Jane Thynne is one of my favorite writers. I have been reading her “Clara Vine” series since it became available in the US and I was thrilled to receive an advance copy of this stand-alone novel. Though I’m a fan of her work, I can honestly say that this is one of her best novels to date. I have encouraged several friends to read this page turner including friends from my book clubs. My only criticism is that I wish the book was longer.

When photographer, Juno Lambert splurges buying a vintage Underwood typewriter that used to belong to famed female journalist Cordelia Capel, she is surprised to discover an unpublished novel hidden in the typewriter case. Juno is enthralled as she reads the manuscript depicting Cordelia’s relationship with her beloved yet frustrating sister, Irene. Cordelia’s sister marries a wealthy German businessman leaving England for Berlin in 1936. While Irene appears to love all that the life of a socialite entails, Cordelia dreams of being a journalist but remains sequestered to the typing pool.

The sister’s exchange letters frequently, however, as tensions rise between their countries details in their letters become sparse conveying little of what they truly feel nor the reality of their current circumstances. When Cordelia learns that her brother-in-law is a Nazi sympathizer, she wonders where her sister’s loyalties lie.
Juno ever determined to fill in the gaps within the manuscript, travels halfway around the world endeavoring to learn the truth about these women. What she will learn may surprise her.

I received an advance copy of this novel; all opinions are my own.

Writing about other people’s lives, putting to pen other people’s passions and pains, is simple compared to sharing your soul and exposing your secrets on the page.

Trust me when I say, I would much rather tell you about the liars and the cheats and the shysters and the scoundrels in our families’ trees than share excerpts of my everyday existence. I guess that is why I identified with the novel, The Words I Never Wrote, by Jane Thynne.

It is the story of two sisters, whom we “meet” by chance when an unfinished manuscript is found tucked inside a 1931 Underwood typewriter that once belonged to the world-renowned journalist, Cordelia Capel.

Intrigued by both the antique and the pages, Juno Lambert purchases the typewriter and begins reading the manuscript which documents the tale of two women on opposite sides of the war: Cordelia and her sister Irene.

Their story starts in the year 1936. Cordelia and Irene are the daughters of a well-to-do, well-connected English couple whose social circle is diverse and immense.

At one of their parents’ garden parties, Irene meets a handsome businessman from Germany whose charm catches her heart. The two soon marry and relocate to his home in Berlin. Meanwhile, Cordelia, who lives to write, begins working at a Paris newspaper office.

Despite the distance, the sisters remain devoted to one another and correspond regularly. But, as time passes, Cordelia reads between the lines of her sister’s letters; Irene’s husband is a Nazi sympathizer.

Although Cordelia tries to convince her sister to leave, life in the Third Reich has is oppressive and overbearing. Irene can no longer confide in her sister without fear of repercussions; instead, she must choose her words carefully, never spelling out the truth of her life to her sister… or herself.

Exceptionally emotive and well-wrought, The Words I Never Wrote kept me guessing and kept me turning. As a lover of World World War II fiction, The Words I Never Wrote is by far one of my favorites. I would highly recommend this novel to anyone who loves history or enjoys a great story.

This was such a beautiful Historical read. The way the story weaved in and out of the past was beautiful. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who loves history and has a passion for vintage storytelling!

This was a very astute and stirring story. I liked reading about what Germany was like leading up to the war and enjoyed the two story’s and timelines. The war tore so many families apart and these sisters were no different.
Many thank to Ballantine and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Another female perspective of WW II, this time sisters on the opposite sides of history. The fluidity of time and point of view made this story all the more compelling.

Warning: rape

Jane Thynne brings us an epistolary novel set in London and Berlin in the late 1930s in the runup to WWII.

