The Nightingale

The newest book by author Kristin Hannah is about a topic very close to my heart, the Holocaust.
Hannah writes a tender love story that has you pulling your tissue box at the end.  But also she
writes about World War II from yet again another angle that has not been written about before.
Interestingly though there are many Holocaust novels and true stories on the bookshelves, there always seems to be some point of view that can still be uncovered by an author.

This is the story of a small village in France called Carriveau, where families have lived quietly for generations.  When France is drawn into the war German troops invade this small town.  German officers impose themselves on the households of the townspeople.  The men have all gone off to fight the war and the women and children have stayed behind.  Now the Germans either commandeer the house or move in with the remaining family.

This story focuses on one French family and how they react to the circumstances that now face them. Of course there is a backstory about the father, who stays in Paris and his relationship with his two daughters who are in Carriveau.  Vianne and her sister Isabelle were youngsters during the first world war when their father went off to fight the French army.  During the novel we learn about the effects of that war on the men who had fought.  How seeing the devastation and killing altered the personalities of those men when they came home.  The results of that war have lasting memories for all the characters involved as the second world war begins.  Now as Vianne's husband goes off to war and leaves her and her child we see how her childhood memories affect the decisions she makes in present time.  Her sister also still really a child at 18 when the second world war starts, reacts based on her personality and the circumstances of her childhood.

As the author presents the facts of war and how France fell to the Nazis, she also gives the reader great insight into how and why people acted as they did during the war.  Kristen Hannah deftly shows how slowly life changed and how trapped a person would feel as the Germans demanded information about your neighbors and friends and a room in your house.   This is a novel that explores the strength and passion that women showed during the difficult war years.  Time and time again Isabelle
says that people think just men fight in a war but women also are truly affected by the war.
This book show that women can be strong, resourceful and stand of for their ideals.

This book is a inspiring story.