Invitation From a Dictator by Rory Clements - #bookreview

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I am required to make it clear at the beginning of my reviews that I received this book for free from the publisher. I have not been paid for doing this and all opinions are my own. I am Bookshop.org affiliated, which means I earn a very small amount of money if you buy from there using my direct link. Although I include purchase links to Amazon, I am not affiliated with them. I include them to make it easy for you to navigate to them if you so wish.

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The Blurb

ON THE EVE OF WAR, A ROYAL GUEST IS LURED INTO HITLER'S DEADLY WEB . . .

Munich, 1937. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor have arrived in Germany for a historic meeting at Hitler's mountain retreat.

But recent attacks by ruthless Communist band, Red Freedom, has brought fear and bloodshed to the area. As brutal as the Nazis, their next targets are Edward, Wallis and the Fuhrer himself.

Detective Sebastian Wolff is charged with their protection, but the conflict between his job and his politics becomes even more complicated when Wolff realises who is behind Red Freedom: Ulrike, his first love and the mother of his son.

My Review

Although this is the third book in a series, I have not read the earlier books. It works very well as a standalone novel.

The book is set in Munich in 1937, just as Hitler's power is in the ascendant and prior to the beginning of the Second World War.

The main character, Detective Sebastian Wolff, is investigating a terrorist gang called Red Freedom. However, he is transferred to guard the visit to Hitler's mountain retreat in the Austrian Alps, the Berghof, as the controversial Duke and Duchess of Windsor are going to visit.

Meanwhile, Wolff's fiancée Hexie has also been invited to stay at the Berghof by her old friend, Eva Braun. These three subplots running through the book lead to some exciting twists and turns for Wolff as he continues to investigate Red Freedom whilst also carrying out his protection duties of the abdicated King Edward VIII and his wife, Wallis Simpson. 

I really liked the way the author wove the three aspects of the plot together. It demonstrated real skill in the writing. Mr Clements is a great storyteller and for I was completely gripped by the book

The book is fairly slow-paced, but I think this was entirely necessary for the slow burn of the plot to develop. It also provides the reader with a more in-depth understanding of the characters.

The book has definitely made me want to go back to the beginning of the series and read the books prior to this one.  Fans of pre-war thrillers will love this book and I highly recommend it.

Book Details

ISBN: 978 0241728215

Publisher: Viking 

Formats: e-book, audio and hardback

No. of Pages: 400 (hardback)

Series: Book 3 in the Detective Sebastion Wolff series

Purchase Links

Bookshop.org

Amazon UK

Amazon US

About the Author

Rory has a passion for thrillers. He loves reading about men and women facing the ultimate test under fire - and he loves writing about them. It must be in his blood. 

 Born in Dover, Kent, and raised in various outposts of the world while mhis father served in the Royal Navy. He grew up hungry to become a writer.

He worked for many years as a national newspaper journalist but always dreamed of switching to novel-writing. On moving to Norfolk in 2007 he found the perfect spot to achieve his ambition. 

So why thrillers? Well, it might have something to do with his family history.

​His generation of the Clements clan is the first since the Crimean War not to have seen active service in a branch of the military, and he feels extremely fortunate that this is so. While his father, grandfather and great-grandfather survived fierce and deadly fighting in three major wars, he fears he would not have measured up.

​He believes his history has given him a keen understanding of valour and the stoicism of those in peril - whether from enemy agents, at sea, in the air, or on the battlefield.

These are the essential qualities of the protagonists in his three series -  Tom Wilde, a Cambridge history professor; Seb Wolff, a Munich cop in the 1930s; and John Shakespeare, a spy in Elizabethan England. They're very different characters but they share one quality - courage.

You can also find Rory at:

Author Website

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Facebook

(ARC and media courtesy of Viking Press)

(all opinions are my own)

(Bookshop.org affiliated)

The Hangman's Master by Elyse Hoffman - #blogtour #bookreview

 The day that Stefan Harkel became a God was five years after he left the Nazi Party, one year after he joined the resistance, two months after Hitler's invasions of Poland, and one hour after he found his first mass grave...

