Emma's Review: The Winter Child by Carly Schabowski

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?

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Emma's Review: The Postcard by Carly Schabowski

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

Holding the faded postcard in her trembling hands, Mia begins to read the one story her grandmother could never tell her, revealing a secret that will change her own life forever…

When her beloved grandmother, Ilse, is taken into hospital, Mia drops everything to travel to Germany and care for the woman who raised her. But when her grandmother briefly wakes up and asks for a man called Szymon, Mia is confused. Who is he? And why does her grandmother need to see him so desperately?

Later that night, Mia returns to her grandmother’s apartment to search for clues. She soon discovers a small parcel hidden inside one of Ilse’s suitcases. When she removes the wrapping, she finds a stack of faded postcards neatly bound together, signed with a name that makes her heart stop in her chest: Szymon.

Desperate to find Szymon before it is too late, Mia unearths a story her grandmother never told her: of childhood friendship and heartbreaking young love on the eve of the Second World War, and of a plan to rescue a young man imprisoned by the Nazis. Mia can’t quite believe her grandmother was so brave, and risked so much to save this man’s life… But did she succeed?

As the final pieces of the past come together, Mia realizes that she is about to find out what really happened to her grandmother during the war. But she doesn’t expect to uncover a secret that will change everything…

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Emma's Review: The Airman's Girl by Carly Schabowski

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

Poland, 1939: As I stare into the German pilot’s frightened eyes, I realise I have no choice but to help him. And in that moment, I know that this young man, and this decision, will change my life forever…

When a German pilot crashes over my parents’ farmland, at first I am terrified. Who is this man? And should I help him, or have him arrested? But when I look into his eyes for the first time, I feel in my heart that I must do everything I can to save this stranger’s life.

As I begin to secretly nurse his injuries, he tells me his name is Max. And as we share whispered candlelit conversations, he admits that he didn’t crash his plane, but parachuted over Poland to defect from the Nazis. And as he slowly tells me his story, I realise I am falling in love with this man – with his bravery, and his determination to do what is right, no matter the cost.

But when the Nazis arrive, the small world we have built together is shattered in an instant. And when the Germans arrest me and my twin siblings, dragging us to a camp in the dead of night, I know that our only chance of survival, our only hope, is to be rescued.

As I sit in my cell, I think of what Max told me. He held my hand and promised me that if we were arrested, he would go undercover as a German soldier and save us. But will the guards believe his story? And, even if they do, will he make it to us before it is too late?

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Emma's Review: All the Courage We Have Found by Carly Schabowski

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

France, 1942: As Kasia creeps out of the farmhouse in the dead of night to transmit an urgent message, her heart pounds in her chest. Gripping her radio tightly in her hand, she feels a terrible sense of dread. She knows that this message could be the one that finally leads the Nazis to her…

Crouching in the shadows, with trembling fingers she turns the dial on her radio and hears the familiar crackle of static. Shaking, she quickly taps out her message and, holding her breath, she waits in the darkness.

Suddenly, she sees a quick flash of light out at sea. Her message has been received by the Allied boats; now they know it’s not safe to come ashore tonight.

As she looks back towards the little farmhouse, her heart catches in her throat. Inside, the two people she loves most in this world are sleeping soundly. Because while Kasia knows her messages might save thousands of soldiers, she also knows that her radio signal could bring the Germans terrifyingly close, perhaps even straight to Hugo and Elodie…

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Emma's Review: The Note by Carly Schabowski

Reviewed by Emma Crowley 

Germany, 1942. Adeline and Jozef cling to each other as they are directed off the train and pulled apart by Nazi guards at the gates of Auschwitz. Stripped of their belongings, their arms are inked with prison numbers. In the death camp, their days are numbered––will they ever see each other again?

South Carolina, ten years later. As a summer storm sweeps in, shocked townspeople gather at the edge of a forest lake. The body of a local girl had been found on the bank that morning. As thirteen-year-old Alice stands in the crowd, she catches sight of a figure, hidden in the trees, watching. She knows who he is—a newcomer in town, a German refugee named Jozef. Her neighbors whisper that he can’t be trusted—that he saw terrible things in the war. But what, Alice wonders, is he doing here now? And could he possibly be connected to what has just happened?

When Alice confronts the man, Jozef opens ups about his painful past. Hearing about the desperate choices people were forced to make in Auschwitz, and the hunt for freedom amongst so much heartbreak, Alice starts to see her own life—and the death of her friend—in a new light. And, as their bond deepens, Alice finally uncovers why Jozef was at the lake that day. When the long-awaited storm breaks the suffocating heatwave, the terrible truth finally comes out, and Alice’s life will never be the same again…

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Emma's Review: The Rainbow by Carly Schabowski

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

London, present day. Isla has grown up hearing her beloved grandad’s stories about his life as a child in pre-war Poland and as a young soldier bravely fighting the Germans to protect his people. So she is shocked and heartbroken to find, while collecting photos for his 95th birthday celebration, a picture of her dear grandfather wearing a Nazi uniform. Is everything she thought she knew about him a lie?

Unable to question him due to his advanced dementia, Isla wraps herself in her rainbow-coloured scarf, a memento of his from the war, and begins to hunt for the truth behind the photograph. What she uncovers is more shocking than she could have ever anticipated – a tale of childhood sweethearts torn apart by family duty, and how one young man risked his life, his love and the respect of his own people, to secretly fight for justice from inside the heart of the enemy itself…

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Emma's Review: The Ringmaster's Daughter by Carly Schabowski

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

Circus people don't ask who you were before, or what god you believe in… when you join the circus, you are family, whatever your past.

Paris, 1940. Twenty-year-old Michel Bonnet lives on the edge of the law, finding work where he can breaking in horses on the outskirts of the city. But when the Nazis invade, Michel takes refuge as a stowaway on a rickety train bound for the rural south. It’s a journey that will change his life forever.

The train is property of Le Cirque Neumann – a travelling circus owned by the troubled and irritable showman Werner Neumann. Neumann offers Michel a job caring for the company’s horses – a lucky break, but with an unusual condition attached. Michel must keep to himself and never speak of what he sees behind the glittering curtain of the big top.

But as Michel finds himself pulled into the strange and wondrous world of the great spectacular it becomes more difficult to keep his promise. Why does the man with the performing monkey never speak, and the sword swallower turn his face away? Who are the silent, shadowy figures who flit like moths between the wagons when the sun is down? It’s clear that Neumann is keeping his performers hidden away… but why?

And how can Michel win the love of the beautiful and exotic trapeze artist Freida – the graceful, green-eyed star of Neuman’s spectacular – when he’s been forbidden to even meet her gaze?

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