent institutions for the prisoners. All part of the Fuhrer’s scheme for the purification of Germany, Fraulein." (p.113)

Growing up, Audrey had never had a birthday celebration because it was also the anniversary of her mother’s death. It was as thought the two events somehow cancelled one another out in the great cosmic scoreboard. The James family let every August third pass by in silence whilst they started at it, like some beast that might attack at the smallest sound. (p.118)

Berlin had been emptied of half of its residents, and those who remained were all supporters of, or feared, the Reich. People continued to disappear; neighbours turned against neighbours. Children were encouraged to report on their parents if they harbored any kind of anti-Hitler sentiment. Everyone was watching one another’s movements, their language. (p.192)