In the French Alps the people of Annecy endure the Gestapo’s brutality and one officer in particular is rather nasty. Herr Hans Schmid uses his position to target young girls and he’s a sinister killer.

Aurelie is one of his victims, over winter her family have no choice but to store her body in the roof of the house and bury her with her mother when the soil defrosts. It takes a while for Aurelie to understand why no one can see her or hear her and that’s because she’s a spirit.

Caught between two worlds, Aurelie worries about her father, sister Claire, brother Alain and best friend Ginny. Claire, her boyfriend Jean-Michel and Alain are involved in the resistance and Aurelie is concerned they will be joining her if the German's catch them!

I received a copy of The Girl on the Roof by Debra Moffitt from NetGalley and BooksGoSocial in exchange for an honest review. I found the information about the Second World War to be accurate, it gave you a sense of what it was like to live in France at the time, I'm not a fan of the supernatural elements of the story and three stars from me.

The women are full of sorrow. Aurelie is sixteen far from a baby but they won't say what happened. A small figure is prepared for a later funeral. I may have liked the book without the added paranormal touch .

This was an interesting story with rich historical detail. I like Aurelie’s character and was captivated by her story.
Many thanks to BooksGoSocial and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was a really interesting read, the characters were well written and the premise gets you hooked from the start. I really enjoyed reading this book. This book highlights many historical events. I liked the first person point of view and my heart ached for Aurelie as she continued to search for answers to all the questions she had. This is a great book for younger readers who are interested in historical fiction.

this was a really interesting read, the characters were well written and the premise gets you hooked from the start. I really enjoyed reading this book.

This was a WWII fictional novel,but quite a different take,from any I have read before.
A young girl died and since it is winter and there's no way to bury her,she
put on the roof of her home.
Her family is severely agrieved,but the young girl,can not believe she is dead.She thinks it is her grandfather.
She sees thinks happening with her sister and friends and trys to get them to hear and see her,but mostly they do not.
The horrible German who is doing these things,is the same one,who killed her.
Her sister is his cook and housekeeper and finds him intolerable,but in his own way,he cares deeply for her.
The whole story comes to an end,when he thinks that the girl on the roof is still alive,but in actuality it is her friend,who looks enough like her to be her twin.
He is told to kill her and the girls sister by a higher up,but instead,she gets him to kill himself and they escape to Switzerland.
Interesting,but not my cup of tea,when it gets into things beyond my imagination,about what's beyond this life and inbetween.
Thank you to Net Galley for the opportunity to read,but would not recommend.

This paranormal historical fiction story opens with young Aurelie attending her own funeral. Set in Nazi-occupied France during WWII, Aurelie wonders why everyone she knows is ignoring her. It took me a little bit to figure out what was going on, but I quickly figured out before Aurelie did that she was among the dead.

While I enjoyed the story overall, I wish it had started out a little bit clearer and let the reader in on Aurelie's death. I think it would have made the first part of the book more enjoyable. Aurelie had a romantic relationship with an older man which weirded me out in the way it was portrayed. Hans was a creep, and I think that took away from the intention of the story.

This book starts off very confusingly. The first few chapters dragged for me and I pondered giving the book up, but I'm glad I stuck with it.

Set in France on the Swiss/French border in World War Two, this book moves between the physical world and the spiritual world. Trapped in the world between life and death, Aurelie, has to finish some task she left undone on Earth before being allowed to continue. Through her eyes we see how and why she died, but we are also exposed to the horrors of the war - both physical and spiritual forces.

A dark, thought-provoking read. It'll stay with me for a while.

A warning though: more sensitive readers may be disturbed by some of the spiritual scenes as they are very intense.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me the chance to read this book.

I really enjoyed this book. There were some powerful moments in these pages and it was meaningful without feeling heavy. It was dark without crossing the line into sadistic. It left a mark on me and I’ll be sitting with it for a long time. I definitely recommend!

This paranormal World War II novel is different from any novel I’ve read. It took me a while to realize that Aurelia was not a living person, but then she didn’t figure out that she wasn’t living until way into the book. I realize that at her age, her obsession with Hans was realistic (if a spirit can be realistic) but placing so much focus on his sexual perversions detracted from what should have been the focus, that of the French Resistance. The book left me depressed instead of celebrating the French Resistance.

Interesting tale set in France near the border during WWII.

The idea of departed souls lingering and seeing what happens in our lives is not new. Having mention of the darkness in the souls of Nazi officers is unsurprising. But, the merging of this with the idea of souls being reincarnated and consistently seeking out the same souls is something that is less common.

Overall an interesting read.

This was an okay read for me I didn’t like the paranormal aspect but overall a good historical fiction read

The Girl on the roof is a story about a teen aged girl, Aurelie! The story starts off strong.. keeps you interested.. but the story flow was kinda bumpy and I could hardly relate to characters other than Aurelie.. which made the interest fade.. its took me longer than I expected to finish this one.. may be appealing if you’re looking for deep, heavy storyline!
Thank you NetGalley, Debra Moffitt and BooksGoSocial for the ARC. This review is my own and is not influenced in any way!

This story was very unexpected. I was constantly guessing what would happen next but couldn't predict it. It's historical fiction but with religious and mythological elements weaved in, which makes for an unpredictable story.