In the present, Juno Lambert, a photographer working her way through divorce comes across an ancient Underwood typewriter. The typewriter shop owner tells her it was once the property of Cordelia Capel, a journalist who covered fashion in Paris and then the aftermath of WWII. In the case for the typewriter is a partially-finished manuscript written by Cordelia. Juno purchases the typewriter. Her editor has asked her to go on assignment to Berlin, and she accepts with a double purpose in mind: to perform this assignment, and find out all she can about the Capels to complete the story the manuscript began.

In the 1930s, as the decade comes to an end, the Capel sisters Irene and Cordelia are about to head their separate ways. Close for their entire lives, this brings along a bit of angst, especially as Irene is marrying a German industrialist, who has also joined the Nazi party in order to expand his business. Cordelia, a bit later, heads to Paris to act as the secretary to the news bureau chief there, and eventually begins writing columns about her coverage of fashion there.

At first, the sisters write one another often, detailing the happenings around them - there are many historical people named in the novel, from fashion designers, writers, painters, and assorted other cultural icons in France on Cordelia's side to Nazi leaders in Germany on Irene's.

As the storms of war ramp up, Cordelia begs Irene to leave Germany and head home to London with her. Irene refuses, and after being warned by Mary Dodd (daughter of the US Ambassador) as well as a handsome Nazi officer (Abel Hoffman) to watch what she says and writes, and knowing that she will never be able to leave without her passport (now locked in a safe to which she does not know the combination), decides to restrict her letter to Cordelia to only the social goings-on she is party to as the wife of a wealthy and influential industrialist. She tells herself, however, to memorize the things she is seeing and hearing.

Cordelia, exasperated with Irene, tells her that the letter she is writing now will be her last, since Irene has apparently chosen the Germans over her family. Cordelia falls in love with her station chief, who decides to go to Spain, where a civil war is underway. She pleads with him not to go, but eventually she returns to London, alone. There, she works with British intelligence to prepare people to act as spies. She works with Kim Philby, the notorious double agent who penetrated the intelligence service.

Back in Germany, Irene makes a fateful decision to work with resistance fighters. Not in the field, but by bringing them materials they can use to fake papers, work orders, and so forth. Eventually, she also begins working in a hospital, to treat Germans injured in the war.

Thynne does a wonderful job of describing the environments in which the two sisters lived, but not to the point of it affecting the story negatively. The bustling of both Paris and Berlin prior to the war is depicted, as is the effect of war on the Germans as WWII grinds down on the country with the advances of both US and Russian troops.

The story is strongest when it is focused on Cordelia and Irene and the milieus in which they find themselves. Juno is certainly the weakest link, and when the book reached the last quarter, it was all Juno and what she had been able to discover, with her egocentric ex making an unwelcome appearance - an unneeded push to the story, as he served no purpose other than to reinforce to Juno that she was doing the right thing.

I won't go into the very end so as not to spoil it. I will say this is one of the best books I've read this year so far, and very well written. It is dramatic without being melodramatic, romantic without being cliche, and descriptive without being flowery.

4 out of 5 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine books for the advance copy.

I've read so many books that took place during WWII, it was a pleasure to read "The Words I Never Wrote" by Jane Thynne as the novel takes place and tells the reader a story of the years prior to the great war.

During a hot summer day, Juno Lambert, a photographer, and occasional writer, finds herself in an antique shop where she comes across an old 1931 Underwood typewriter that once belonged to a journalist Cordelia Capel. To her amusement, the old typewriter came with a bonus, a manuscript/biography hidden in its case. The script has lured Juno into its pages with an appealing story of two sisters who fought the same great war, from the opposite sides.

Regrettably, the sisters' relationship is torn apart by the horrific war. Newly married Irene joined her German husband in the heart of Germany - Berlin, at the same time as her younger sister Cordelia, a journalist in training was sent to France. During the years prior to WWII sisters often exchange letters that contain their political views and social life in pre-war Berlin and Paris. As the warning of the upcoming war becomes real, young Cordelia learns that Irene's husband is a Nazi sympathizer and urged her sister to leave her husband's side and return home before it's too late. With no explanation, Irene chooses not to follow Cordelia's pleas, and in result sisters' communications stops, and their lives go into different directions.

