The War Girls
Books | Fiction / Historical / 20th Century / World War II
4.2
V.S. Alexander
Perfect for fans of Kate Quinn, Kristin Harmel, and Pam Jenoff, this new historical fiction novel from an acclaimed author is based on true WWII stories of life in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Occupation and the women who served the Allies as agents and spies. Casting light into one of the darkest periods of World War II, this powerful book tells of two Jewish sisters– one imprisoned in Poland and the other who joins the Special Operations Executive in a daring attempt to free her family from the Nazis. It’s not just a thousand miles that separates Hanna Majewski from her younger sister, Stefa. There is another gulf—between the traditional Jewish ways that Hanna chose to leave behind in Warsaw, and her new, independent life in London. But as autumn of 1940 draws near, Germany begins a savage aerial bombing campaign in England, killing and displacing tens of thousands. Hanna, who narrowly escapes death, is recruited as a spy in an undercover operation that sends her back to her war-torn homeland. In Hanna’s absence, her parents, sister, and brother have been driven from their comfortable apartment into the Warsaw Ghetto. Sealed off from the rest of the city, the Ghetto becomes a prison for nearly half a million Jews, struggling to survive amid starvation, disease, and the constant threat of deportation to Treblinka. Once a pretty and level-headed teenager, Stefa is now committed to the Jewish resistance. Together, she, Hanna, and Janka, a family friend living on the Aryan side of the city, form a trio called The War Girls. Against overwhelming odds and through heartbreak they will fight to rescue their loved ones, finding courage through sisterhood to keep hope alive . . . Praise for V.S. Alexander and The Sculptress“Fans of Alena Dillon, Lucinda Riley, and Alexander’s previous work will appreciate the historical accuracy saturating every page of this moving, compassionate novel.” —Booklist
Buy Now
Buy now:
More Details:
Author
V.S. Alexander
Pages
448
Publisher
Kensington Books
Published Date
2022-07-26
ISBN
1496734807 9781496734808
Community ReviewsSee all
"This book….so many great characters, but again a great strong and brave female protagonist. Era: WWII with female spies"
M J
Marie J Ervin
"Riveting, raw, and truly remarkable 🤎"
B P
Bianca Pearson
"One of my favorite genres to read is historical fiction. I choose to listen to via Audiobook and didn’t want the story to end. Reading The War Girls was not like a lot of the other historical fiction I have read. The War Girls shows life in Poland and the UK for 2 Jewish sisters and a Catholic family. I really like how we got to see both the Jewish perspective and the Catholic one. As the reader I got to see how it wasn’t only the Germans who were doing atrocities during this period of World War II. As a young person I used to wonder how people could let this kind of genocide happen, and through some of the characters I saw people that were trying to help and others who thought that the Jews had it coming (and anyone who would help them). I think one of the interesting perspectives in this book is that one of the Jewish sisters had chosen to marry a non-Jew, and was living away from the family in Poland. The story did show that this was challenging (and would have been in the best of circumstances). At the end of the story, I was sat there wanting there to be a sequel to see the remainder of the family’s story.<br/><br/>I wanted to thank NetGalley and HighBridge Audio for accepting my request to read and review The War Girls."
D C
Danielle Chinnici
"I’m struggling to decide between giving this book a four or a five star because it was both great and greatly horrible as it should be on the subject of the holocaust. I’m going with a four only because The Diary of Anne Frank is a solid five and I think this may be more of a 4.5-4.75.<br/><br/>I listened to this book on audio and found the narrator to do a nice job of not overacting and making the book a drama due to performance rather than what happened. It isn’t easy for all narrators to let the story be the star and this one did that beautifully.<br/><br/>Pros:<br/><br/>One of the most powerful aspects of this novel is something I normally dislike, switching between character perspectives. Usually I find it jarring, sometimes even confusing but here it gives insight into what is happening to different people in different locations. It’s a way to allow a person to see the horrors which happened not only to the poorest or those caught early but to Catholics in Poland, to Jews who got to keep their jobs, to Jews who weren’t in areas taken over. It shows that things happened early on in England which usually doesn’t get mentioned in detail because those horror weren’t as great as the concentration camps.<br/><br/>I appreciate that the book tells you where you are in the timeline of the war. You can see how things didn’t just happen over night, they progressively worsened as people became numb to the horrors. I feel because of this it could have the potential to become a classic read in schools. People need to remember their history so that it isn’t repeated and to remember that every action has a rippling effect you won’t know the full effect of until much later.<br/><br/>Cons:<br/><br/>Because of the nature of what happened historically there are horrors shared in this book that will break your heart. They should do that, however people who are easily triggered by their own dark pasts could struggle with the story bringing things up they don’t want to think about. I believe the author did an excellent job not sensationalizing the horror to draw in people for the wrong reasons but they got to the heart of things enough that it hurts to know that real people had to suffer these atrocities."
Similar Books
4.4
4.4
4
4
4.6
4
4.2
4.3
4.2
3.8
3.8
4.8
3.6
3.9
3.6
3.9
4.3
3.1
5
4.4