Hi everyone, this week’s historical review will take you to war-torn Europe during the Second World War years. A little head’s up from me, this story was one that moved me from the very first page, so without further ado, please press below to see if it’s the same for you…
Title: The Book of Lost Names
Author: Kristin Harmel
Genre: Fiction – Historical
Publication details: Gallery Books; NY, 2020
ISBN: 9781982131890 (Hardcover)
What this book is about: Eva Traube Abrams, a semi-retired librarian in Florida, is at the return’s desk one morning when her eyes lock onto a photograph in a newspaper nearby. She freezes; it’s an image of a book she hasn’t seen in sixty-five years – a book she recognizes as the Book of Lost Names. The accompanying article describes the looting of libraries across Europe by the Nazis during World War Two – an experience Eva remembers all too well. As a graduate student, Eva had been forced to flee Paris in 1942 following the arrest of her father, a Polish Jew. After seeking refuge in a small mountain town in the Free Zone, she helps the Resistance by forging documents for Jewish children fleeing to neutral Switzerland. But erasing people comes with a price, and along with a mysterious, handsome forger named Rémy, Eva decides she must find a way to preserve the real names of the children who are too young to remember who they really are. The records they keep in the Book of Lost Names will become even more vital when the Resistance cell they work for is betrayed and Rémy disappears. Now housed in Berlin’s Zentral-und Landesbibliothek library, it appears to contain some sort of code, but researchers don’t know where it came from – or what the code means. Only Eva holds the answer – but will she have the strength to revisit old memories and help reunite those lost during the war?
My review: This was an evocative and poignant novel!! For me the fact that Eva was a librarian sealed the deal! Despite the tension and secrecy behind what Eva and her friends were doing, I found the love story quite refreshing. Harmel has created an exemplary piece of writing in this read and the fact that she based it on actual events and real people made it even more heartfelt. Stories on the Holocaust, especially in Europe, have a tendency to tug on my heartstrings and leave me in tears. This was one that will surely knock a few others off from the top of my list!!
My rating: 4½ ⭐
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