Emma's Review: The Boy in the Attic by Imogen Matthews

Reviewed by Emma Crowley 

Nazi-occupied Holland, 1944. As soldiers patrol the streets, nursing student Ilse is only just surviving the terrible famine and increasingly violent German occupation. Though exhausted by her demanding work at a hospital far from home, she can’t help but notice Levi, the young man with the dark eyes watching the world silently from the abandoned house next door.

Then, early one morning, she finds him terrified and trembling with cold on the back doorstep. Levi’s Jewish family have been arrested and sent to a concentration camp, their likely fate all too clear. And now he needs her help.

So Ilse makes the most dangerous decision of her life, and takes Levi in. Hiding him away in her tiny attic room, he must remain concealed or risk almost certain death. But as the war worsens, keeping Levi a secret becomes ever more difficult, even as their mutual affection grows. And when a local German soldier becomes obsessed with Ilse, they fear their time – and luck – has run out…

London, present day. When Anna’s father dies, he leaves her a ticket to Amsterdam, a bent silver sixpence on a delicate silver chain, and a note begging her to complete the journey he was never able to. To the town where he was born, to find out once and for all who his parents were, and to discover their wartime fate. 

Book Link: Kindle

Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of The Boy in the Attic to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.

The Boy in the Attic is the third in the Wartime Holland series by Imogen Matthews. It most certainly can be read as a stand alone book as there are brand new characters and it moves away from focusing on the hidden village and its residents which featured heavily in the first two books. I’m glad this was the case as I feel the story following the hidden village had run its course. This new book is by far the best in the series so far, it was like I was reading a completely different author. There wasn’t any slow or long winded introduction to the story instead we are straight into the action and I felt for the most part everything that was mentioned was relevant to the story. I found the writing had much more depth and meaning and the plot was far tighter and there wasn’t as much waffling as I felt there had been before. I was far more engrossed in this story and I loved that this was a dual timeline read set between 2001 and 1945. I found with books one and two not much happened at the start and in fact for a very long time whereas here by the quarter mark there was a big connection revealed and this made me excited to keep reading. There was a very brief lull at the halfway point where the story slowed down and lost its way slightly before things picked up again and I found myself quickly reading to get to the last few chapters to see how everything resolved itself if at all?

The story effortlessly moves back and forth between Anna in 2001 and Ilse in 1945 and I loved how eventually the two strands came together and connected. I didn’t prefer one aspect over the other as is normally the case for me when reading dual timeline books as I found both Anna and Ilse to be interesting characters with different qualities that had me caught up in their lives. Anna lives in London and works as a freelance writer. She is in a relationship with Hugo but right from the outset the reader can see this is not a union that is going anywhere fast and it’s quite inevitable what will end up happening with them. It’s a bit clichéd what goes on to happen but it is necessary for a part of the story to work out. When Anna’s father, Paul, falls ill whilst away on a work trip and subsequently dies her world is torn apart. As she is helping her mother clear out his things she stumbles across a tin can in his study which contains a necklace with a silver sixpence on it. Immediately Anna jumps to the wrong conclusions and I hated that she acted that way but when she tells her mother what she has found it’s then the truth comes out.

In the weeks before his death her father had discovered that he had been adopted at birth. He had believed his birth mother could still be alive in Holland and had planned to visit her to find out the truth of his birth and adoption and also who is biological father was. But time ran out on Paul and Anna decides that she will continue this quest for her father. I think Anna was shocked by what she learnt about her father but was more than keen to delve back into the history of her family in Holland. It came at the right time for her because you could sense that she needed to get away from Paul as he was always away working and when he was at home he didn’t put the love and attention needed into their relationship. I enjoyed reading of how Anna visits Holland and meets up with a family who she used to meet when her family visited her grandparents when she was younger. I could see in what direction the plot was venturing in with regard to Anna discovering the truth and yes there were several twists and turns towards the end and I knew a lot of what was coming but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the story. Although, I did think towards the end things happened too quickly for Anna. It all just seemed a little bit too convenient in order to get everything wrapped up by the end. 

Ilse is a young woman who is brave, strong and courageous and who would do anything to ensure her parents make it through the war. She lives in the small town of Rijswijk and prior to the outbreak of the war she had been at university studying to be a doctor. Now, as the war enters its sixth year times are desperate with a famine gripping Holland. Due to the German blockades there is no food to be found in any of the shops and money has long lost its currency and anything that can be bartered for food if it is available has been used quite some time ago. Ilse spends her days venturing out foraging for food in fields and a new low is reached when all that is left to eat is tulip bulbs. It’s horrific to think that people were reduced to this and had to lead such a relentless life of misery praying that one day the war would reach its conclusion and that they would be on the winning side. Ilse had such love and respect for her parents and I admired everything she did for them so I was surprised when she takes up the offer to help out her friend Connie’s family at a sanitorium in Hilversum. I wanted her to stay at home and try and keep providing for her family as both her parents were so vulnerable but if she had the whole point of this book would never have taken place.

When Ilse settles into life with Connie and her family she sees a new side to the war as she discovers Connie has been keeping things from her. Creaks in the attic reveal themselves to be Levi, a Jewish jeweller, who has lost his family and is hiding from being captured and sent god knows where. Ilse develops a friendship with Liev which inevitably develops into something more. This all happened very quickly but I suppose it needed to in order to let further plot points develop. You do feel the love between the pair but as everything was so secretive and cloak and dagger they could never truly be themselves. With Germans sniffing around every corner Ilse and Connie too thread a very thin line. What will happen if Levi is discovered? Ilse had a difficult and hard road to journey but her actions were respectful and courageous and the more I read the more I wanted to know how the past and present would connect together.

I can’t fail to mention the blurb and although I hate saying this but it is an important point and it has niggled away at me since I read the book. The blurb needs to be rewritten as the description of the book is wrong in terms of the content of the book and how Ilse meets Levi and Anna’s father writing her a letter. I’m wondering does the blurb recount how they did meet but then the content of the book changed or was there some mix up when writing it. I wouldn’t usually go on about a blurb too much but seen as the facts are wrong I felt the need to mention it. That said I enjoyed reading The Boy in the Attic. It’s very well written and you come to care deeply for the characters both in the past and the present. There is a great element of mystery with lots of twists and turns and of course the romance element which highlights the difficult situations the characters find themselves in not of their making but how they choose to deal with them and move forward makes for interesting reading.

The Boy in the Attic is a very good read and the author has used strands of her own personal family history combined with fictional elements. I hadn’t known much about Holland during the war prior to discovering this author but she has done a very good job of highlighting the plight of so many innocent people left to suffer and starve once the Germans started to impose blockades. Not to mention shining a light on the extraordinary lengths ordinary people went to,to  protect those they loved or even people that had never previously met especially as these people where needlessly persecuted because of their religion. When the worst of times befall us the good nature, kindness and strength of people comes to the fore and Ilse and Connie really show this. With this book, I feel Imogen Matthews has taken on board what reviewers may have said about the first two books and both the writing and plot development is definitely tighter. I’m glad I have persisted with this series and am interested to see will it continue or is there something different in store for the future?