The biography is cut short, leaving Juno yearning for more. After throw research, she finds very little on Irene and Cordelia's lives during and after the war. Why Cordelia has not set her foot in Europe after 1945? Has Irene survived the war? Has Cordelia ever forgiven her sister for betraying their beliefs and homecourty? Juno packs her bags and boards the plane to the place that might hold answers to all her questions - Berlin.

I was immersed in the story of the triumph of the human spirit, and courage, as well as the strength and perseverance of strong women. Thank you NetGalley and Ballantine Books publishers for a free and advanced copy of this wonderful novel.

Two sisters, best friends and confidantes, Cordelia and Irene are torn apart by war allegiance during WWII. Can they find each other after the war to reconnect and reignite the relationship they both loved?

Historical fiction is my favorite genre and this book did not disappoint. Told partially in letters between the sisters, I loved the strength of both women to survive their place in the war. Both were faced with tough choices, but didn’t take the easy way out, making the novel emotional and fulfilling. I highly recommend this wonderful read.

I really liked this book - thought it was a very interesting story with strong characters and a parallel story-line that was connected but distinct. The main character (Juno) gets involved in the history of a famous female journalist. I like that Juno grows over the course of the book and makes active decisions in the story. The story of Cordelia (the journalist) is interesting but doesn't take away from Juno. Would very much recommend.

I promised myself that I was going to start avoiding all WWII novels, and yet, I was beyond excited to read The Words I Never Wrote.

Two sisters on opposite sides of the political spectrum during WWII, come on! Of course, I love this. Add in a vintage typewriter and a 'mystery' then this will be one of my favorites of the year.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Received this book from Net Gallery to review,it's a book about two sisters during the beginning and end of war. What happens to their relationships because of the war separating then! You can feel the warmth,the pain on both sides of the sisters. Very emotional with the war,things that are done you can feel on both sides. It is a very wonderful story with very much historical research done to set the plot with these characters that are in the story! You see what happens to certain relationships that the two sisters have,one living in Germany and one sister in Paris,it's about two different worlds but both are from England! Adventurous to say the least!! You will enjoy the two sisters relationship!!

One of my favorite historical fiction reads of all time! I absolutely loved this book. The writing was brilliant, and I loved the back and forth past/present perspectives.

When Juno Lambert purchases a 1931 Underwood manual typewriter, she has no idea that this impulsive buy will propel her into family secrets from the WWII era.

Inside the typewriter case is an unfinished novel written by the former owner, well-known journalist Cordelia Capel. In 1936 her sister, Irene married a German industrialist and moved to Berlin, while Cordelia relocated to Paris where she embarked on her career in journalism. As Hitler began his march towards WWII, the sisters exchanged letters about their lives, until Irene no longer dared to reveal what living in Germany was really like. Cordelia’s novel attempted to speculate on life in Nazi Germany and how Irene coped with it.

As Juno reads the manuscript she feels compelled to find out what happened to the two sisters and the secrets that divided them. This decision leads her to Germany and a conclusion that she never imagined.

The Words I Never Wrote is a magnificent novel that captures the essence of Nazi Germany prior to WWII as well as during the war. The author’s descriptions are so vivid that the reader can truly imagine life in high society Germany, the devastating bombings that Europe suffered, and the difficult choices that so many people were forced to make.


The novel is emotional, dramatic, and very compelling. The characters are very well-conceived and the descriptions of the people, places, and times are extremely well-done. It is a book that truly captured my attention from the very first chapter.

I most heartedly recommend Jane Thynne’s latest book. Her story will remain with you long after you turn the final page.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

I really have a soft spot for WWII books. Fiction or non-fiction/memoir. This book was very descriptive time period and the locations it was set it. I really loved the story between the sisters and the different experiences that they had. It was informative as well. I learned a few things about the war that I had not known previously. I usually don't like when historical fiction entwines a current story with the historical story but this was incorporated them together very well. If you love historical fiction this is a great book.

