A captivating story that begins prior to World war 2 and ends in the 1990’s.
Clara’s knew that her deceased mother was an artist that no longer painted but knew nothing about her Father.
Clara is searching for information about her Father and discovers a photo of her Mother in the apartment of a man that owned the porcelain figurines that she just purchased at auction.
Clara with the help of her daughter go to Germany to search for answers. There they find that her Mother. Bettina Vogel was not only an artist that changed her style of work after the German Occupation. Bettina was also in a relationship with Max , a Jew prior to the occupation and made plans to leave but unfortunately Max is stopped from leaving. In the meantime Bettina marries a Nazi soldier and does whatever she has to to protect her daughter. Max is sent to a Dachau and this is where he becomes the porcelain maker.
The story unfolds from the present day to the past. The characters are unforgettable.
This appears to be the author’s first novel and it will be a huge success.
Many thanks to Netgalley for an opportunity to read this ARC.

This fictional WWII debut was tragic and heartbreaking but extremely slow! I almost threw in the towel several times. It did eventually pick up and I'm glad that I stuck with it. The story was very interesting and even though it was painfully slow, I had to know what happened to Max. I would have liked to have more of Clara's present-day POV, where she learned about her father's identity bit by bit rather than learning it all from her parents' POV. A few cliffhangers would have grasped my attention more as well. I think that this will be a great hit with the historical fiction lovers and I would definitely recommend it to them!

Thank you to the author, St. Martins Press and NetGalley for allowing me advanced digital access in exchange for my honest review!

A heart-breaking WWII story.
Clara is looking for her roots. She grew up with her mother, Bettina, who would not tell her who her father was.
The book goes back and forth between Bettina's story during WWII and Clara's search in the 1990s.
Bettina was an expressionist artist. Expressionist art was branded as degenerate by the Third Reich.
Her lover became a sculptor in a concentration camp.
I don't want to give any more details.
If you like historical fiction, you will like The Porcelain Maker.
I recommend it and give it 4 stars.

Berlin, Germany in 1929. Max, a Jewish architect, and Bettina, a celebrated avant-garde artist. Their love burns bright but will it remain when the Nazis come calling?

Max is arrested and sent to a concentration camp at Dachau where his talent for exquisite porcelain figurines is the only thing keeping him alive, while Bettina does everything in her power to see him free.

The book switches to America in 1993, and Bettina’s daughter, Clara, begins a journey to trace her roots and find her father.

The characters in this historical fiction book feel very real. And the action and almost nonstop anxiety feel very real as well. Everything about this book is beautiful and heart-wrenching.

NetGalley/ St. Martin’s Press, November 07, 2023

A brilliant debut featuring two artists in love in a prewar Berlin and a daughter searching for the truth.

One aspect of Clara’s life has always been a mystery. Who is her father? She knows her real father isn’t the German officer her mother married during WWII but it’s a secret that was taken to the grave. Her mother Bettina, a well known artist during the war spoke very little of her wartime experiences but a painting of a Viking and a porcelain figure made in its liking has never been far from her side. Clara knows this painting and figure are clues to her parentage and she sets out on a journey for answers.

Written in a dual timeline, The Porcelain Maker is an unputdownable story that takes you back in time to when interracial love was forbidden under the Nazi regime and art had its limitations. This story will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, St Martins Press and Sarah Freethy for early access to the memorable story.

What a story. Not your run-of-the-mill books. The story takes place in two eras, Germany, starting in 1925 and 1993. Max Ehrlich and Bettina Vogel are two people who fall deeply in love. Max has turned his back on his Jewish faith and gone to a school of arts in Germany, and learned to be an architect. The school is where he met Bettina an aspiring and very talented artist. The atmosphere in Germany is not good for a Jewish man to be with a German girl and they must be careful. As the country gets worse they have to hide their love but Hitler's men are everywhere even Bettina’s on brother..
The other era is Bettina’s daughter Clare and her daughter as they search for clues to discover who her father was.
This book really touched me and I felt the pain and struggle for survival of these two lovers. I'm glad they didn't go into a deep description of the depravity and did go into the great love they shared. I do recommend this book very much. It's not your happy-ever-after story but it is a story that will touch your heart.
Thank you NetGalley and publishers St. Martin’s Press for this eARC, this is my honest opinion. Sarah Freethy wrote an amazing story The Porcelain Maker.

Excellent, moving tale of artists during the 30s and 40s in Germany, torn apart by the viciousness of the Nazi regime, and a 1900s woman seeking to untangle the hidden threads of her past.

Honestly, I've read quite a lot of fiction related to World War II family sagas, and the impact of the Nazi regime on various life stories, and this is one of the best.

