In times of strife, never underestimate the power of stories.
Was she incredibly brave or incredibly stupid? Neither. Just a bookshop girl doing what she could against her country’s oppressors.
The banned books club was only the beginning; a place for the women of Prague to come together and share the tales the Germans wanted to silence.
For bookshop owner, Jana, doing the right thing was never a question. So when opportunity comes to help the resistance, she offers herself – and her bookshop. Using her window displays as covert signals and hiding secret codes in book marks, she’ll do all in her power to help.
But the arrival of two people in her bookshop will change everything: a young Jewish boy with nowhere else to turn, and a fascist police captain Jana can’t read at all. In a time where secrets are currency and stories can be fatal, will she know who to trust?
A heart-wrenching and powerful story of courage, tenacity and love in wartime
REVIEW
The bookshop is a lovely setting and Helen Parusel makes the most of it in this gripping story of WW2 Czechoslovakia. Covering nearly the whole of the war, it describes how the main character Jana, is drawn deeper and deeper into Resistance work, and how that leads her to risk her life to both shelter some Jewish children, and work as a courier to deliver radio parts. There are several real incidents in the narrative including the assassination attempt on Heydrich, and the subsequent fallout, which included the massacre at Lidice. There is also the real horror of the ghetto of Theresienstadt.
But this is not a sad book, but rather an uplifting one. Jana finds the man who makes her heart race within the Resistance, and the relationships she has with other women are heartwarming. After all, what can you expect of a book club?!
In a novel like this there are bound to be betrayals and surprises along the way, but I won’t spoil it for you. If you enjoy page-turning historical fiction with characters you can empathise with, then this is a pageturner of a historical thriller you won’t want to miss. Highly recommended.
BUY THE BOOK