Under Darkening Skies showcases Ray Kingfisher’s eye for intrigue and subject matter, but I’m not sure I’m the best audience for his style of storytelling.

Historically, this novel has a lot going for it. WWII fiction is riding high, but Norway is not a venue many authors have used and I appreciated the fresh perspective the setting afforded. Ingrid proved an interesting enough heroine, but I was fascinated by the men in her life. Historical fiction tends to focus on women and while I respect the motivation behind that trend, I liked how Under Darkening Skies approached masculine emotion and allowed Olav, Franz, and Arnold to be more than mere placeholders in Ingrid’s story.

Having said that, I found the novel highly predictable. Reading between the lines, I understood this story would touch on the Lebensborn program before I cracked the spine. For me, the hook was the mystery at the heart of the novel, but I deciphered the plot twist well-before the halfway mark and spent the vast majority of my reading hoping for a curveball that never materialized.

At the end of the day, I think Kingfisher has a lot a great ideas, but Under Darkening Skies lacked the historical depth I crave. I give it points for flirting with some interesting emotional arcs but can’t say it the page-turner I’d hoped for on picking it up.

Recommended for fans of lighter war stories and/or those discovering the material for the first time.

4 stars

In 2011, Arnold's mother Ingrid passed away after a long illness. She muttered some very odd words just before she passed. Arnold ponders them almost obsessively for day after the funeral especially after discovering a letter from Norway amongst her things. It was a letter wanting to know what had happened to Ingrid's son Ulrich. Arnold, now sixty-six, is greatly troubled by the letter, but his two grown daughters are not. Arnold contacts the writer of the letter named Merit and his relatives in Saskatchewan.

The story flashes back to 1940 in Oslo, Norway in 1940 when the Nazis overtook the country and a program called Lebensborn. It tells Ingrid's story, her boyfriend Olav and her very ill mamma. It is a heartbreaking interlude.

Arnold decides to travel to Oslo to meet Merit. He invites Merlene, his mother's nurse in her latter days and now a good friend of Arnold's to go with him. To say that Arnold has an eye opening time is a gross understatement.

This is a good book and I enjoyed reading it. I knew about the Lebensborn Program but did not realize that the Nazis exported it to their conquered countries. It was a horrifying story that also had moments of hope and the proof of the resiliency of the human spirit.

I want to thank NetGalley and Amazon Publishing UK for forwarding to me a copy of this very good book for me to read, enjoy and review.

Thank you NetGalley and Amazon Publishing UK for the eARC.
I tried hard to get into this book, but for some reason I didn't like it. A bit was the writing which seemed simplistic, but none of the characters spoke to me either; they felt flat and I couldn't get invested in them. Too bad, because I was looking forward to reading the story; usually I like WWII novels and novels set in Canada, but this one just wasn't for me. Sorry!

The story was fantastic. It absolutely pulled me in, no question. I was hooked from the first page and couldn’t stop until the last sentence of the last page.

My biggest problem with the book was the writing style. It was a little youngish for me, though the storyline is certainly not for a younger audience.

It took a little while for me to get into the story but once I did, I really enjoyed it. Great characters and writing style. Lovely ending. I'll definitely look out for more from the author!

I'm sad to say that this is just not a book for me. I thought the blurb sounded very intriguing, but alas I struggled both with the very predictable story and the flat characters. I really wanted to like the book. However, I felt I didn't even have enough willpower to plow through the book to even finish it.