THROUGH BULLETS AND THUNDERSTORMS

In Scarlet’s historical novel, set during World War II, a teenage girl in Ukraine struggles to survive as she’s forced to work in a German household while hiding her Jewish identity.

It’s 1941, and 18-year-old Maria Furman is about to take her last final at school when the Nazis descend on her small town of Vinnytsia. After a classmate betrays her, she barely escapes with her life. A kind neighbor forges new papers for her, changing her listed nationality from “Jew” to “Ukrainian,” and christening her with the new name of Anna Ivanovna Furmanova. After she witnesses German soldiers slaughtering her friends and neighbors, she flees; now on her own,Maria quickly loses hope and vows to drown herself in a nearby river,but when she sees another girl named Lyuda attempting to do the same thing, they make a pact to stay alive together. The pair are eventually separated when Lyuda’s deteriorating health forces her into a hospital and Maria finds herself trapped working in a German household. Although she’s hidden her Jewish identity, she’s recognized by a former classmate who has a dangerous preoccupation with her, and could turn her in at any moment. Maria must learn how to fight for herself, and for the house’s other vulnerable girls, if she’s to survive and see Lyuda once again. Scarlet’s sweeping historical saga is loosely based on her grandmother’s own experience during the Second World War. Maria has horrific experiences, including a graphically described rape, other intermittent violence, and witnessing the corpses of murder victims. The prose can feel stilted at times, especially in dialogue (“I do not get headaches. I am a strong Aryan man. I do not get sick like some weakling,” says a German officer at one point). However, the story is so substantive and fast-paced that some readers may overlook such awkward moments. Overall, the author crafted a riveting account of one girl’s struggle to survive in unimaginable conditions.

A tense and upsetting but ultimately uplifting historical drama that highlights the horrors of wartime survival.