There are really two parallel stories - that of 1990s Clara who is sleuthing to decypher her family's mysterious past and find out the true story of her parentage. Then there's the story of 1930s/40s Bettina, a gifted artist, and her fate as she, her friends and her lover, Max, clash with the ideologies and restrictions of the burgeoning Third Reich.

I really appreciate NetGalley and the publisher, St. Martin's Press, for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy of this title. Highly recommend for lovers of literature, of art and of history.

I want to thank St Martin’s Press and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review The Porcelain Maker. This is a debut book by Sarah Freethy.
A Holocaust book with a different storyline. Bettina and Max are artists. He is an architect and she is a painter. They are very much in love and planning a life together. But this is Germany in the 1930’s and Hitler is coming into power. Max is Jewish and therein lies the problem.
They get involved with creating Porcelain figures which the Germans, especially Himmler, consider extremely desirable.
The book flashes forward to 1993. And Bettina’s ancestors want to find out more about her.
Does Bettina ever find Max?
Does Holger help?
Do Clara and Lotte get answers?
What happened at the Allach-Dachau Porcelain Factory?
The book draws you in quickly. The characters are well defined. It’s hard to put down!
The Porcelain Maker publishes 11/7/2023.

With just the couple short paragraphs that serve as a prologue, I knew I wanted to keep reading. By the end of the first couple chapters, I was completely hooked. I admit to reading the rest with equal parts curiosity & dread, as it’s easy to imagine the terrible things Bettina & Max will face in late 1930’s Germany. The overwhelmed Clara is relatable as she tries to puzzle her paternity out decades later. I like how she & her daughter are so open with each other, in contrast to Clara’s experience with her own mother.
As I was reading, it was reassuring to know Clara is safe & well in 1993. I was sometimes glad for the jump to her & Lotte’s research for a while, as a small break from the horrifying war years. It’s seamless when the two storylines start to entwine. Trust me, keep a box of tissues handy.
It’s heartbreaking to know this work of fiction is symbolic of many tragic true stories that emerged from the horrors of the holocaust. This prompted me to read more about the porcelain of Dachau, & a story like this seems entirely plausible.
I found this book to be very well-written & complex. The depth of the characters amid vivid descriptions of the settings & artwork make it come to life. Even as parts are heart-wrenching, it’s also an amazing tale of never-ending love, courage, & sacrifice. The epilogue is perfect.
Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read an advance copy.

For a first time author. I'm simply amazed. I'm amazed because Sarah wrote a heartbreaking story of love and loss. dual timelines of WWII and 1993. She also did an excellent job with prose and narrative storytelling. She researched well look forward to her next book.

Thanks netgalley and publisher. All thoughts are my own and aren't influenced by anyone else

This was an amazing story with very memorable characters. I was left thinking about this story long after I finished it.

I seem to be winning with all the gorgeous dual timeline historical fictions I have been reading lately, and THE PORCELAIN MAKER by Sarah Freethy is just gorgeous and heartbreaking.

Freethy succeeds in balancing the historical timeline that begins in 1929 Germany with Bettina, an artist and Max, an architect, and the present day timeline set in 1993 that focuses on Clara, Bettina’s daughter, who searches to learn more about her own past and her father. She paints a vivid picture of the time in Germany as the Nazis rise to power through the WWII era from the perspective of both Max and Bettina, whose lives take two very different paths.

The vivid settings, the well-drawn characters, the EMOTION of the story. This is a gripping, page-turning tale of love and survival.

This book was a bit slow to get started, and I almost stopped reading, but I stuck with it, and I am so glad I did. Eventually, I couldn't put it down. The story was historically accurate, and to say it was compelling is an understatement. I felt the pain of the characters, and felt anger on their behalf. It is a wonderfully told story.

On the other hand, the amount of grammatical errors and incorrect word usage is worse than I have seen in a very long time. Double quotation marks, capitalized words in the middle of a sentence. Sentences that miss a period at the end. The use of effected when it should be affected. Possessive instead of plural nouns. Verb tense errors. The list goes on.

For the story, I give this book 5 stars. For the writing and extremely poor editing, I give this book 2 stars. This book deserves, and is desperately in need of a better copy editor.

The Porcelain Maker by Sarah Freethy is an amazing novel, set during WWII that tells the story of young star crossed lovers, she German and he Jewish, who are torn apart by the war. It is told in dual timelines which makes it so heart wrenching as their daughter tries to untangle the secrets of the past. Beautifully written, a wonderfully engaging work. Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

This is such a beautifully rendered story set in 1930's Germany and 1990's Great Britain and America. It is hard to believe that this is Ms. Freethy's first foray into published fiction. It's just that good!

The story opens in 1993 Cincinnati, Ohio, where Clara attends an auction of Allach porcelain figurines. She believes these figurines to be the link to her natural father's identity which her mother refused to divulge and whose identity her mother had taken to her grave. In alternating chapters, we read about Clara's mother, Bettina Vogel, as a young expressionistic painter in the Bauhaus school. This is where she meets a gifted, up-and-coming architect, Max Ehrlich, who just happens to be Jewish. They fall in love and eventually flee to Bavaria. Their beautiful story is charged with challenges and Max is found out and sent to nearby Dachau concentration camp without Bettina's knowledge.

This story's writing is painterly and the vocabulary rich. The scenes are exquisite and horrendous in equal measure. I was moved to tears as I read of Bettina's and Max's plight. The amount of research which went into this book is herculean. The story, although fictitious, utilizes historical fact for its framework and the story is woven in and through it. Yes, there was an Allach Porcelain concern which existed from 1936 to 1945 and yes, when its workers were called to military service, the interred at Dachau assumed their positions. This is an incredibly moving story and I eagerly await Ms. Freethy's next one.

I am grateful to St. Martin's Press for having provided an uncorrected digital galley of this book through NetGalley. Their generosity, however has not influenced this review - the words of which are mine alone.

Publisher: St. Matin's Press
Anticipated Publication Date: November 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-1250289346
No. of pages: 384

A product of two star crossed lovers during WWII and the Nazi occupation, Clara attempts to find her 'real' father with little to no information from her mother. The only thing she has to go on is he was the 'artist of Dechau.' The dual story of the past and present was really well done.

This book is a bit out of my normal reads, but it sounded too good to not give it a try. And boy oh boy am I glad I read it. It was written really well, especially with the dual timelines.

Thank you to NetGalley and St.Martin’s Press for this ARC. ~I was given this book and made no commitments to leave my opinions, favorable or otherwise~

Thank you St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for my ARC of “The Porcelain Maker.” What a breathtaking, but heartbreaking story of love and loss. I really enjoyed the dual timelines of WWII and 1993. The author did an excellent job with prose and narrative storytelling and it is her debut novel. I cannot wait to read more from her. 5/5 ⭐️.

In present-day 1993, Clara Vogel has traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio from her home in London to bid on an auction for a handful of porcelain figurines. At first glance they aren't particularly noteworthy pieces - but for Clara, they are the only clue she has to the true identity of her father, a fact that her mother Bettina has kept from her. Joined by her daughter Lotte, Clara begins to unravel the truth behind her mother's life and her own identity.

The novel alternates narratives to Germany in the 1930's when young Bettina Vogel, a defiant German painter, meets Jewish sculpter Max Ehrlich. The two fall in love but on the cusp of WWII, their relationship becomes a dangerous one. Despite their best attempts, the two are torn apart until, years later, Bettina is given a chance to reunite with Max. Despite the inevitable end of their relationship, the two find solace in the art that they're able to make and the underlying purpose behind their creations.

I have a soft spot for novels centered around WWII, so was immediately drawn into "The Porcelain Maker". While the overall structure of this story wasn't novel, I enjoyed Freethy's prose and storytelling; for a debut author, she has a strong grasp of voice. I appreciated the way she focused on the importance of art - paintings, sculptures, and porcelain figurines - and how it remained key even in the midst of war; it was simultaneously a visual escape but also could serve as a medium for protest and rebellion. I loved the passages where she described these pieces in great detail, and the process and amount of work that went into creating these works of art.

Excited for this novel to be published in September 2023!

Thank you to Net Galley for providing an early copy of The Porcelain Maker by Sarah Freethy

Debut author Sarah Freethy has created a unique and engaging chronicle of two young people who fall in love in Berlin as the Nazi regime is taking hold of Germany,,

Bettina Vogel is an avant-garde artist who is coming into her own in the art world. Max Erlich is an architect. Despite complications, they fall in love and make plans to leave Germany and its horrors behind. Jealous of Max's creativity and opportunities, co-workers attack Max and he is arrested for using a false name.

Bettina does not know what has become of Max and moves on in order to protect her unborn child. She has come up with the idea of reworking her artwork to align with Nazi propaganda. In a twist of fate, she reunites, albeit briefly, with Max in a Dachau porcelain factory which produces the sculptures the Nazis rush to purchase.

The novel travels between World War II and the 1990s as Bettina and Max's daughter, Clara, and her daughter, Lottie, an artist herself, work tirelessly to discover who Clara's father is.

The author has succeeded in creating a narrative rich in detail and particularly vocabulary. While readers hope for a happy ending, Clara and Lottie will definitely come away with a much deeper understanding of their heritage and will be proactive in having the story told.