Some of the religious elements of the story were very clever in the way they were put into the story but others I liked less. There were certain small moments that I would have taken out of the book or worded another way, purely based on how I interpreted them to be problematic. I also am not too keen on how often violence against women was depicted in the story and how the mythological and religious elements sometimes clashed with Herr Schmid's character and were sometimes used to explain his actions.

However, I really liked Naehelle, Silvie, and Claire; I didn't expect to like Naehelle and Silvie when I first met them, so those characters surprised me.

Overall, I enjoyed the story and was impressed by the how the story unfolded. However, certain elements in the story didn't mix very well and I would have toned down some of the religious aspects.

Thank you, NetGalley, for letting me read this book.

It started out strongly, with the heroine's gradual realisation of what had happened to her, but then it just faded a bit.

I'm sorry, I just found too many little jarring things to really go with the flow of this book. There was a little too much hot chocolate available in the local cafe and I don't think the SS needed supernatural intervention to be evil.

I wanted so badly to like this book. WWII is my favorite era of historical fiction. I didn't read the full description when I requested it, which is entirely on me, so I didn't realize that the author is a "psychic." I don't believe one way or another when it comes to that, but I'm skeptical of someone claiming that their psychic abilities helped them write accurate historical fiction.

I loved that Aurelie narrates, rather than someone who knew her. It reminded me of The Lovely Bones in a way, though it took a while for Aurelie to realize that she is dead. However, it was difficult as a reader to believe that she didn't know she was dead; she assumed that the body on the roof (a practice done because the ground was cold) belonged to her grandfather and mourned him, ignoring the obvious and wondering why her family ignored her. Most readers would figure it out quickly, and I was frustrated by her inability to do so.

The author's name seemed familiar to me, so I googled her and learned that she claims to have psychic abilities and that those abilities connected her with the girl who inspired the character of Aurelie, and that's what killed the book for me. Between it being painfully average and some of the more crude sexual matter, it just was not a good fit for me.

2.5 stars, rounded up to 3.

This is a paranormal account of events in a German occupied French village during WWII. Aurelia is the girl on the roof and through her eyes we witness many of the atrocities perpetuated by the Gestapo on the French people as well as efforts by some of the French to thwart them. But Aurelia is also consumed by feelings of bothe hatred and affection for Herr Schmid and worried for her sister, Claire, and her friend, Ginny. As a result, she finds herself trying to influence their thoughts and actions from "the other side."
This is a complex tale that crosses the boundaries between the living and the dead. It is quite dark and in my opinion, depressing. While the tale completely captures the horrors of war, I wanted more hope and less violence and fear.
Aurelia's obsession with Hans and the details of his sexual perversions also detracted from what I think should have been the focus of the story -- the French resistance. I wanted more facts and history and less astral visitations and descriptions of the occult. However, for those who enjoy paranormal accounts, this could be an interesting and satisfying read.

For a couple of pages into this book, I did not quite get the entire gist of what was happening.

Annecey like most French towns under the yoke of Nazi brutality are trying their best to live. To just survive. In this scenario we have an ordinary family - one young daughter working for the Nazis in town - hates them but pretends to be subservient just to get as many secrets as she could to help the resistance. A young brother working for the Resistance and a little sister who gets murdered by a sadistic paedophile who is a Nazi but where it cannot be proved that he is the murderer.

Aurelie is the restless spirit in this story who for sometime has to be convinced she is dead and that none of her beloved family can actually see or hear her. Those like her sister Claire and her best friend Ginny sense her presence and what she says to them in a dream but then they brush it away as a figment of their imagination. Aurelie is one of the girls found dead but then other bodies also come up and Aurelie senses that Ginny is next.

The focus of the book then shifts as to how Aurelie is going to protect and warn Ginny of the danger she is in from the Nazi officer who has befriended her and whom Ginny is infatuated with. The dangers of espionage in Nazi occupied France are also highlighted in the story and this also forms the backdrop to the suspenseful tale.

Unusual storyline, the background of occupied France and rural Annecey all add to a very good story.

Thank you to Netgalley and Books Go Social for this advanced reader's copy. Interesting story with compelling and engaging characters. Interesting perspective on good versus evil.

I received a free electronic copy of this ARC from Netgalley, Debra Moffitt, and BooksGoSocial. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and my review reflects my honest personal opinion of this work. An interesting peek into the French resistance and life during the war on the French side of the Alps.

The Girl on the Roof is set in WWII in German-occupied Annecy, France, a small town in the French Alps. It is a story told in the first person by 15 years old Aurelie, recently deceased and stored on the roof of her home until spring thaw before she can be buried. Aurelie's older sister Claire, father, and brother Alain are deeply involved in the resistance but Aurelie was not, just a youngster with her mind on books and boys, time spent with her schooling and her best friend Ginny. She is the first of the local girls found strangled and raped in the community during the winter months.

Aurelie doesn't realize that she is among the dead until about 1/3 of the way through the book, and I found that I was able to suspend disbelief through that portion of the book. Some of the other flights of fancy I couldn't buy, for the most part, contained in Chapter 28. Still, an interesting story presented well. And the startling look into the French Resistance was also very Informative. I found Claire the most sympathetic character of the story although the relationship between Aurelie and Ginny is very interesting.