This story was hard to get into and confusing at times. Liese's parents were beyond unbelievable. Andrew not talking to Karen about her mother was disheartening. I did like the fact that Karen did get some answers. Very depressing book.

I didn't finish this book. I felt the writing was choppy and unrealistic. I found I couldn't relate to the characters. I really enjoy WWII novels, but this one just didn't work for me.

Margarethe and Paul Elfmann owned one of Berlins most successful fashion houses; they ignored the unpleasantness of Hitler rising to popularity and the Nazi parties anti Jewish ideas. They dressed the highest ranking officer’s wives in their beautiful gowns; they held fashion parades and toasted their success with champagne. Their daughter Liese, was always in the background and her parents were too caught up fashion and designing beautiful dresses to be bothered raising a child and she’s now a teenager. They ignored what was going on around them and of course they lost their house, their money was seized and business closed. Liese had to take care of her parents who had no idea how to survive living in a grungy ghetto apartment and they finally discovered how much they needed her.

Forty years later, Karen Cartwright is called home to nurse her ailing father Andrew, she and her father have never been close. Karen’s mother Elizabeth passed away years ago, after the loss of her mother Karen found her father to be distant and cold. Once it’s decided that Andrew can’t live alone at home anymore and he must sell his house to pay for the nursing home. Karen has the task of emptying her father’s house, while going through his things she remembers her mother’s jewelry box and starts looking for it. Once she finds it she discovers an old photograph and a stranger’s tattered love letter to her mother and it was posted from Germany after WW II finished. As a young girl Karen struggled to understand why her mother spent a lot of time in bed, she had no friends, no relatives and she always seemed scared. Karen assumed the person her mother was scared of was her father Andrew and when her mother committed suicide Karen blamed her father for her mother’s death.

Karen had no idea when you dig up the past, do it gently with a care for the living and that’s exactly what happened. What Only We Know has a dual timeline that goes between Berlin during WW II, England and Berlin in the 1990’s. As Karen delves into her mother’s past, she discovers many secrets, including her mothers real name and her father Andrew was not at all the villain that she has always thought he was and was in fact her mother’s savior.
Thanks to NetGalley, Catherine Hokin for my digital copy of her new book, all opinions expressed in this review are my own and I gave the book four stars.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book for an honest review.

This is a story about war, survival and redemption told both from a historical perspective and modern day. It is a story based in Germany and England. It is a heart breaking story about a mother’s love of her child at the preconceived expense of her other child. It is also a love story with a mystery told across the years. Some of the aspects of the book are very difficult to read especially with all the main characters being so well defined. Read this book you will not be disappointed.

3.5 Stars. This was the most heartbreaking story that I have read. However, it is probably close to the emotions of a true story of this time, as devastating as that is.

Liese was a young woman growing up in war-torn Berlin at the time of WWII, desperate to find relief for herself and daughter, Lottie. This story takes us through her heralding attempts to find safety, as a Jewish woman in Nazi-dominated Germany, and purpose in life post war and without her family. The other side of the story takes us on a journey with Leise's second daughter, Karen, as she attempts to find the reasoning behind her mother's suicide. Both sides of the story collide as the Berlin Wall is torn down, as nation reunites, and secrets are revealed.
I wish there was more of a happy ending to this story. But, it showed the strength of traumatized characters and the love of family as the heartbreak of the story got the closure they needed at the end. I was saddened, mostly, reading through this novel, but I also realized the power it had in the fact that the evil of that time did not persist. That the goodness of others eventually persisted and a world was healed. There seemed to be some gaps in the story that left me a bit confused, yet, I was still enthralled to continue to turn the pages.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book thanks to Netgalley and the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I really appreciate what the author was trying to do and what story they were trying to tell but the writing had me very confused and I felt like it didn't start off in such a way that I wanted to know more. There was nothing that grabbed my attention right off the bat and that's extremely disappointing.

After finishing "The Nightingale", I was really craving another World War II era novel, so I was excited to read "What Only We Know." The story didn't grab my attention from the get-go and it seemed to lag. I didn't find myself hooked and reading chapter after chapter. It's a bittersweet story and I'm glad I finished it, but it didn't pull me in like I was hoping for.

What Only We Know begins a little disjointedly, quickly jumping between the experiences of a Jewish teenager in 1930s Berlin and an English girl in the 1970s who has just lost her mother to suicide. These dual narrators are Liese and Karen, a mother-and-daughter pair kept distant by the former's mysterious past and the latter's foggy childhood memories of her overprotective mother. I became more invested in the story in its second half, but I found the writing style occasionally awkward, especially in the beginning. The way Hokin writes sometimes made it unclear who was speaking, which pulled me out of the story, and her explanation of actions often reads unnaturally. Anyone who reads a lot of WWII historical fiction will likely enjoy What Only We Know, but it may not be a memorable or impactful favorite.

I had high ambitions for this book as I loved Hokin’s previous book, however What Only We Know did not live up to my expectations. I found the story very disjointed, it moved at a snails pace at times, I struggled to finish it to the end. The ending was only too convenient for my liking.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC

Thank you net galley for the advance reader copy of this novel. This was a historical fiction mainly centering on WWII. It took me some time to get into this novel. The summary/snippet provided here was from the halfway point of the novel and that was a bit confusing. The novel is told in 3 time periods, WWII, 1960s, and 1990s and by two points of view, Liese who is Jewish at the start of the war and Karen, Liese daughter, after the war and time period of Berlin Wall. The author clearly did so much research for this novel to get all the historical facts correct. The details and characters will tug at your heart and will make this a memorable read. So much loss. I felt it was a little too convenient that Karen and Markus ended up together. I would recommend this book for historical fiction fans!

I saw this book on bookstagram and knew I wanted to read it. I absolutely loved it. It drew me in and I didn't want to take a break. Definitely did not disappoint!

I had a very difficult time getting into this book. It's set during two different timelines, and they do eventually intersect, but it's just a very stilted writing style until you get at least halfway into it. The story line is interesting, and I learned a bit about how fashion houses work, too....it was just a lot to plow through to get to the good parts.

I found this book hard to get into at the start, but by the end I was needing to know what happened. I enjoyed the two separate but entwined story lines.
I liked the main characters but lieses parent drive me to madness!!!!
It was a well written book overall, just a little hard to get into at the start

This was a stunning wartime novel that I had a great time reading. The way the writer depicted the characters will strike a chord with many of the readers, and the story will draw everybody in. Highly recommend this novel.