The Words I Never Wrote

A Novel

by Jane Thynne

Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine

Ballantine Books
Historical Fiction , Mystery & Thrillers



Pub Date 21 Jan 2020



I am reviewing a copy of The Words I Never Wrote through Netgalley and Ballantine Books:


I must say I am really impressed with this novel, the plot line, the characters, they all come a live on the page.


In present day New York Juno Lambert decides to buy a 1931 Underwood Typewriter that had belonged to the late celebrated journalist Cordeila Capel. The owner of the shop tries to convince her to buy another model, but Juno feels something is special about this one. Inside it’s case is an unfinished novel that tells of a transatlantic journey to fill in the secrets that lie between Cordelia and her sister.




1936 Europe Cordelia’s sister a socialist marries a German Industrialist, who quickly whisks her away to Berlin. Cordelia is feistier and more intellectual than Irene pursues her Journalistic career in Paris. Letters sent by her sister as politics begin to boil over in Europe, begin to show Cordeila that Irene is married to a Nazi Sympathizer. With an increasing desperation, Cordeila writes to her sister. As life in Nazi Germany Darkens, Irene no longer feels safe telling her sister what her existence is truly life, so Cordelia writes the truth on her Underwood Typewriter!


As Juno reads the Unfinished Novel, she resolves to uncover what happened between Irene and Cordelia.


This powerful novel draws you in and doesn’t let you go, therefore I find The Words I Never Wrote five out of five stars!



Happy Reading!

The Capel sisters Cordelia and Irene are separated after Cordelia marries a German industrialist in 1937 on the English estate of of the girls’ parents. Cordelia, the older sister is an aspiring artist and Irene is a writer. The author of The Words I Never Wrote, Jane Thynne has created a wonderful historical fiction exposing life during pre-war, during the war, and after the war in Berlin.

I felt like I was a witness to what Irene experienced as told through letters to her sister before and during part of the war and through a partly written novel by her sister Cordelia which is found in 2016 by a free lance writer, Juno, in New York.

Thynne brilliantly captures the fears of living in Germany and the difficult times the sisters have. I also enjoyed Juno’s story as she tries to figure out why Cordelia left an unfinished novel in the ancient typewriter case that she bought. If you like World War II historical fiction, I think you will like this novel as much as I did. I also feel bookclubs will have lots to discuss after reading. Thank you NetGalley and Ballantine Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked this book. I enjoyed the prose, the pace and the seamless way the story unfolded. It was like peeling off layers one by one, and each one of them was just as interesting and enjoyable as the last. I love WWII stories and this is now one of my favorites, it was also my first Jane Thynne book and I look forwards to reading more.

The dual timeline was engaging and the stories were told from each character's perspective, in language that gave you a very real sense of their surroundings without being bogged down by excessive descriptions

All in all, this book will be appreciated not only by historical fiction fans, but anybody that enjoys a good story.

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing for the ARC.

This is an exceptional WWII historical fiction read! I absolutely loved it and recommend it to any and all fans of this genre!

In 2012 in Brooklyn, NY, Cordelia Capel, 96, who has been called "the foremost chronicler of our American life, receives yet another prized journalism award and begins to reminisce about her long and illustrious career.

In 2016, Juno Lambert, 36, a photographer, stops in a typewriter store in NYC to find a prop for an upcoming photo session. She is immediately drawn to a black enamel Underwood Portable from 1931. The shop owner is reluctant to part with it, saying that it belonged to a very important lady, Cordelia Capel, who recently died at age 99. Juno is insistent, and he agrees to sell it, showing her that inside the case is an unfinished manuscript of a novel Cordelia was writing.

