BLOG TOUR: The Edelweiss Sisters by Kate Hewitt @author_kate @bookouture #ww2 #family #sisters @absltmom

My review

Life is quiet in Saltzburg, Austria, for the Eder sisters. Joanna, Birgit, and Lotte however along with the people of Austria all that serenity while working in their father’s clock-making shop is about to end as the world approaches war and Hitler is about to annex Austria. The girls all have different opinions about Hitler and the presence of the Nazis. Joanna thinks they might not be so bad, while Birgit believes that they are up to no good. Lotte, the baby of the family wants peace and solitude and is on the brink of considering a vocation to the nunnery.

When their father hires, a young man, Franz, a Jewish boy, Joanna is smitten but the realization overtaking many is that Jews are to be detested, are to be purged from society, and of course eventually are to be eliminated. With the Anschluss being put in place, the lives of the girls and their family change to inevitable tragedy. Their father a non-supporter of the Nazis is taken to prison and interrogated while Franz goes into hiding, luckily not being found in the Eder household. The father returns damaged from his ordeal.

Meanwhile, Lotte has entered the nunnery, at Nonnberg Abbey, where she believes she can escape the war and its tumult. Little does she realize that soon, it will come knocking on the abbey’s door. Birgit can’t watch the unhappiness that war brings. She enlists in the resistance which later on will play an important part in helping Franz escape for a while.

The sisters come to the realization that they will need to band together, and enable their hope and spirit to succeed and do what they can to thwart the injustices they see around them. There is sadness ahead as they and others experience the horrors of Ravensbruck and Mauthausen. The outright detailing once again of conditions, and how people were annihilated because of their faith, their way of life, and their physical or mental state is one that brings that horror home once again. However, it is that hope and love which powers them forward even though it seems as if destiny will deal them an awful fate.

I enjoyed this story which had much going for it as the girls awaited fate and certainly were not prepared in any way for its outcome. The power of love and the belief that humanity when called upon can succeed, once again show that life does go on despite the horrors of war. It always a powerful message especially to those of us who have lived in freedom.

Thank you to Kate Hewitt, Bookouture, and Net Galley for a copy of this book due out June 8, 2021.

and here’s the author:

Kate is the USA Today-bestselling author of many books of both historical and contemporary fiction. Under the name Katharine Swartz, she is the author of the Tales from Goswell books, a series of time-slip novels set in the village of Goswell.

She likes to read women’s fiction, mystery and thrillers, as well as historical novels. She particularly enjoys reading about well-drawn characters and avoids high-concept plots.

Having lived in both New York City and a tiny village on the windswept northwest coast of England, she now resides in a market town in Wales with her husband, five children, and two Golden Retrievers.