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The Blurb

In a world torn by hatred, reckless Stefan Harkel finds himself expelled from home at sixteen and drawn to the Nazi Party's Brownshirt Unit. But when the Führer turns against his own during the Night of Long Knives, Stefan vows vengeance for those he lost.

Joining an anti-Nazi resistance, Stefan’s thirst for revenge leads him to a supernatural twist: he’s chosen as a warden in Hell, granted a Contract for Zone N-1, home to the soul of Reinhard Heydrich, a key architect of the Holocaust. Yet, he’s not alone in this dark game; a ruthless Nazi seeks to claim the power of the Contracts for himself.

As the fate of Europe hangs in the balance, Stefan must protect his Contract from falling into enemy hands, confronting the ultimate battle between good and evil.

Elyse Hoffman delivers a gripping tale of redemption and resilience in the shadow of World War II.

My Review

I have had the good fortune of reading books by this author before so I was thrilled to be invited onto the blog tour for this book. In fact, they were all part of the Project 613 series. I haven't necessarily read them in order, or read the entire series as they do work very well as standalone novels. I have included links to my reviews of those books at the bottom of this review.

This book is slightly different in that it has a supernatural element running alongside a cracking good story. The main character, Stefan, is a German homosexual serving in the SA just prior to the beginning of World War II. However, some of the atrocities that he witnesses lead him to join the resistance group, Black Fox. The story takes quite a turn when Stefan is offered the opportunity to become a God of Hell and oversee the punishment of some of the Nazi's responsible for the brutal mass murders which he had witnessed.

I must confess, it took me a little while to reconcile these two differing parts of the story. However, I did feel that they aligned well enough by the end of the story. The author weaves the present, past and supernatural elements of the books together splendidly and it was easy to differentiate which part of the book that I was reading.

She is a good storyteller, and I have been very impressed by this series of books. There were some good twists and turns throughout the book and I was satisfied with the ending.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical fiction with a supernatural element thrown in.

Book Details

ISBN:  978 1952742354

Publisher:  Project 613 Publishing

Formats: e-book, hardback and paperback (currently available on Kindle Unlimited)

No. of Pages:  216 (paperback)

Links to Reviews

Adiel and the Fuhrer

The Vengeance of Samuel Val

Black Fox One

Purchase Links

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Amazon CA

About the Author

Elyse Hoffman is an award-winning author who strives to tell historical tales with new twists. Having studied WWII since the age of thirteen and with interests in fantasy and Jewish folklore, she loves to combine them in her writing. Elyse started writing novels at fourteen and finished her first historical fiction work at fifteen. She has published eight books: five in a series called The Barracks of the Holocaust, and three novels, including The Book of Uriel, Where David Threw Stones, and Fracture. In her spare time, she loves to read, work on pretty keyboards, and hang out with her co-authors - her Goldendoodle Ari and her ex-feral cat, Echo.

You can also find Elyse at:

Twitter / X

Linked In

FaceBook

(ARC courtesy of The Write Reads)

(all opinions are my own)

Adiel and the Fuhrer by Elyse Hoffman - #bookreview #blogtour

 

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Adiel Goldstein has a good life. Despite the anti-Semitism he faces as a German Jew, he has everything he wants. A dream job as an art professor, good friends, a loving father, and a precious nine-year-old daughter, Kaia. But his life is about to be upended. An old comrade from his time fighting in the Great War is gaining power: a man named Hitler. Adiel’s father insists that they need to leave the country before Hitler becomes the leader of Germany.

Adiel and his family plan to move to America, but before they can even pack their bags, he and Kaia make a shocking discovery. Adiel’s father, Natan Goldstein, is from the future. A Holocaust survivor who lost his family to unspeakable tragedy, Natan was given the chance to go back in time and take the life of Adolf Hitler. But when he failed to kill the future Führer, he devoted himself to his new family and awaited the inevitable.

Natan can’t face the Holocaust again, but Adiel’s unique connection to Hitler means he might be able to succeed where his father failed. Adiel now has a choice: escape as planned and let history repeat itself, or sacrifice everything to stop the Holocaust before it can begin.

Award winning author Elyse Hoffman has crafted a thought-provoking and daring work of historical fiction which will tug at your heartstrings.