Juno reads the manuscript which begins in the year 1936 with the marriage of Cordelia's older sister Irene and tells the story of their relationship. Born into a wealthy family and raised in London, the girls were very close throughout their childhood, but things begin to change when Irene, at 22, marries a German law professor Ernst Weissmuller, 35, and moves to Berlin.

Cordelia always wanted to be a journalist, but her gender works against her. She accepts an offer of a job in the Paris news office as a secretary, and begins honing her journalism skills on the side. The sisters exchange letters, but Irene discovers that her husband is a Nazi sympathizer and finds that she must hide her true thoughts about what is occurring in Germany. Everyone is being watched; no one escapes scrutiny. Cordelia, frustrated that Irene doesn't express her dismay and distain for what is happening in Germany in her letters, assumes that Irene, too has become a Nazi sympathizer.

Juno, enthralled by the sisters' story, undertakes a quest to find additional information as to what happened to each of the women, to see how their story ends.

Ms. Thynne does an excellent job of creating deep, complex, characters and describing the era and political happenings from multiple viewpoints. She draws the reader in quickly and holds them tightly throughout the book. It was very interesting to read what was happening inside Germany from a non-German viewpoint, and I must say, though I often read books of this genre and time period, I learned a lot from this book.

This is one of my favorite reads of this genre. I will definitely be looking at Jane Thynne's prior offerings and no doubt will be adding several of them to my TBR pile!

My sincere thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine for allowing me to read a copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions expressed here are my own.

Juno buys and old typewriter. Inside she finds a manuscript and some letters. She does some research and finds out the author is a journalist like herself. This leads her on a quest to find out more, more than she bargained for.

This story revolves around two sisters, Cordelia in England and Irene in Berlin. Politics and war get in the way of their relationship and causes a huge tear. When the war is over Cordelia travels to Berlin as an interpreter. She finds her sister but it is not easy to repair the fissure in their relationship.

I fluctuated between three and four stars on this read. Basically because of the flow. I settled on four stars because of the ending. But, this story had a slow start, picked up, slowed down again, then ended well. It is very well researched and I enjoyed reading about Berlin before and after the war. It just has some flow issues. But it is not enough to make you put the book down. The mystery surrounding this story is intriguing and unique. So give it a go!

I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.

Set during the tumultuous era encompassing WWII, The Words I Never Wrote is an interesting take on how easily we can misunderstand those we love.

Our story begins with an elderly journalist receiving yet another award. Cordelia Capel already has a Pulitzer, has previously been honored with the White House Correspondents Association Award and this latest trophy will be just one more piece of memorabilia gathering dust on her overcrowded shelves. It is not the keepsake Cordelia wants. “If I have to have a memento as I sit here in my apartment in the summer of my ninety-sixth year,” she tells us, “I would choose the snow globe from the nursery at Birnham Park.”

That snowglobe had been unique. Custom made in London, it depicted Cordelia’s childhood home in England – the aforementioned Birnham Park – in perfect detail, including the two little girls who lived there. Cordelia and her older sister Irene are reproduced perfectly within the glass orb, playing on the lavish lawn of their miniaturized home. Theirs was a happy childhood, with the sisters being boon companions, who grew up to be accomplished, elegant, beautiful young women. All is bliss till 1936, when Irene gets engaged to Ernst Weissmuller, a German industrialist who plans to take her to Germany after the honeymoon. At the wedding, while wondering what to do with her own future, Cordelia impetuously agrees to work for a friend of her father’s as a secretary for the Paris office of his newspaper. As if she had sensed this would be in Cordelia’s future, Irene’s surprise gift to her sister, given as she leaves for her honeymoon, is an Underwood Portable typewriter.

In New York City in 2016, Juno Lambert is looking for the perfect prop for the portrait she is doing of an actress in a Tennessee Williams play. She plans to capture a 1940s feel in the picture, and decides to add a vintage typewriter to the paraphernalia she is including in the shot. She purchases an Underwood Portable typewriter that comes with a bonus; a 150 page story about two sisters separated by politics during WWII, written by the elderly owner right before she died.

