![]() ![]() ![]() One can sense the terror faced by Mila, forced to hide her two-year-old daughter, Felicia, in a paper sack of fabric scraps when the Gestapo invades the factory where she works-and feel Felicia’s claustrophobic fear as well. The story has impressive breadth, spanning over six years and many countries around the globe as the Kurcs pursue separate quests for safety through a Nazi-darkened world. Many chapters end with a mini-cliffhanger, which seems over-the-top initially but does heighten tension. Also, there are numerous other people they care deeply about, and readers will anxiously hope that they survive as well. The circumstances her characters endure are excruciatingly traumatic that they manage to survive is thanks to a combination of resourceful planning, split-second decisions made under tremendous pressure, and random luck. Knowing the ultimate outcome, one may wonder whether the novel offers any suspense. ![]() Learning about her family’s Holocaust past as a teenager, she set out to uncover their stories: interviewing older relatives, tracing their paths across Europe and elsewhere, poring through archives for relevant facts. Her grandfather and his four siblings were among them. As Hunter reveals at the start, fewer than 300 of the 30,000-plus Jewish residents of Radom, Poland, remained alive after WWII. ![]() It’s also an amazing piece of historical reconstruction, expertly translated into fiction. This debut novel recounts not only one but multiple harrowing tales of unlikely survival. ![]()
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