The Doctor’s Daughter – ARC Book Review

Auschwitz, 1941: It was her father’s job to save the lives of the SS. But she chose to risk everything and save the lives of prisoners.

In Nazi-occupied Poland, Sofia cannot look her father in the eye. Sofia’s mother, her papa’s cherished wife, is Jewish—how dare he work as a doctor for the SS? She cannot forgive him, even if the bargain was made to spare their lives.

In the middle of the night, Isaac emerges from a packed train with hundreds of others. Beneath Auschwitz’s barbed wire, soldiers surround them, and gunshots pierce the dark sky. The SS decide prisoners’ fates on the spot—and Isaac is chosen to work, rather than to die.

Every day, Isaac and his fellow inmates are sent to a nearby farm. From sunup to sundown, they toil the land with barely a scrap to eat. Every breath feels like it could be Isaac’s last, so when he sees a beautiful auburn-haired girl peering out of the farmhouse window, it feels like a dream…

Sofia refuses to accept what she is seeing. Disobeying her father and evading the guards, she risks her life to sneak a letter to the green-eyed boy outside. She explains that she has hidden them food, and that she’ll do everything in her power to save them.

This secret exchange sparks an escape that should have been impossible—and a love story that is unforgettable. But is love enough in the face of evil? And when Sofia and Isaac are concealed underground, holding their breath as the Nazis hunt them, will they survive?

After reading Shari J Ryan’s book, The Bookseller from Dachau which actually captivated me, I was happy that I got this ARC.

The story this time sets in Poland, during the Nazi occupation and WWII. The story is told from the perspectives of Sofia–whose mother is Jewish and whose father, a doctor work with the Nazis and Issac, a Jew who moves to the Warsaw ghetto with his parents and his sister, Olivia. Isaac’s parents dies and both Issac and Olivia are separated when they reach the concentration camp, Auschwitz, where Olivia, with her ability to sew works in Kanada where they sort the items of the people who come to the camp. Issac starts to work in the garden owned by Sofia’s family and the two become friends with Sofia determined to save Isaac’s life.

The author must have done tremendous research about the life in a Warsaw Ghetto and the conditions of being in Auschwitz concentration camp. Despite the fact that the story is fictional, the events that occur in the story are real and you couldn’t imagine that these types of horror did occur in real life. The writing was good, the author doing a good job of drawing the reader into the story, making the reader feel like they are part of the story. It is interesting to read both Sofia’s and Isaac’s views and I like how the friendship between them developed. There were some emotional moments and heartbreaking moments although the ending was good and expected.

Overall, if you like a heartbreaking emotional historical fiction, then this one is for you–worth five stars!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for the ARC. The review is based on my honest opinion only.