A heartwarming story of love in many forms, this book was superb. My thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I'm a seasoned reader of books about the German occupation of Guernsey Island, and this book immediately caught my eye.

For Those Who Are Lost covers not only World War II from multiple points of view, but it also has a twist of a wrongdoing that leads to family drama and years of angst. The story was engaging because I was curious to see how each character would fare both during and after the War.

I received a free copy of this book by NetGalley and the publisher in return for an honest review. All opinions are mine.

Truly love at first read.

This story is one of those heartbreaking stories that I didn't even think was something that had come up during WWII but again things are always there to surprise you.

For the most part this is the story of unconditional love between a child and a mother but on the other side of things it's also a story about how situations and feelings can evolve in stressful situations.

Lily is in a particularly stressful situation at the start of the book. Faced with a loveless and painful marriage she looks at the evacuation as a way to be free. She convinces her sister to let her go in her stead and is then placed in custody of two children, Henry and Catherine. Lily is forced to make many decisions throughout the book that ultimately impact Catherine substantially but also as a by product effect both Henry and his parents.

Catherine is only a child throughout the book so we only hear about her reactions through the lens of adults until the last chapter in the book. But she's sort of like a leaf in the wind, her life is in the hands of everyone else and she's learning to adjust and move beyond.

Henry, Catherine's brother and Ava, her mother are faced with a lot of interesting situations with in the book. There's topics brought up that leave you wishing that you could really see beyond the veil of there interactions but it brings about a lot of interesting conversation pieces.

WWII was difficult for everyone who was directly and indirectly involved but this book focuses on situations that aren't the clearest about how they would be resolved or how they would have arisen. There's missing family members and affairs; relationships with people who some are forced into. It covers a lot of intriguing topics in a respectful manner.

Definitely a read if you have a love for historical fiction. A read for if you're taking a chance and you not only want to be entertained but also learn. Experiencing WWII through books like this is one of my favorite ways to do so, there are so many perspectives to take into consideration and this book does a beautiful job of expressing each and every one of them.

Let me start out by stating that I had SUPER HIGH HOPES for this book.
They were dashed almost from the get go.
This book has so much going for it, but the author decided to torture the reader with pages upon pages of agonizing dialogue about the separation of Catherine and Henry from their parents. The children were sent from Guernsey to England.
Over a quarter of the book is taken up by this decision....just this separation. It was so boring going over and over and over again how much the decision hurt.
THEN and this is the part that just tears me up...THEN EVERYTHING ELSE IS GLOSSED OVER!
The affair with the German officer, the sending away of Joseph to a prisoner camp, the death of the elderly Miss Milly, the death of Lily, the family of Lily,,,,,EVERYTHING ELSE WAS A FEW SENTENCES!
This book could have been spectacular...in the end it falls flat for its brevity of the above items.

This is a WWII story that could happen today in our unstable world! One day, Ava and Simon are enjoying their lives in Guernsey an island off the coast in England, the next day they choose to send off their two children, Henry 9, and Catherine 4, to England with a teacher from Henrys' school as guardian, until they can join them. The Nazis are coming to Guernsey and the parents of the island want to keep their children safe!
But they do not know that their children's' guardian is a stranger, the teachers' sister, Lily, who is desperate to leave Guernsey as she has been abused by her husband.
The two children are separated by Lily when they reach England.
What will happen to them......

For parents in World War II era Guernsey, the choice is a heartbreaking one – send their children to England alone to avoid the Nazi invasion, or keep them home, perhaps jeopardizing their lives. Ava and Joseph Simon make the difficult decision to send their children, Catherine and Henry, to England in the care of their teacher, Helen. Unbeknownst to the Simon’s Helen’s sister Lily and she trade places at the last moment. leaving Helen on the island she doesn’t want to leave. and giving Lily a chance to start over. Lives are irrevocably changed, when in London, Lily lets Henry board a train by himself while she walks off in the other direction with Catherine.