Reviewed by Emma Crowley
Lili Rodenberg and her husband Marius run the Edel, Berlin’s most glamorous hotel. For its wealthy guests, it is an escape from the destruction outside, with its elegant piano bar and fine amber brandy. But Lili is Jewish, a secret she is terrified will end in tragedy for her and their beloved little girl.
Lili’s only choice is to hide in plain sight, her heart racing each time uniformed officers step through the Edel’s grand entrance. As Berlin becomes a more frightening place, Lili pleads with her husband to help shelter those in danger but Marius is adamant: he will not risk the lives of his wife and daughter. Until the day he is called to the front – and goes missing in action.
Left in sole charge of the Edel, a heartbroken Lily fixes her smile as she serves men who would have her killed in an instant if they knew the truth. She decides she must fight back, hiding Jews in the hotel’s wine cellar before moving them to safety. Though she is seized with terror, it gives her the strength to carry on.
But her courage catches the attention of the Resistance. What they ask of her is impossible.
Lili has protected her daughter by living a life full of secrets. Can she risk it all now and put her child in danger for the sake of her country?
Many thanks to Bookoutire via NetGalley for my copy of The Secret Hotel in Berlin to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
The Secret Hotel in Berlin by Catherine Hokin provides the reader with a fascinating insight into life in Berlin during World War Two. It’s told in a dual timeline format which effortlessly moves back and forth between Berlin in 1990 not long after the wall has come down and the early 1940’s as a prominent hotel in the city plays host to the powers that be that have inflicted untold violence, brutality and terror upon so many. It’s not often a story in this genre focuses on the aftermath and is set in the 1990’s so I found this aspect of the storyline to be informative and very interesting. Although, I will say the elements of the plot set in the past held my attention ever so slightly more. Not that there was anything wrong with reading with Lucy’s modern day storyline as it helped to bridge the gap between the past and the present and deliver much needed answers but the past always seems to draw me in and refuses to relinquish its grip.
March 1990 and Lucy has arrived in Berlin to scout locations for new hotels her boss Charlie hopes to buy as the city reopens itself to tourism following 50 years of a split between East and West. The scars of that time are still clearly visible and there are a lot of stories to be unearthed. Lucy visits the Edel Hotel, one of several on her list, and once she steps through the doors despite its state of disrepair there is something that speaks to her. There is history soaked into its walls and clearly an important story waiting to be told. Once it’s decided this will be the next hotel the company wants she sets about overseeing it’s transformation. Little does she realise upon beginning this journey that many remarkable and shocking things happened there during the war and now is the time to attempt to right many wrongs and injustices.
Lucy throughout the story was the conduit linking the past and the present. She too is suffering from her own emotional trauma and in taking on this job she begins to see some small similarities to her own story and it only serves to fuel her fire in uncovering the truth and hopefully clearing someone’s name. She meets architect Adam who turns out to be the grandson of Marius the owner of the hotel during the war. Adam did not know he had any ties to the hotel until the wall came down. His history has been kept from him. But why? Adam initially, remained aloof and distant regarding learning more about his family and there must have been a reason that he didn’t jump at the chance to discover more. As the renovations begin and Lucy finds out that the last recorded owner of the hotel, that being Lili Rodenberg, was murdered by the resistance because of her connections to Hitler and his inner circle she is desperate to learn more and to see how it connects to Adam’s family and of course whether this was true at all.
I loved the subtlety of the connection/friendship that developed between Lucy and Adam and with the discovery of a diary their story goes on a different trajectory. One which will see them both work together attempting to uncover the exact truth. For the Lili represented in newspaper articles is painted as a demon and someone who betrayed so many but he can not reconcile with that fact. Soon the hotel and its renovation became more than just a job for Lucy it took on a more personal level and as the layers of the past were slowly and deftly pulled back I became completely engrossed in the story and thoroughly enjoyed the chapters set in the past.
Lili arrives in Berlin from Liepzig in 1929. She is Jewish and attempting to shed her old skin and keep her heritage a secret. She lost her mother to Spanish Flu and her father to a braying mob outside the synagogue and this hurt and pain will be a driving force for everything she does for the remainder of the book. Lili was a brilliantly written character so full of drive and ambition and as the years pass by and she acquires her own flower shop and meets and marries Marius and becomes an expert at playing hostess and running the Eden Hotel the reader sees her grow and mature. Yet that need for revenge never dulls inside her and with the rise of Hitler and his National Socialist party and all the laws, brutality and degradation inflicted upon the Jewish population she knows she can play a vital role in eliminating such cruelty from the world. Usually, I would find it disconcerting for a timeline to be moved forward quite rapidly over the course of just a few chapters but here it worked perfectly. I understood its necessity in setting the scene in how Lili came to be in Berlin, what fueled her and how her marriage to Marius developed and led to the birth of her daughter.
The details of the Eden Hotel during the war were incredible. It seemed to be a place out of this world where every need and whim of the German elite were met with little fuss and Hitler and his cronies could meet knowing there business would never be passed on. The descriptions of the hotel were stunning and I could picture everything so clearly in my mind. What really struck me though is the way life continued on as normal in this area whilst probably just mere streets away so much pain and suffering was being inflicted on anyone who was Jewish. Lili herself was in a very dangerous position and even more so when Marius is forced to enlist in the fighting and she is left to manage the hotel herself. If anyone had discovered her true heritage everything would have been over in an instant.
Instead, I admired her resourcefulness in how she used her position to her advantage. She put on a brave face day after day serving those who would have her killed in an instant had they known who she really was. I don’t know how she did this but it just goes to show the strength of character and fortitude that she possessed. I loved how she became involved in Resistance work and that she was able to glean information whilst serving Hitler at his private lunches. It was almost like a kick to his face that someone who he would have despised so much was right under his nose and he had no idea. Fear had made her run from her faith and hide who she was but she never forgot her roots and was determined that those who wrecked her world would one day pay.
The plot itself moved along at a good pace and there were plenty of twists and turns especially as Lucy and Adam edged further to the truth in the present. I felt we learned things in the present that at the time didn’t make sense given what I was reading about in the past and I did wonder how would things be explained. But the author had everything so carefully planned and I really enjoyed the last quarter or so of the book as things began to become clearer and in particular one aspect started to make itself known and I was thinking how was this possible? Would it seem laughable for it to come true but Catherine Hokin made it work very well. Lili is an inspirational character, whose story will stay with readers for a long time once they have read the final word. The ending was deeply satisfying and I felt like I had been taken on a rollercoaster of a journey packed full of emotions, devastation, heartbreak, resistance, hope and love. The Secret Hotel in Berlin is a book I would definitely recommend as you’ll be caught up in the bravery and sacrifice of some inspiring and impressive characters.
No comments:
Post a Comment