Reviewed by Emma Crowley
Magda’s blood runs cold when she sees the German trucks coming up the road. Surrounded by dappled forests and tranquil lakes, she has felt far away from the war raging elsewhere. But despite having friends in high places, her Jewish employers have been living on borrowed time and now the Gestapo have come for them.
In a few hurried moments, Magda is asked to protect something more precious than the silver and jewels the family will leave behind. Their newborn son Samuel.
The local Resistance help Magda to hide Samuel nearby, and she agrees to remain in the house to serve the Nazi commander, while passing messages and supplies to their secret network. But when Magda is caught, she is forced to flee into the high mountains with a price on her head.
With the Nazis in pursuit, and nothing left to lose, Magda takes up arms with a band of partisan fighters in the hope of one day reuniting Samuel with his parents. Even if it might mean laying down her life to win the freedom of those she loves…
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of The Girl from the Mountains to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
The Girl from the Mountains is the first book I have read by Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger and it proved to be a fascinating insight into Czechoslovakia during World War Two as we follow Magda as her life is torn in two. When we first meet Magda, in the brief prologue, she is secretive and trying to go somewhere that no one must find. The reasons for this are explained later but you sense that what she is doing is dangerous. Villa Liska where for four years she found safety, friendship and security is no longer that place and now she hides many secrets. The birthmark on her cheek, she attributes this to her loneliness. She feels marked and that this blemish could lead to her ultimate downfall. The added scars she has received make her a marked woman and a suspect. Caution, secrecy and being careful are key now but what happens when an event occurs that changes her security and she becomes a wanted woman.
The story begins in 1938 and moves all the way through the war years. The earlier sections give us a background to Magda and how she came to live and work for the Taubers in Villa Liska. The village where Magda and her family lived in the Sudentenland was been taken over by the Germans. Their land, livestock and home is no longer theirs and the family move to live with a Great Aunt further away. Magda separates from them and has to go out into the world and she finds employment as a governess to the Tauber family. She soon discovers they are Jewish but they have been afforded a reprieve due to the man of the house being a doctor and therefore carrying out important work.
Magda knows, despite the security offered by the Taubers, that the situation she is in is balanced on a knife edge. The Germans are extending their power, committing awful atrocities and the ravages of war grow by the day. She knows she just needs to survive. Do what they want and at some point all this will be over. She needs to get through it and live but this is easier said then done. Magda desperately wants her family back together and she is innocent enough to believe that this can all happen without much bloodshed and sacrifice. Who knew what was going to happen as the war intensified and the Germans increased their levels of capture and deportation?
Magda feels safe, warm and well and the villa and she strikes up a special relationship with her charge Eliska but also the Tubers themselves. Jana, the cook, and Renata, the housemaid, become firm friends but still I thought Magda at this point wasn’t truly aware of what was literally knocking at the doors of the villa. The villa becomes like a crew of lost souls as different people are taken in. Walter, being one of these, and in turn Magda develops feelings for him. But people are not all as they seem as indoctrination and propaganda rear their ugly heads. People’s opinions, viewpoints and stances change as they become brainwashed and one does not know whom one can trust. An event towards the end of the first section sees the story turn entirely on its head and it’s where for quite some time I lost respect for Magda.
I thought she was foolish, reckless, naïve and put people in unnecessary danger leading to disastrous and irreparable consequences. How could she not see what she did changed everything for so many people? From this point this is where we see a much needed change in the psyche of Magda. The warrior queen over time slowly starts to emerge as she knows she needs to avenge the wrong she did. Although later on, as she is in the heart of the Germans lair so to speak, she again does something so careless and stupid that she has no choice but to go on the run. You would have thought she would have had more sense, knowing danger, terror, fear, pain and humiliation were literally at her door. But I think she was so caught up in remembering people that were forcefully taken that at the time she believed she was doing the right thing.
Magda is definitely a divisive character for a good half of the book. It’s only in the later half that she shows her true colours, that were perhaps buried there underneath all along. She just needed a wake up call even though this came in the most terrible of circumstances. As a character she does a complete 360, gone is the weak, indecisive, innocent, gullible and guileless young woman and a new Magda emerges. She becomes brave, courageous and really grows up. The hate emanates from her and she has a new resolve that is hard to put into words. But she has a mission and will not rest until she has succeeded.
Magda knows she is in danger and that one false move could see her imprisoned and the worst fate befall her. She keeps ploughing on and is a totally different woman from when we first meet her. Here is where the Czech resistance starts to feature in the story and it was fascinating what a small band of people did putting their lives on the line trying to bring about the downfall of evil. I had read many times about the French resistance so it was brilliant to read how this occurred in a different country too and through excellent writing you could see that the author had carried out such detailed and interesting research.
The book started off very strong as we are introduced to the main character and the background as to the situation, she finds herself in is explained and developed. The book continued at a steady pace and again to use the same words remained strong, focused, interesting and edge of your seat stuff. But I found towards the end of the book, perhaps the last 20 or 25% that things were just happening too fast that I couldn’t keep up with what was going on. There was a lot of information regarding different groups, locations, movements and fighting and it felt like so many details were just rushed on to the page. That the reader had no chance to absorb what was happening before we were onto the next event. It was as if everything needed to be written down on paper as the author knew the end was drawing near and there was still lots to cover. I understand things were really coming to a head at the period in question as the Germans downfall was just around the corner. But for me it felt too rushed.
Honestly though that was the only issue I had with this book, and it did come towards the end so overall it didn’t detract too much from the fact that really was a very well written story with a convincing, detailed and absorbing plot with a female heroine who initially you finding exasperating in terms of her naivety and the totally reckless, dangerous and unnecessary things that she does but she goes through a transformation. You become completely involved in her story and see how her personality changes and she really does wise up as she knows she needs to make amends for her foolishness in putting people in danger. She wants vengeance but will she get it? To find out you will have to read this book to see how far will the Warrior Queen go in her quest to right a wrong? It’s definitely a very good book that will open your eyes to a new aspect of the war you may not have read about before.
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