Tropical Girl Reads

Title:- The Orphan’s Mother

Author:- Marion Kummerow

No. of pages:- 290 pages

Date published:- will be published on July 29th 2022

Publisher:- Bookouture

Genre:- Historical Fiction

Rating:-

Plot:- 5/5

Writing:- 5/5

Overall:- 5/5

1945, the German-Polish border: With Nazis on one side and Soviet forces approaching on the other, a mother and her little boy are torn apart, and so begins an unforgettable tale of courage, heartbreak and motherhood in wartime.

“If you ever get lost, Jacob, you need to stay where you are and wait, because I’ll come looking for you. And I’ll always find you.”

In the icy grip of winter, Emma is trying to escape Poland, with her two young children and little more than the clothes on their backs. With the Russian Red Army advancing, she knows their safety relies on them crossing the border. She swears to herself that she’ll do whatever it takes to keep their family together.

But before they can reach the border, her little boy Jacob falls ill, his once-sparkling blue eyes getting dimmer with each moment that passes. And Emma knows she has to get him to a hospital, where she hands him to a kind nurse.

She feels sure they will be reunited the next day. But then the bombing starts. And when she reaches the hospital again, she finds it deserted, her darling son gone.

Though her heart tells her she has to stay and find him, she faces an impossible choice. She would risk her own life for Jacob in a heartbeat, but as her daughter Sophie’s cold, little hand slips into her own, Emma is forced to make a heartbreaking decision. Unable to find any trace of her beloved son, she knows she must at least get her daughter to safety.

But she can never forget the promise she made to her little boy. That if they were ever separated, she’d come looking for him. That she’d always find him.

Whatever the danger, whatever the risk. She knows what she has to do. Because there is nothing stronger than a mother’s love…

This book is a heartbreaking and emotional book that will tear you up.

It’s almost the end of the World War II with the Russians The Red Army entering into Poland. Many of the Germans who used to live in Poland are now fleeing back to their country. One such German family is Emma and her two children, Jacob and Sophie. On their journey, Jacob gets sick and was admitted to the hospital. But soon chaos and turmoil and with the fear of the Russians entering in, Jacob gets separated from his mother and sister and soon he was adopted by a kind Polish nurse named Irina.

Normally, the historical fiction that I read are based on Jews or Gypsies or Poles but this was all different–it is about a German family who is fleeing from Poland as Germans are losing the war and the Russians are edging closer. Having done history, I know that Russians were revengeful and brutal towards Germans and so I can understand the fear that these families are going through. The author must have done research about it that it felt all too realistic to be reading about it. The middle part of the story is what drew me into the story–the heartbreak, the emotions and there were parts that you would cry when Jacob gets separated from his mother and Irina adopts him. The writing was really great and the author manage to draw the reader into the story. All these characters are all memorable to read and likable in my opinion and the story itself is very touching.

If you would like to read historical fiction based on WWII, then try this book out–this book will take you to a journey that will make you emotional and heartbreaking at the same time. Worth five stars!

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

USA Today Bestselling author of historical fiction.

Her books are filled with raw emotions, fierce loyalty and perpetual resilience.

She loves to put her characters through the mangle, making them reach deep within to find the strength to face moral dilemma, make difficult decisions or fight for what is right. And she never forgets to include humor and undying love in her books, because ultimately love is what makes the world go round.

Marion Kummerow was born and raised in Germany, before she set out to “discover the world” and lived in various countries. In 1999 she returned to Germany and settled down in Munich where she’s now living with her family.

After dipping her toes with non-fiction books, she finally tackled the project dear to her heart. UNRELENTING is the story about her grandparents, who belonged to the German resistance and fought against the Nazi regime. It’s a book about resilience, love and the courage to stand up and do the right thing.

Title:- The Soviet Sisters

Author:- Anika Scott

Date published:- will be published on July 12th 2022

No. of pages:- 368 pages

Genre:- Historical Fictional

Rating:-

Plot:- 4/5

Writing:- 4/5

Overall:- 4/5

Sisters Vera and Marya were brought up as good Soviets: obedient despite hardships of poverty and tragedy, committed to communist ideals, and loyal to Stalin. Several years after fighting on the Eastern front, both women find themselves deep in the mire of conflicts shaping a new world order in 1947 Berlin. When Marya, an interpreter, gets entangled in Vera’s cryptic web of deceit and betrayal, she must make desperate choices to survive—and protect those she loves.

Nine years later, Marya is a prisoner in a Siberian work camp when Vera, a doyenne of the KGB, has cause to reopen her case file and investigate the facts behind her sister’s conviction all those years ago in Berlin. As Vera retraces the steps that brought them both to that pivotal moment in 1947, she unravels unexpected truths and discoveries that call into question the very history the Soviets were working hard to cover up.

Epic and intimate, layered and complex, The Soviet Sisters is a gripping story of spies, blackmail, and double, triple bluff. With her dexterous plotting and talent for teasing out moral ambiguity, Anika Scott expertly portrays a story about love, conflicting world views, and loyalty and betrayal between sisters.

If you are a history buff or obsessed with historical fiction based on Cold War Events, then this book is one for you.

Vera and Marya are sisters and are devoted to their Soviet government despite all the hardships and despair they were facing as a family. Then Marya moves to Berlin, where she works as an interpreter and falls in love with a British man named Henry. Somehow, Marya ends up being imprisoned in Gulag, a notorious prison in the heart of Siberia and is a prison for war criminals and when the Stalin government changes, Vera would do anything to save her sister from the horrors of the prison.

This was a very different type of novel that I have read. The writing was great and the story is told between past back in 1947 when Marya was having a love affair with a British soldier and present day when Vera wants to find answers about her sister’s arrest. The story is also a bit political as well as Vera herself along with her husband works for the Soviet government. The author manage to show the complex relationship between Vera and Marya and also the affair between Marya and Henry. The ending was really good.

Overall, if you like a historical fiction with a Russian setting and based on Cold War then this one is for you–worth four stars.

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

Grew up in the Detroit area, Spartan undergrad (international politics), Columbia U grad (journalism). Print journalist in Philly and Chicago, moved to Germany, been there ever since writing, traveling, sampling beer and chocolates, raising a family, staying sane. More about me at www.anikascott.com. Also on Insta – mostly vacation pics! — as @anikawritesbooks.

Title:- The Last Restaurant in Paris

Author:- Lily Graham

Date published:- will be published on July 18th 2022

No. of pages:- 333 pages

Publisher:- Bookouture

Genre:- Historical Fiction

Rating:-

Plot:- 5/5

Writing:- 5/5

Overall:- 5/5

Paris 1944. To save her people, she served the enemy.

In enemy-occupied Paris, as the locals go to bed starving and defeated by the war, music and laughter spills through the door of a little restaurant, crowded with German soldiers. The owner Marianne moves on weary feet between its packed tables, carrying plates of steaming, wholesome food for the enemy officers. Her smile is bright and sparkling, her welcome cordial. Nobody would guess the hatred she hides in her heart.

That night, the restaurant closes its doors for the final time. In the morning, the windows are scratched with the words ‘traitor and murderer’. And Marianne has disappeared without a trace…

Years later, Marianne’s granddaughter Sabine stands under the faded green awning, a heavy brass key in her hand, staring at the restaurant left to her by the grandmother she never met. Sabine has so many questions about herself. Perhaps here she can find answers, but she knows she isn’t welcome. Marianne was hated by the locals and when Sabine discovers they blamed her for the terrible tragedy that haunts the pretty restaurant, she is ready to abandon her dark legacy.

But when she finds a passport in a hidden compartment in the water-stained walls, with a picture of a woman who looks like her grandmother but has a different name, she knows there must be more to Marianne’s story. As she digs into the past, she starts to wonder: was her grandmother a heroine, not a traitor? What happened to her after the tragic night when she fled from her restaurant? And will the answer change her own life forever?

This is a truly emotional historical fiction with a tinge of thriller in it–about a woman who owned a restaurant in Paris in the early 1940’s and poisoned the customers, many are Nazi soldiers and was executed for her crimes.

The story starts in late 1980’s when Sabine gets a letter from a solicitor that she was set fo inherit a closed restaurant which was owned by her late grandmother. Sabine was surprised about the inheritance, as this grandmother’s name was Marianne and all she knew was her grandmother was not named Marianne. However, she finds that her mother must have possibly being adopted and in search for answers, she meets an elderly man named Gilbert who used to work at the restaurant as a young boy and who remembers Marianne dearly. Gilbert then recounts his time at the restaurant to Sabine and together they try to find answers to what really happened, the night Marianne poisoned those Nazi soldiers.