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Although this is the fourth book in the Project 613 series, they absolutely work as stand alone novels. I have previously read and reviewed The Vengeance of Samuel Val which is the second book in the series. I've also read the third, Black Fox One. You can access both of these reviews by clicking on the respective titles. Having read and enjoyed those two, I was thrilled to be offered the opportunity to read this one too. 

In all honesty, this book took me a little longer to get into than the previous books. I am not blaming the book for this. Trying to read whilst keeping the puppy amused is not necessarily an ideal combination. However, once I was able to focus on it, I enjoyed it every bit as much as its predecessors.

The book deals with the question; what would happen if we could go back in time and prevent Hitler engineering the atrocities of the Second World War? The plot delivers lots of surprises along the way most of which I did not anticipate and definitely kept me reading.

Each of the characters has something to contribute to the story. Mostly, the characters are fictional but several people from history have a part to play in this story.

The story follows the life of Adiel, the main character, from infancy to adulthood. He is an extremely compelling character as the reader is able to ponder the complexities of his life alongside him. His daughter, Kaia, equally has a significant role in the book and she is the instrumental in bringing the Jewish and Nazi element together on the page.

Ms. Hoffman competently combines a story of Jewish folklore, time-travel, historical fiction and successfully pulls them all together to produce an excellent novel. I recommend this book and it will be enjoyed by anyone who likes historical fiction or time travel elements in their reading.

About the Author:

Elyse Hoffman is an award-winning author who strives to tell historical tales with new twists. Having studied WWII since the age of thirteen and with interests in fantasy and Jewish folklore, she loves to combine them in her writing. Elyse started writing novels at fourteen and finished her first historical fiction work at fifteen. She has published eight books: five in a series called The Barracks of the Holocaust, and three novels, including The Book of Uriel, Where David Threw Stones, and Fracture. In her spare time, she loves to read, work on pretty keyboards, and hang out with her co-authors - her Goldendoodle Ari and her ex-feral cat, Echo.

(book and media courtesy of The Write Reads)

(all opinions are my own)

The Holocaust: An Unfinished History by Dan Stone - #BookReview

Ideology does not come from nowhere. The history of ideas is crucial, though it is insufficient for explaining the historical origins of Nazism. Ideas that seemed marginal at one moment became decisive at another, following the German defeat in the First World War and, especially, after the terrible effects of the Great Depression. In order to grasp the power of the forces that fuelled the Holocaust, we have to understand the toxic mix of ideas and events which propelled an apocalypic movement to the fore. Nazism was not merely a political programme but sought to be, as Goebels put it, "the very air which we breathe". It was not just an ideology but a... worldview.
 

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An authoritative, revelatory new history of the Holocaust, from one of the leading scholars of his generation

The Holocaust is much-discussed, much-memorialized and much-portrayed. But there are major aspects of its history that have been overlooked.

Spanning the entirety of the Holocaust and across the world, this sweeping history deepens our understanding. Dan Stone reveals how the idea of 'industrial murder' is incomplete: many were killed where they lived in the most brutal of ways. He outlines the depth of collaboration across Europe, arguing persuasively that we need to stop thinking of the Holocaust as an exclusively German project. He also considers the nature of trauma the Holocaust engendered, and why Jewish suffering has yet to be fully reckoned with. And he makes clear that the kernel to understanding Nazi thinking and action is genocidal ideology, providing a deep analysis of its origins.

Drawing on decades of research, The Holocaust: An Unfinished History upends much of what we think we know about the Holocaust. Stone draws on Nazi documents, but also on diaries, post-war testimonies and even fiction, urging that, in our age of increasing nationalism and xenophobia, we must understand the true history of the Holocaust.

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The Holocaust is a topic that we have become very familiar with although its ability to shock never lessens.  We all like to assign this level of barbarity to the distant past; something that happened a long time ago in history. 

However, the truth is that this happened less than a century ago and that fact alone is horrifying. It is beyond disturbing that ordinary people, fathers, sons, husbands and brothers were complicit in this.

Dan Stone's book sets out to explain how this, amongst other things were able to happen.  Of Hitler he says:

"This total absence of compromise, an inability to regard anything or anyone other than himself as correct, was why Hitler was so impervious to criticism, so assured of his own destiny - and why so many Germans were attracted to him.

