Thanks to NetGalley, Bookoture and Lily Graham for my copy of her new book: The Child Of Auschwitz.

In 1942 Prague. Eva Adami has endured two long days, standing up in a train and has been treated like an animal. Eva's tired, hungry, thirsty, dirty and in shock. For Eva and thousands of other Jewish people, nothing could ever prepare them for the horror of the concentration camp known as Auschwitz and it's nightmare.
When the train finally arrives, the guards are yelling at them to get out, dogs are barking, the women are sorted into groups and led into a large hall. Here the frightened women are told to remove their clothes, they stand naked in front of SS guards, their heads are shaved, they are told to get dressed and it's a mad scramble to find anything to cover themselves from a pile of dirty clothes.

Eva and Sofie are on the train together. Both have been separated from the people they love and the plan is to try to find them. Eva has been separated from her husband Michal, they had only been married for 6 months when he received a letter telling him he was being sent to a work camp and Eva sure he's in Auschwitz? Sofie has been betrayed by her cousin Lotte, she informed the Germans that she was trying to flee the country and was separated from her baby son. Lotte might have taken Tomas to a orphanage in Austria, she was also sent to a concentration camp and is Lotte in Auschwitz?

Eva, Sofie and Helga share the same bunk in the awful accommodation block. Their days are spent standing in a line, being counted twice a day, in the freezing cold rain and sometimes it can take the guards two hours to complete the count. They work up to 10 hours a day sorting clothes and belongings taken from the new people who arrive at the camp everyday.
Sofie is soon targeted by one of the guards called Meier and he uses any excuse to touch her. When Eva discovers Michal is in the camp hospital, Sofie makes the choice to give into the guards demands so her friend Eva can spend half an hour with her husband.

Sofie is soon a target of a nasty guard, he hates her and she's forced to change jobs and is doing hard labour. Eva is being worked to death, she starving and she discovers that she's pregnant. Both women know that they can't last much longer living in the camp, the Germans are being defeated and both women need to hang on until the Russians arrive. Eva and Sofie make a promise to look after each other children, they will find Tomas and keep Eva's baby safe.

The Child Of Auschwitz is a story about two mothers love for their children and their devotion to each other. Sofie is on a mission to find her lost son Tomas and Eva needs to hide her pregnancy for as long as she can and give her baby a chance to be born. It's a story about love, hope, motherhood, human spirit and friendship.
I enjoyed reading: The Child Of Auschwitz, the opinions expressed in this review are my own and I gave the book four stars.

The Child of Auschwitz is a beautiful, emotional story of friendship, family, hope and love. I love reading historical fiction, so I had high hopes; Lily Graham did not disappoint! I love the way the story is written. It’s hard to adequately put in to words how amazing this book is.

This is my first book by this author, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but I will be reading more book by this author. She has a beautiful style of writing. It is full of details, but still with a good flow. to the story.

I have read several books about the Holocaust and it is a subject that is hard to read about. It is heartbreaking, confronting and it shows humanity in it's worst, but also it can show hope and survival. This book grabbed me from the first sentence and didn't let me go for the entire journey. I had goosebumps while reading.

Lily Graham focusses her story on the people in Auschwitz and not so much the horrors. It is there, but not in a lot of graphic detail. In flashback we get told the background story of the main characters and what brought them to this point and all their loss, hopes and dreams.

It is a beautiful story.

This is the first book I have read by Lily Graham, I feel it’s improper to say I enjoyed a book based on an appalling time in history, but I found it to be a compelling read. It’s exquisitely written, bittersweet tale, which recounts the story of Eva, one of thousands of women held captive in the death camp Auschwitz. The story shifts between two timelines, when Eva and Michael first met, and the troubling times that led up to the war and persecution of Jews, and the second focuses on Eva’s time at Auschwitz, her search for Michael, and the birth of their child, the author moves between the two seamlessly. The Child Of Auschwitz is a remarkable tale of endurance, love and friendship, and the worse and best of humanity.


