Letters From Berlin

Another fantastic book in my favorite genre and it doesn’t disappoint, if fact, I loved it. The wording on the front cover has never been more real “how far would you go to protect the ones we love”. The prologue sets the scene and then the story starts some 50 years before. Susanna Goftmann aged 8 years old is in injured in a car accident that killed her parents and 10 year old brother. She is taken in by her Mothers’ best friends Georg and Elya and their 10 year old son Leo. She lives on a huge estate of 750 acres that provides produce for Berlin and employment for the locals of their village. Everything is going nicely, then Hitler arrives, bringing Jewish law changes, and with Elya being a Russian Jew, and her son Leo being of mixed blood, things change for the worse. As life goes on, Susanna tries to do what she can to protect her family. Georg has contacts in the Third Reich because of the farm, and hopes his wife and son won’t be taken away. Susanna befriends an older friend of the family, a Nazi, and fakes a relationship to mix with the Nazis to protect her family. This has its ups and downs, eventually turning nasty but her good friends help her through. Georg and Leo join the resistance, and sell products on the black market to survive after their contracts were cancelled because of their Jewish connection. Leo and Susanna fall in love which only makes things harder and they have to keep their feelings secret. Things turn against the family including some in the village, who the family have supported for decades. From here the story moves in to overdrive as life heats up. It throws you every emotion you have, gets you angry, sad and then just makes you wonder what is going to happen next. Hoping for the best, but fearing the worst. It is hard to say too much without giving away everything and that would spoil a very good book. I challenge you to finish this book without a tissue, and you may have to do what I did when I finished.. go back and read the prologue again.