The author goes on to explain how it was not the Nazi's alone, but other European countries that were compliant in the killing of the Jews and this was one factor towards the acceptance of killing on such a huge scale.  It was... "a continent-wide crime with many perpetrators, not just Germans."

As the book progresses the author looks to the way is which the Holocaust in remembered. He writes that this perception of the Holocaust as solely a German atrocity, and the downplaying of the involvement of other European nations has distorted history.

Just when we think that there is nothing to add to the canon of books on the Holocaust, a work such as this comes along and presents many new and challenging ideas. Personally, I learnt much that I had not considered before.  

Outstandingly researched and written, this book is a worthy addition to this particular field of study and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

ISBN: 978-0241388709

Publisher: Pelican

Formats:  e-book, audio and hardcover

No. of Pages: 464 (hardback)

Support Independent Bookshops - Purchase from Bookshop.org*

About the Author:

Dan Stone is one of the foremost experts on the Holocaust of his generation. He is Professor of Modern History and Director of the Holocaust Research Institute (Royal Holloway, University of London), and was on the advisory panel for the Imperial War Museum's new Holocaust Galleries. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including Histories of the Holocaust and The Liberation of the Camps.

(ARC and author info courtesy of the publisher)

(author image courtesy of University of London)

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Jewish Women by Max Brod - #BookReview

 

Overcome with a feeling of melancholy, Hugo wandered down the woodland path. As he rounded a bend an unexpected sight brought his footsteps to a halt.

A woman dressed in white lay flat upon the ground. She was face down with her head on her outstretched arms. Another woman dressed in dark clothes, and a man were apparently attending to her.

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This novel is set in the spa town of Teplitz (Teplice) and is a cameo of the lives of prosperous Jewish families before the First World War.

 It draws a compelling and poignant picture of the normal everyday lives of its characters, so touchingly unaware of the traumas to come in the following decades when their communities would be shattered beyond repair.

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Jewish Women is a very understated story. It meanders along quite slowly, and as a reader, I thought I knew where this story was heading right from the beginning. Was my assumption correct? Well, maybe!

It is the coming of age story of Hugo, a young man who is taking a break from his studies, but who learns so much more about life and love during this time. Alongside, the reader also gets a brief look into the lives of European Jewish life at the beginning of the twentieth century.

I found the writing beautiful and it is worth reading this novel purely to enjoy the prose which has been expertly translated from German by Julia Rivers. 

The story focuses on Hugo's infatuation with Irene, who he first meets when she is face down on the floor in some distress. The offering of his aid begins his acquaintance with her. This event happens right at the very beginning of the book. My initial response was that she was not all she seemed and I immediately felt suspicious of her. Something about her did not seem trustworthy. I will say no more as to whether this first impression was correct as I would encourage you to read this for yourself, and form your own opinion. As you know, there are never any spoilers in my reviews.

However, it is not a spoiler if I tell you that in the final paragraph of this book, the author addresses Hugo directly. It forms an effective ending and enables the reader to picture Hugo's future beyond the final page.

Indeed, it occured to me that Hugo's future would likely to have been very different to that which the author himself imagined. Published in 1911, Mr Brod could not have anticipated that a mere three years later, Germany would be at war.

As a young Jewish German man, Hugo's life would probably have been short lived as he would almost certainly have been deported to the death camps if he had not previously managed to escape the country. Thus, the reader is perhaps better positioned to anticipate the future than the author was.

Having said all of that, this is a positive novel and I enjoyed accompanying Hugo on his journey. He had much to learn of life and love. I hope you enjoy reading this novel as much as I did.

ISBN: 978 0995716773

Publisher: Aspal Vintage

No. of pages: 256 (paperback)

About the Author: 

Max Brod (1884 - 1968) is best known as the friend and mentor of Franz Kafka, his contemporary in Prague in the early years of the twentieth century. They first met as law students at the German speaking branch of Charles University and soon became leading members of Prague's German-Jewish intellectual and literary circle of the time.

Although now overshadowed by Kafka's success, Brod was an accomplished and prolific author in his own right. Jewish Women was first published in Berlin in 1911 and was an immediate success.