The novel is set against the harrowing backdrop of Auschwitz, personally I think any author who uses a concentration camp as a location hasn’t chosen an easy path. When ever I pick up a fictional book about this location, I always worry an author won’t be able to get the balance right, I generally find there’s too much focus on the atrocities that took place in these death camps, or the story overshadows just how dreadful these places were. I think Lily Graham balanced them both perfectly; she doesn’t shy away from describing the severe conditions or the cruel treatment of Eva and her fellow prisoners, but neither is this her primary focus, it’s very much a character driven novel about friendship, lost, survival and hope.

It was heartwarming to see the developing friendship between Eva and Sophie blossom, a friendship so deep that they willing forego their own moral compass to help each other through sickness and starvation. When Eva gave birth my heart broke, It’s almost impossible to imagine that babies were born in Auschwitz let alone survived, their mothers experienced a life of starvation, forced labour, and infectious diseases, which hardly gave these innocent infants the best start in life. I found this read incredibly sad as fact blended with fiction, at other times my heart lifted at the strength, determination and camaraderie between the prisoners shone through.


The Child Of Auschwitz is a reminder that even in the darkest of places its possible to find happiness, it may be only have been for a few seconds, before it crumbled to dust, but it was moments like this that gave prisoners hope and the will to survive. Whilst reading The Child Of Auschwitz I found it difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction, Eva’s story could be any number of women who had the misfortune to end up in Auschwitz in fact the story was inspired by Vera Bein who gave birth during her time in Auschwitz. The Child Of Auschwitz is a moving story that’s emotive, horrifying, and heartbreaking, you can’t help but think of the millions of prisoners who suffered, and died in the concentration camps. Highly recommended to those who enjoy historical fiction

This is an upsetting book about a dark time in history.

Eva and Sofie are friends, trying desperately to survive in Auschwitz. We learn of the events that brought them together and we witness their struggle.

I read it in one sitting, keen to see if there could be any happy ending. Well written and paced, this is a good book set within a terrible atrocity.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for my copy of this book.

This is not my usual genre of book but I was intrigued to read it!
Sensitively told it’s the story of heartbreak, suffering, starvation, cruelty and injustice but it’s also the tale of the most amazing resilience, hope,determination and love.
Much is written about the nazi occupation and the treatment of Jews in the concentration camps particularly auschwitz, this book explains the history of that time in an easily readable manner, describing the harrowing conditions of camp and the Mis treatment of the prisoners but the overiding sense it gave was that of the relationships formed and the sheer tenacity and strength of all those involved most particularly Eva and sofie and the little miracle baby nadeje.A most compelling read that will bring tears to your eyes and realisation of how lucky we are today.
Thank you so much net galley for this early read.

Hope and Promises in the most dire circumstances

During the Nazi occupation the Jewish people were subjected to great hardship and injustice simply because they were Jewish. They were rounded up and sent to camps, families were separated and many were burned in the gas chambers or perished because of the deplorable conditions in camps such as Auschwitz. Few survived and even fewer were the children.

This is the story of a child that was born in Auschwitz and survived. It is the story of Eve and Michael and her family and the story of her friend Sophie.

The story is of Eve's time in Auschwitz, her friends Sophie, Helga and the others also in this camp. Through a man named Herman Eve was able to find her husband Michael, and spend a few hours with him before he was sent away to work in a factory. Later she learned she was pregnant. The child was born in Auschwitz. Her friends helped her hide the baby and Sophie gave her life to save Eve and the baby.

When the camp was liberated Helga went with Eve as her family was gone. They returned to Eve's home.

The rest of the story is contained within the pages of this book. I don't know how they survived the camp and the conditions. Such cruelty is so hard to understand.

I think during this time God must have been crying for these people. What a horrible dark time in the existence of the human race. We must read and remember lest we forget. This must never happen again.

What a tragic and realistic story this has been. Through all the evil there was hope, friendship and love.

I highly recommend this book.

Thanks to Bookouture, Lily Graham, and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review an advance copy of this book

Have read many stories about auschwitz and it is difficult to say one book is better than the other.
Every story is horrendous about what the people in the concentration camps suffered.
Thanks net galley for allowing me to read this book, and hope people who do not realise what happened in the camps an insight of what itv was like, though thank goodness we will never experience it,
Eva and sofie were in the camp,together and they were best friends.
Both determined to live and have a happy life.
They wanted the world to know what was happening in auschwitz and make sure nothing like this ever happened again.