The Watchmaker of Dachau @carlyschab11 @bookoutour #theholocaust #thewatchmakerofdachau #bookouter @absltmom

I am always drawn to stories that focus on the good that some people were able to find amongst the heinous acts of the Holocaust. Based on a true story, we meet two Jewish prisoners,  Isaac Schüller, a watchmaker, and Anna Reznick, a young woman who serves and waits on Senior Officer Becher and his wife. They are saved from the gas chambers because of their skills but are witness to the awful acts purported on the prisoners. Both of these people live in fear knowing their lives depend on their usefulness and mean nothing to the Bechers. They find solace in one another eventually becoming friends and more.

They constantly walk a tightrope afraid to do any wrong. As Issac worked in a cold wooden shack at the back of the Becher's plating home, he discovers something hidden in the floor that could put both Issac and Anna in even more danger. He also develops a friendship with the Becher's son, Friedrich, who had been taught to fear and hate the Jews, a group of people that he had never met. He learns through Issac's kindness that what is being done by his parents and others of their ilk is ever so wrong, repulsive, and shocking.

This well written story based somewhat on fact, is a well done historical fiction that kept the reader focused on the two main characters and praying for their safety and eventual rescue. It's a story of kindness intermingled with the abominable acts of others.

Thank you to Carly Schabowski, Bookouture, and NetGalley for a copy of this story due out January 20,2021.

and here’s the author:

Carly Schabowski worked as a journalist in both North Cyprus and Australia before returning to Oxford, where she studied for an MA and then a PhD in creative writing at Oxford Brookes University.

Carly now teaches at Oxford Brookes University as an associate lecturer in Creative Writing for first and second-year English literature students.

The Ringmaster’s Daughter is Carly’s debut novel and will be published by Bookouture in July 2020, with her second novel, The Watchmaker of Dachau coming out later that year. These texts are both true, epic, moving historical novels centred around survival, human suffering, and the finding of love within the backdrop of the desperate and uncertain times of 1940s Europe