I do like the change in time lines and I like how the present day is set in the late 1980’s. I breifly read the author’s note who has said that this book is loosely based on the true story. It was really engaging and unputdownable but soon tear jerking and emotional moments come by the middle of the book when you find the real reason why Marianne did what she did. It was actually a heartbreaking scene and emotional to read and I was literally crying as I read those parts in the book. Nonetheless, the ending was great and the author has manage to captivate us readers taking us to the 1920’s Paris, France. Kudos to the author for doing so much research about the 1920’s to 1930’s Paris!

If you like an emotional and heart breaking historical thriller that will make you cry, The Last Restaurant in Paris is highly recommended. Worth the full five stars! This is the third book I have read form this author and I am looking forward to read more books by this author.

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

Lily Graham is the author of the bestselling, The Child of Auschwitz, The Paris Secret and The Island Villa, among others. Her books have been translated into numerous languages, including French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Turkish.

She grew up in South Africa, and was a journalist for a decade before giving it up to write fiction full time. Her first three novels were lighter, women’s fiction, but when she wrote The Island Villa, a story about a secret Jewish community living on the tiny island of Formentera during the Spanish Inquisition, she switched to historical fiction and hasn’t quite looked back since.

She lives now in the Suffolk coast with her husband and English bulldog, Fudge. Her latest book, The Flight of Swallows, set in Denmark and Sweden, will be out in January 2021.

Title:- The Light Always Breaks

Author:- Angela Jackson Brown

No. of pages:- 383 pages

Date published:- will be published on 5th July 2022

Genre:- Historical Fiction

Rating:

Plot:- 3/4

Writing:- 2/5

Overall:- 2.5/5

As 1947 opens, Eva Cardon is the twenty-four-year-old owner of Washington, D.C.’s, most famous Black-owned restaurant. When her path crosses with Courtland, a handsome white senator from Georgia, both find themselves drawn to one another—but the danger of a relationship between a Black woman and a white man from the South could destroy them and everything they’ve worked for.

Few women own upscale restaurants in civil rights era Washington, D.C. Fewer still are twenty-four, Black, and wildly successful. But Eva Cardon is unwilling to serve only the wealthiest movers and shakers, and she plans to open a diner that offers Southern comfort to the working class.

A war hero and one of Georgia’s native sons, Courtland Hardiman Kingsley IV is a junior senator with great ambitions for his time in D.C. But while his father is determined to see Courtland on a path to the White House, the young senator wants to use his office to make a difference in people’s lives, regardless of political consequences.

When equal-rights activism throws Eva and Courtland into each other’s paths, they can’t fight the attraction they feel, no matter how much it complicates their dreams. For Eva, falling in love with a white Southerner is all but unforgivable—and undesirable. Her mother and grandmother fell in love with white men, and their families paid the price. Courtland is already under pressure for his liberal ideals, and his family has a line of smiling debutantes waiting for him on every visit. If his father found out about Eva, he’s not sure he’d be welcome home again.

Surrounded by the disapproval of their families and the scorn of the public, Eva and Courtland must decide if the values they hold most dear—including love—are worth the loss of their dreams . . . and everything else.

This was in my opinion an OK books–not really good but not bad either.

The story is set in the beginning of 1947 with Eva Cordon opening an all successful Black restaurant in Washington DC. She meets a white man, Courtland who is a senator from Georgia. This is the period when the union between the colored and white people are forbidden. They both believe in equal rights and civil rights movement and eventually, they both start falling in love.

Although I liked the plot, the first few chapters were utter boring that I almost DNF the book. The story is told from the perspectives of Eva and Courtland so it was a bit interesting to know about their life in their own communities–Eva in the Black community and Courtland in the wealthy southern white community where he is expected to marry a white privileged woman from a wealthy family. The ending part is the part where I finally immersed into the story and although I was a bit sad of what really happened to Courtland, the ending wasn’t as bad as I thought it would become. Bad side of the book is too much dialogue which made me bored at some point, there were too much of repetition though the plot was a good one.

Overall, it was an OK historical novel–worth 2.5 stars

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

Angela Jackson-Brown is an award-winning writer, poet and playwright who teaches Creative Writing, English and African American Studies at Ball State University in Muncie, IN. She is also a member of the graduate faculty of the School of Creative and Professional Writing at Spalding University in Louisville, KY.

She is a graduate of Troy University, Auburn University and the Spalding low-residency MFA program in Creative Writing. She has published her short fiction, Creative Nonfiction, and poetry in journals like The Louisville Journal and the Appalachian Review.