Reviewed by Emma Crowley
Poland, 1943: Every day, Irena is terrified as she serves the Nazis who drink in her town’s hotel. But with war raging, she has little choice if she is to support her family. She just prays she won’t catch the eye of any of the officers who have invaded her country. If she does, the consequences are unthinkable…
More than anyone she fears Richter, a member of the Gestapo with a reputation as frightening as his vicious smile. Each time she glimpses him across the room, her blood runs cold. But her family must eat, and so she must face her fears each day.
But when Irena is told she must serve Richter personally, she knows she will no longer be able to hide. Trembling, she approaches his table. And when his cold gaze finally settles on her, she realizes that her fate has already been sealed.
When Irena’s worst fears come true and she bears a child, her baby is a small glimmer of hope in an otherwise dark world. But when the baby is taken from her one winter night, she swears that she will stop at nothing to avenge her child’s life…
But is Irena prepared for revenge to cost her everything? And even if she is, will she recover from the truth she is about to uncover?
Book Challenge: #24in24 24 countries in 2024: Book Ten - Argentina
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of The Winter Child to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
Carly Schabowksi’s new novel, The Winter Child, takes the reader back and forth between Poland during World War Two and Argentina in the 1990’s. It’s a tale of emotional trauma as one woman searches for redemption after unspeakable events were perpetrated on her during the Nazi’s occupation of her hometown in Poland. I found this to be a quick read but it did pack an emotional punch as Irena’s search for her perpetrator allows her to relive her past but there is a grey area which deals with the morality of the situation and both the reader and Irena face a constant battle between what is right and wrong.
The book opens with a brief prologue where a man describes receiving a letter every year on the same date and the words written are always the same - you are going to die. There is never a return address and the stamps could be from a range of countries. These letters inspire memories of a woman and a situation that he was involved in many years ago. But all these years later there is little remorse shown although someone wants him to pay for his cruel and callous deeds. The plot effortlessly moves back and forth between the town of Zakopane in Poland during the war and the seaside of Pinamar in Argentina in 1994. The storyline is easy to follow and easy to get sucked into. Although, I will admit around the halfway point things did start to click with me and I figured out how things were going to work out and what the connections between characters were but this didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the story and my compulsion to keep reading on.
January 1994 and Irena is burying her husband Mateusz on a cold winter’s day. She had needed him to die before her as there is something she has been waiting to do for many years and she knows he would not have allowed her to undertake the journey she is about to embark on. The years and layers of trauma, pain, and worry have been building and she has a strong desire to put things right. Instantly, you can tell that Irena is a woman scorned and she wants revenge no matter what. But what happened to her? Who caused her this pain that has impacted her for so long. The clue is in the title and as the chapters pass by and the story unfolds, I found the image used on the cover had a strong forbearing on the story. In fact, I thought the title and the imagery were absolutely perfect and fitted so well with the overall themes and plot and it’s not often that that can happen.
Irena along with her best friend Anna travels to Argentina. It’s a trip which she has wanted to take for a very long time and she goes there with passion and a fire in her belly. She is edging ever closer to her end goal but she must be calm and patient. For she has waited so long, it wouldn’t do for things to go wrong at the most crucial point. The descriptions of the Argentian city of Pinamar were fantastic and such a stark contrast to her experiences in Poland during the war. You could feel the heat as she explores the streets with the help of Peter who offers guided tours. As Irena seeks the person who has haunted her every waking moment for an endless amount of time the tension increases, and I was rapidly turning the pages to discover who she was seeking and for what reason.
We also gain a deeper insight into Peter and his partner Sara who each have chapters from their viewpoint. Peter too is deeply affected by his past although the answers he seeks he feels are further from his grasp than ever before. I loved how Peter and Sara tied into the story and the author had the perfect balance between what they were learning and trying to deal with and how Irena fitted into the overall picture too. Anna as a character in the present day was a bit of a conundrum. The way she spoke and acted was quite strange and after a while I realised this was because she was deeply affected by her war experiences. She had been scarred and in some way Irena’s quest was also to get redemption for Anna also.
In Zakopane, a town surrounding by mountains and countryside, the Nazi’s have taken over everything and the residents live in fear. Irena lives with her parents and longs for the freedom she once enjoyed. Instead, there is a dark cloud hanging over Zakopane which only grows in intensity. Everyone is stuck in a limbo of uncertainty and forced to do things they never thought possible. Irena works in the Grand Stamary Hotel where the Gestapo have rooms. Her job is in the kitchens, but an incident means she is soon forced to wait tables where one man in particular has become quite taken with her. Christoph Richter is a Nazi and enjoys nothing more than brutality, persecution and instilling pain and fear in those not deemed worthy of existing. Irena becomes his plaything. He is the master pulling the strings and she is the puppet that must dance attendance on him. Whatever he desires she must provide and she is given no choice.
Irena becomes drawn into a cruel game of cat and mouse. Richter is a master manipulator and she knows that if she does not do his bidding then the worst fate could befall herself and her family. But Irena wants to do her bit for the Resistance no matter that it could potentially find her at the Gestapo headquarters facing interrogation. I desperately hoped that things would not come to that but I hated the fact that she had to submit to Richter. He was a cruel bully who degraded her in so many ways and the trauma he goes on to inflict on her will imprint itself on her for many years. I did wonder when Mateusz would feature in the past timeline and when he did I actually wanted more of him. I wanted to know in greater detail his war experiences and the brave and courageous work that he was undertaking. I knew that Irena couldn’t be seen with him but their romance felt a bit quick and fleeting and it was as if they never got to spend any real time together yet there was a real deep connection between the pair. I wished something could have been done to rid Richter from Irena’s life but I felt once she got sucked into his games there was no escaping his evil clutches. He enjoyed ruining people’s lives and as the story progresses and the shrouds of secrecy are pulled back the reader sees the impact of his time in Zakopane had on Irena and her family.
Irena was a fantastic character who was expertly developed throughout the course of the story. She was very driven and focused but wasn’t shouting everything from the roof tops. She had bided her time planning everything to a t. The reader is waiting for a big climax and I knew what I wanted to happen. Instead, it was subtly played out and yes there was a slight element of disappointment for me as I wanted retribution fast and instant. But here is where the grey area of morality came into play and the reader has to pause and go with the way Irena is thinking. Although, I will say one particular thing that occurs towards the end brought a smile to my face and left me deeply satisfied and I’m sure other readers will feel the same too. The Winter Child was a very good, emotional story that raises many questions and will certainly set you thinking about good and bad, right and wrong. If you long for something a little bit different with your historical fiction reads then this is the book for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment