BOOK REVIEW: Fables and Lies by Elisabeth Storrs

I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

Another WWII novel? This time, my excuse is that Fables and Lies was written by an author whose work I enjoy, Elisabeth Storrs. (Here are reviews of The Wedding Shroud, The Golden Dice, and Call to Juno, set in Ancient Rome and Etruria.)

This time, Storrs places her characters in Berlin during WWII. The story, based on real life events, focuses on Freya Bremer, an Aryan beauty brought up under a broken education system that emphasized Germany’s preeminent place in Western civilization. Her indoctrination into National Socialist ideology is nearly complete. Freya is intelligent, but naive. She has a secretarial job in a Berlin archeological museum, the one holding Heinrich Schleimann’s treasures from Troy, and dreams of one day taking part in excavations herself. But with the coming of the war, her job, along with others at the museum, becomes one of protecting Germany’s treasures (many of which were looted from other countries.) Throughout the war, with (or despite) the massive bombing campaign against Berlin, she strives to help save these ancient relics.

This is not a WWII tale of heroic resistance fighters, daring spies, or of Germans of conscience hiding Jews in their basements. It’s a story of sadistic, seemingly deranged Nazis, drunk with power, and of everyday citizens accommodating the evil in their midst in order to live their lives. The risks and fear are very real. Storrs does a fine job of showing how trapped many felt, and, realistically, how increasingly difficult it was to fight against the Nazi regime.

Freya is married to an abusive SS officer, Kaspar, who gives her and her family some protection, even some privilege. But she is in love with another man, Darien Lessing. Darien is an archeologist whom she met at the museum. Darien disabuses her of her naive assumptions of Aryan supremacy and opens her eyes to the abuses of the Nazis. And yet, he too is trapped by the system.

It is a painful book to read. Parallels with current day authoritarianism and Nazism show the slippery slope between looking the other way and complicity. It shows the level of denial when atrocities are taking place, even as the evidence becomes impossible to ignore.

The details of life in Berlin during the bombings and of how precious artifacts were given priority make this novel unique. Storrs’ meticulous research and powerful storytelling make it worthwhile.

BOOK REVIEW: The Lilac People by Milo Todd

I keep thinking no more WWII historical fiction because I’ve read so much of it. But then another comes along that I want to read. What is especially compelling is a word-of-mouth recommendation from a friend. So I added The Lilac People by Milo Todd to my TBR-pile.

This is a powerful and important novel that, in the current climate, hits very hard. In the immediate pre-WWII era, Berlin was a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community. They had a vibrant nightlife. But even more critically, there was an Institute of Sexual Science, led by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, where all facets of human sexuality were studied. (Unfortunately, this also led to the creation of a registry of “third sex” members of the community, which was a bonanza for the Nazis when they set out to exterminate these vulnerable people.)

The book uses the language of the times, when transgender people were called transvestites, which is not an acceptable term today. The protagonist of the novel, Bertie, is a trangender man, who works at the Institute as a clerk and sometimes tour guide. The book goes back and forth between 1945, the immediate aftermath of the war, and 1932-33, when queer people were targeted, killed in the streets, or rounded up to be sent to concentration camps. Bertie witnesses the violence, but is able to escape with his girlfriend to a farm out in the countryside when the parents of a friend take them in. The friend, Gert, was supposed to meet them there, but didn’t, and part of the heart of the book is the question of what happened to him. Was he killed? Sent to a concentration camp? Or might he have escaped to America?

The tension in the chapters sent in the early 30s is intense. Readers know what is coming under Hitler, while those living through it are blinded by a belief that things can’t get that bad, until they do. Then it’s too late.

But even more horrifying is the aftermath. I didn’t know that when the camps were liberated by the Allies, the prisoners were freed EXCEPT for those wearing pink or black triangles. LGBTQ+ prisoners were pulled aside and sent on to other prisons – by the Allies – for being “convicted criminals.”

Bertie learns this when he finds a half-dead Dachau escapee collapsed in his garden. Karl, a trans man, had been imprisoned at Dachau and managed to run when he saw fellow queer prisoners being segregated out for further incarceration. Bertie knows now they are still not safe.

At the same time, the Allies are determined to punish the German population for their crimes. By virtue of the fact that Bertie and his girlfriend, Sophia, had not been imprisoned, they are now under suspicion as being Nazis. The American soldiers are rounding up German civilians to transport them to work camps. Bertie is between a rock and a hard place.

The novel is heart-rending. At times, it does get a bit preachy and teachy, when one or another character monologues to get the message across. But it’s an important message, well worth spelling out. This novel is highly recommended.

BOOK REVIEW: The Dove and the Rogue by Harper St. George

 I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

The Dove and the Rogue is the third book in Harper St. George’s The Doves of New York series, but it can also be read as a standalone.

The Dove sisters are three American heiresses who, by the terms of their father’s will, can only receive their inheritances if they marry into Britain’s aristocracy. Although the requirement is inconvenient, Jenny Dove, the middle sister, is less interested in the inheritance than in making her own way as an opera singer. However, her younger sister has fallen in love with a commoner and needs the money. Jenny feels if she fulfils the requirement, she can convince their guardian to release their inheritances.

Jenny has just the aristocrat in mind. Lord David, who is heir to a dukedom, is the worst rake in the ton. He has been flirting with her outrageously ever since she and her sisters arrived. So she offers him a deal. If he marries her, she’ll grant him one night in her bed. Then she’ll go off to Paris to star in a new opera, and he can continue living his life as he always has. In a short period of time, they’ll divorce, so that he will be free to marry someone more suitable for a future duke.

Lord David, who has grown obsessed with Jenny, agrees. But one passionate night together is not enough. Is it just lust they feel for one another, or something more?

This is an extra-steamy Victorian romance with the marriage of convenience and reformed rake tropes that should appeal to romance readers who like their stories hot.