Reviewed by Emma Crowley
In the middle of the night, while I am curled in Ben’s arms, there is a harsh knock on the door. My blood turns to ice. The love of my life is Jewish, and I am a Romany gypsy maid; every second that we exist in Hitler’s Europe, we are in danger. Every day, we have been huddling around a crackling radio, listening for news of this evil war. Every night, we have feared we won’t live till dawn.
The banging continues, and we leap out of bed. I can hardly breathe as I open the door, seeing Nazis standing before us. My heart cracks as the soldiers grab Ben. I’m powerless to stop them from shoving him into a wagon, bound for the place of no return.
The love of my life is now imprisoned in wire with thousands of other innocent inmates. For every moment he is trapped behind the gates of hell, he gets closer to death—surviving on scraps of food, and forced to work in gruelling conditions.
The soldiers haven’t arrested me yet, but it’s only a matter of time. I vow to stay alive for Ben, not to give up hope. I’ll stop at nothing to escape the enemy as they hunt me down.
With our fate in the hands of monsters, will we ever see each other again? And will our love for one another save us—or kill us?
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of The Maid’s Secret to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
The Maid’s Secret by Shari J Ryan provides the reader with a really deep insight into how those who were targets or victims of Hitler’s needless persecution coped with the dreadful circumstances they were forced to endure throughout the duration of World War Two. I have read a lot of historical fiction books where Jewish people were the focus, detailing how they suffered but here a slightly different angle was presented to the reader as another sector of society featured. That being the Romani/Gypsy community and although I had previously read brief mentions, in a line or two, of the Romani community being sent to concentration camps I had never heard specifically from their perspective and that’s where our main female character, Mila, comes into play. It was fascinating to read of how Mila, from a marginalised sector of society herself marries into the Jewish community and she in fact becomes the one who seems to have the upper hand so to speak when it comes to the persecution of those not deemed worthy by Hitler to walk upon the earth.
September 1938 and Mila travels with her family through Bohemia not far from the Czechoslovakian boarder. They have reached their stopping point where other Romani families have set up camp. She has one sister and two brothers and her father is a horse trader. When his latest deal is complete he returns and says he has found work for Mila at a local estate for a Jewish family. She must tend to the two horses and act as maid in the house. Mila, although perturbed by what her father has asked her to do seeing as she is so used to the nomadic lifestyle, doesn’t seem that overly worried that her father volunteered her for this job. From the outset, I found Mila to be wise beyond her years. She had a good, solid head on her shoulders and could view life from many perspectives. She hoped that one day people would learn from their past mistakes and that people wouldn’t be treated differently because of their race or religion but times are tough with the new race laws introduced in Germany and soon German occupied territories and the family Mila goes to work for find themselves the target of said laws and their lives are changed forever.
Ben lives with his parents Hanna and Josef and brothers Tobias, Filip and Pavel. They own an estate and have lived a very comfortable life. Mila must keep secret that she is a member of the Romani community as certain members of the family show their prejudice very easily. But how will they feel when the tables are turned on them and they became the focus of racial hatred all because of their religion? There is a sense of uncertainty and foreboding throughout the book. Yes there are light moments as Mila and Ben grow closer and initially keep things secret from his family and the time they share stolen moments with the horses but overall there is a lot of darkness as the threat of Hitler extends ever further and more and more ludicrous laws are introduced.
When Mila discovers her family have disappeared, her heart is torn in two and now she knows she is on her own but Ben steps into the breach and is there for her. He is the complete anthesis to his other family members. He seemed more down to earth and willing to accept people for who they were. I do think their relationship was very rushed, it was like they met and married all within a few chapters and I questioned would this have happened in real life and would someone from the Romani community really have married into a wealthy family?
As soon as Mila became a family member it was clear that she would face a difficult road and really all the characters that featured due to their religion or race and the way the war was developing that pain and suffering were ahead of them. As the family’s world grows ever smaller due to the laws and restrictions Mila took on an important role that would hopefully save the estate and she deserved nothing but admiration for this. Given how Tobias especially viewed her if it had been me I wouldn’t have been so selfless but it really did show the love she had for Ben. Their love became all consuming but fate was to tear them apart. For simply being Jewish Ben was arrested and taken to a camp. I felt Mila really stepped up a gear here in her role within the family. Other circumstances meant that Hanna fell apart and it was up to Mila to step into the breech and take control. Again this is where I felt she was mature beyond her years as Hanna could be very cold, bitter and spiteful. Mila rose to the occasion and made many sacrifices all because her love of Ben was deep and true. But whether they can survive the tempest they find themselves in and the horrific conditions of the camps full of death and disease well you will have to read this interesting and emotive story to discover the answers.
The book overall is quite slow and doesn’t ever build a huge momentum but still despite this it is a good read. The last quarter or so of the book it did feel that details were rushed through quickly. This seems the opposite to what I have just said but it’s not that the pace picked up and the story became full of twists and turns it’s more that I found years seemed to pass within a page or two without anything specific happening or else it felt like details were glossed over as if the author knew the book needed to come to a conclusion and she had to get the characters to a certain point quite quickly. But I will say the epilogue made up for this and it provided a good amount of detail as to what happened next and I was glad I wasn’t left in limbo with many unanswered questions. It helped provide the reader with a satisfactory ending and showed some good did come out of the most horrific situation.
The Maid’s Secret is a story of forbidden love and going against the rules and regulations of society in a time when it was very dangerous to do so. The characters show immense bravery, courage and strength and do their best to keep going when all the odds are very much stacked against them. It was a good read although perhaps some of the previous books by this author would be my favourite.
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