A well-intentioned but awkwardly executed look at lesser-known events of World War II.
Oldre’s historical novel delves into the struggles of Romani people under Nazi occupation.
In the late 1930s, a Romani family travels though the prewar Czechoslovakia, trying to make a living. Fifteen-year-old Jana Benak is used to this nomadic life, helping her stepmother Zofie take care of younger siblings, telling fortunes in town, and scavenging for supplies, but she longs for more independence and self-expression. Not long after Jana’s family arrives in Prague, they’re caught in the crosshairs of conflict: Nazi soldiers flood the country, bringing out deep-seated animosity between the local Germans and the Czech population. For the Romani, this means even more uncertainty and persecution; many men in Jana’s family are arrested, their horses are requisitioned for the German army’s needs, and a brief but chilling encounter between Jana and Adolf Hitler himself leaves no doubt about his plans: “We’ll soon be rid of her race,” he mutters to his entourage. The novel follows several characters as they attempt to resist the Nazis. Jana forms a connection with a clockmaker, Joseph Novotny, at the castle where she works; he trains her to deliver clandestine messages. Meanwhile, Jana’s friend Otto is drawn into a plot to tamper with the steel used for gun production, and his Czech friend Albert uses his family’s means to help Romani people escape the occupied territories. Overall, this historical novel has a compelling premise, tackling an underrepresented story of the Second World War. However, the aimless plot and overly large cast of characters make for a tedious read. Small incidents eventually coalesce into a larger picture, but when the climax finally arrives, it rests on a historical figure who’s otherwise peripheral to the main action. Oldre’s impressive research shines in the descriptions of Romani life and traditions. However, some of the dialogue is so slangy that it feels almost anachronistic (“Can you believe those jerks?”; “get your ass back on the job, pronto”).
A well-intentioned but awkwardly executed look at lesser-known events of World War II.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9781647424343
Page Count: 270
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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