Told from three different viewpoints – Irene, Cordelia, and Juno – this is a difficult book to review. I found the start of the tale mesmerizing. Knowing what was happening in Germany in the late 1930s, and being cognizant that France would fall to Nazi invaders just four years after Cordelia got there, I was anxious to find out what would develop with our innocent, oblivious heroines. Oddly, one thing that didn’t happen was Cordelia becoming a reporter. She covered Paris fashion for the paper for a time but mostly, after that opening chapter which spoke of her amazing career, Cordelia did whatever would help the plot move forward. Because she felt more like a tool for the development of the story line than an actual character, I had trouble connecting with her portion of the tale.

Irene’s life is the strongest and most interesting narrative in the book. She quickly realizes that neither her husband nor the situation in Germany are what she had been led to expect. Having befriended Ernest’s Jewish secretary when she first arrived, Irene has a front row seat at the rapid deterioration of the lives of Jewish people within the regime and has to decide how she will respond to the increasing horrors they face. She’s a brave and resourceful woman, taking risks few of us would have the courage for. Shockingly, she can’t write about any of this to her sister Cordelia because the SS makes a habit of examining foreign national’s correspondence. (Of course I’m being sarcastic there.) What was genuinely shocking was that the idea of censorship never occured to Cordelia, in spite of the fact that she had been told numerous times that the Nazi party employed the Gestapo to control the information that came out of the country. She thought that because Irene never spelled out her hatred of the Nazis in her letters, and never left her husband, she must be a Nazi sympathizer and so she cut off all contact with her. I found this simplistic view of the world on Cordelia’s part rather annoying. Or rather, I found this particular gimmick used by the author to create a separation between the sisters to be a deus ex machina. Indeed, in many ways both Juno and Cordelia seemed to exist simply to give us the story of Irene, making them almost superfluous to the tale.

Another factor related to that issue that I found irritating was the endless mansplaining put forth by Cordelia’s love interest regarding politics and ideology. I’ll grant that she needed to learn a few things but the method the author uses infantilized her. Along that same vein, the author does a giant information dump at the end of the book in Juno’s portion of the story to tell us what happened in the last thirty to fifty years in the lives of both sisters. I truly appreciated the information but struggled with how it all came out in a few brief conversations. Juno did have a storyline of her own, but I struggled to connect with her as a character as well. The most interesting portions of her story were not her own – they were what we found out about the post-war lives of Cordelia and Irene.

The complaints listed above were detriments to my enjoyment of the novel but there were many positives to the book as well. The author weaves her elegant prose with rich historical detail, covering everything from hats shaped like lamb chops in 1930s Paris fashion shows to the horrors of the Spanish Civil War and the atrocities of Nazi Germany. I especially appreciated her look at the kind of thinking which allowed Hitler to take power and how that thinking became corrosive, allowing for a greater and greater decay of conscience. Like most authors writing about that time period, Ms. Thynne skillfully weaves real life characters into her text. Irene attends several parties given by high ranking Nazis and meets interesting historical personages like Martha Dodd and Kim Philby. Ms. Thynne also does a marvelous job of incorporating the working class German’s “sardonic humor” which in the war years was “as black and bitter as Turkish coffee” into her tale. One of the scenes in a bomb shelter captures that dark joviality brilliantly and humanizes, for a brief instant, the ordinary people going through extraordinary events. Many writers demonize the Germans of that era but Ms. Thynne wisely shows us that these were people who had gone down a horrifically wrong path, whose pride in their country and way of life subsumed their decency and intellect. That highlights their actions as all the more chilling and despicable.

The Words I Never Wrote is an epic story which struggles to live up to its ambitions. It’s certainly an interesting read and one I think will satisfy readers who love dual timeline novels from the WWII era, although it lacks the brilliance to appeal outside that niche market.