Title: The Berlin Girl
Author: Mandy Robotham
Narrator: Kristin Atherton
Published: Audio – October 2020 Avon / Print – December 2020 Avon
Length: 13 hours 17 minutes
Source: Audio – via Library / Print via Publisher
Summary:
From the bestselling author of The German Midwife
comes the heart-wrenching story of a country on the brink of war, a
woman who puts herself in the line of fire, and a world about to be
forever changed.
Berlin, 1938: It’s the
height of summer, and Germany is on the brink of war. When fledgling
reporter Georgie Young is posted to Berlin, alongside fellow Londoner
Max Spender, she knows they are entering the eye of the storm.
Arriving
to a city swathed in red flags and crawling with Nazis, Georgie feels
helpless, witnessing innocent people being torn from their homes. As
tensions rise, she realises she and Max have to act – even if it means
putting their lives on the line.
But when she digs deeper,
Georgie begins to uncover the unspeakable truth about Hitler’s Germany –
and the pair are pulled into a world darker than she could ever have
imagined…
My thoughts: This is the first book I’ve read by Mandy Robotham but it certainly will not be the last. I found myself completely captivated by this tale of sacrifice, secrets, love and ambition and I hope all her books are as engaging as this one.
For as many books as I read about WWII, I find that there is always a new angle that I have yet to see and this one is exactly that. I loved seeing Berlin in the twelve months leading up to the war and also from a journalist’s point of view. I could feel the tension as things start to get out of control and Georgie realizes what she is seeing. Knowing what we do, this is when the tension really picks up and the suspense kicks in.
I was immediately taken with Georgie’s character. She is determined not to let the fact that she is working in a man’s field stop her from getting the word out of the atrocities that are happening in Germany. She may arrive a young reporter in a glamorous Berlin but throughout the book we see her blossom into a hardened and daring journalist in a developing war zone who is more than willing to take chances to get the story she needs told. Not only does she develop friendships with her colleagues but also with the locals and makes it her mission to get her one friend and his family to safety, even if it means putting her life in danger.
This book kept my attention from start to finish. Even though I knew some of the outcomes, I was still on the edge of my seat and found myself shocked all over again at the horrors that the Jewish people experienced. The amount of research put into this book is evident and I know that this is a book I won’t be forgetting any time soon.
Audio thoughts:I was able to grab the audio of this from my library, but I was glad I also had the print version, too. The audio was really well-done and it my first time listening to Kristin Atherton narrate. I thought she did a great job bringing this book to life, infusing just the right amount of tension and emotion into her voice as needed.
