I have really enjoyed Ellie Midwoods books - I don't know why she is not more well-known in the WWII fiction genre, but she should be. She writes a very emotionally powerful story about a girl living in horrible circumstances - a ghetto in Minsk (capital of Belarus). I didn't know until half-way into this story, that it is based on a true story - which made this book all the more interesting and heart-wrenching. Because it is so very real. What do you do when you fall in love with the enemy? When you no longer see him as a uniform that is occupying your country, and see him as a human being? It happens, and it happened probably many times during different wars. This book is about the courage of a young girl and her ability to fight back, her ability to love openly, and to never give up. I couldn't put this book down, I had to see how it ended, and warning, you will need kleenex.
But read this book. Especially if you couldn't get enough of "the Tattooist of Auschwitz".

After recently reading a similar book to this I was excited to be offered the opportunity to read the girl who survived.
For eighteen-year-old Ilse life is unrecognizable. A year ago, she wasn’t forced to wear a star on her clothes. A year ago, her parents were alive, not yet killed by their own countrymen. A year ago, she had her freedom.

Now, at the break of dawn, she steps off the cattle train into a Minsk ghetto. This is Ilse’s new home: trapped by barbed wire, surrounded by SS guards she is forbidden to look in the eye, with no choice but to trade the last of her belongings for scraps of food. Sentenced for the crime of simply existing, she doesn’t expect to live past the summer.

Yet the prisoners in the ghetto refuse to give up––the underground resistance is plotting their escape. Ilse’s first act of defiance is smuggling from the munitions factory, slipping bullets into the lining of her pockets.

But this is just the beginning… When Ilse meets Wilhem, a local SS administrative officer, she never dreams that her greatest rebellion will be falling for him. Wilhem promises that she will survive, even if the cost is his life. But in a world of such danger, daring to love is the most dangerous risk of all…

Gripped me from the first page… Tearful at times, but equally filled with joy at others… I really enjoyed this book and once started I found it difficult to put it down!… A beautiful, intricately woven story. A most definitely ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️