Another extraordinary and outstanding novel brought to life by the ever so talented Ellie Midwood. Like every book Ellie Midwood writes, she has the most quintessential way of bringing her story to life for her readers as well as her characters alive with the turn of every page.

In this story, we meet Lore as she is sentenced to a supposed one year term in prison. Her crime: having compassion and sympathy for the Jewish community of Austria. From the beginning of her sentence at Ravensbrück, to her final internment at Mauthausen, Lore’s story is heart breaking and gut wrenching. In the midst of the chaos, injustice and torture, Lore finds her light and her reason to live: Wolf. In a place that says light shall turn to dark, hope shall be no more, death is the only guarantee and love cannot and will not overcome; Wolf and Lore defy those odds. But is it enough? I recommend you read and find out.

As always, Ellie’s characters are developed to perfection and the time, effort, and thoughtfulness put into the research of these characters and their situations is absolutely impressive. Ellie’s words bring this novel to life and her descriptions are so vivid I can picture it all. This is a must Read!

Quite an interesting story, and one that differs from so many others in this genre. You will see how love does conquer all, and how decisions made in the worst of times are sometimes made to help, even if they are unimaginable decisions.

This was a quick read and one that I am thankful for the opportunity!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC! This historical fiction novel is about a woman who found love while going through the worst of humankind. The story starts with the main character getting a divorce in the present. Through her divorce testimony we hear about her past: the torture she went through, the sisterhood that saved each other, her finding of true love and her journey to motherhood. Many times jumping into the past can be confusing but the author makes the story easy to follow.

This is the first book I have read by Ellie Midwood but it definitely will not be my last. I finished this book in 2 days because I just kept telling myself “one more chapter and then I will go to sleep”. A lot of WWII stories tend to tell a similar story but this was a story I had not heard before. The author focused on the characters and their stories instead of bogging the storyline down with day to day activities of the concentration camp. I fell in love with all of the characters (minus the bad guys) and felt invested in what was coming next. If you love Historical Fiction then you will not want to miss this one.

This is a story about strength, love and hope in a place built to destroy everything good. Have your tissues ready because you will need them. I only wish we got to see more in the ending.

This was a terrific book well written and very emotional.
Lore lived in Vienna doing typing for the Germans and also helping the Jews with papers to get them out of Germany. But Lore got caught and was sent to A concentration camp called Mauthausen where she was a political prisoner,
Lore was strong and determined to survive the war, but she was badly beaten many times and was getting weaker.
But Lore fell in love in the camp with another political prisoner and they looked after each other,but life was hard and people were dying every day eating anything from rats to one day rabbits, she was going to survive and go home one day.

The wonderful Ellie Midwood has done it again, she's written yet another heartbreaking yet inspirational novel set during WW2.
This novel however is slightly different as it begins at the end of the war with Lore having to explain herself in a divorce court. Her husband tries hard to discredit her but luckily the judge wants to hear her side of the story, and what a story it is.
Working for the SS in a Jewish immigration office, Lore is accused of treason when she helps a Jewish Doctor, but instead of death she's sent to a concentration camp, and then moved again to Mauthausen where she falls in love, fights for her life and those around her and finds the strength to survive.
Ellie Midwood bases her novels on real people and this shows with the insight she gives us to her characters, there are those you love and those you detest and this is purely down to the strength of her writing.
Thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for this advanced copy, I'm under no obligation to leave my review

In this inspiring story you learn what a mother will do to be united with her child.

Lore is a wife and a secretary just trying to do her best at both jobs. She finds herself working for the Jewish Immigration Agency when Hitler is rising to power. She begins to question herself and her role within the war.

Soon Lore is sentenced to a concentration camp. Although she does not have the resources she once had she does her best to keep her integrity in tact. One thing after another comes her way and her will never breaks.

As things have changed and she finds herself in a new role she begins to lead others and spread hope. After finding love in an expected place she is filled with more than hope.

In this beautiful and heart wrenching story of a woman’s drive to do the right thing you’ll find yourself asking at what lengths would you go to?

I throughly enjoyed this story and all I have learned. The writing is very detailed and develops the characters well.

Forbidden love in a world where death is imminent, a secret child born in the hell on earth that is the Mauthausen death camp, and the spark of rebellion combine into a heart wrenching story. Based on true events this is a truly emotional story that needed to be told and I was lucky enough to get to read.
@elliemidwood has created a novel that shows the strength of human spirit in the darkest circumstances.
Releasing Aug 15 2023, if you are a fan of historical fiction, or just really love to watch love beat the odds I highly recommend this book.
Thank you to @netgalley and @bookouture for allowing me to read this one early in exchange for a review.
#thechildwholived #readforjoy #read #readersofinstagram #bookstagram #books #historicalfiction #ww2 #ww2stories #booklover #bookrecommendations #bookreview

I made it through reading 50% of this book, then put it down. I had a hard time connecting with the characters. The main character, Lore was a strong woman. I admired that about her, but I just couldn’t connect with her. I felt that the book was lots of statements made and not enough depth in the plot. The story is interesting but I felt like it lacked sustenance.

This was my first time reading a book by Ellie Midwood, but I certainly hope it won't be my last. The Child Who Lived was an emotional read that I devoured. I loved the characters, the plot and the perfect ending. I will be telling everyone to check this one out!

Firstly I would like to thank netgalley, and Bookoutune, and the fantastic author Ellie midwood for an early copy of her book.


This is my first read from this author, and wont be my last.This book starts with Lore in a divorce court her husband trying to make her out as a dirty whore,she tells her story to the judge.she becomes a prisoner in the death camps trying to survive,and sees the torture and death around her..she ends up in a brothel she didnt have a choice she knew she would die if she didnt..she meets many friends and Wolf she finds herself pregnant.how can she keep a child alive in the camp..a very emotional story of strength to protect her child.fantastic read highly recommend.

This book will be reviewed on goodreads and Amazon

Having read and loved The Violinist of Auschwitz by the same author, I was drawn to this new historical fiction offering. Although not primarily about “the child who lived”, the book brings together all of the experiences that allowed a child to live after being born in what could be considered hell on earth.
Lore is a young, unhappily married Austrian woman. She is transformed through all of the horrors that she is both witness to and personally experiences after being sentenced to a concentration camp during WWII because she chose good over evil.
Lore becomes a fighter and does whatever it takes to survive against all odds. Ellie Midwood combines several different stories and events from WWII: the brothel at Mauthausen, the escape of several hundred Russians from a subcamp, the massive hunt for those escapees, to create this book. I loved the characters: Lore, her friends in the camp, and her love, Wolf. I also hated the characters: Lore’s husband, the SS guards and the Nazis. This is because Ellie did an amazing job with her character building. The descriptions were on point and had me feeling such emotions between sadness and devastation, hate and love, but also hope. While the horror of all that these people endured made parts difficult to read, I also did not want to put it down.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bookouture: I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

"But, in the end, determination won over fear. As heroic men were dying in hundreds, Lore swore to herself that her child would live—as the only act of resistance to the Nazis available to her, as a tiny drop in the ocean of lives in desperate need to be replaced, as a member of a new generation that would never repeat the mistakes of its fathers—she swore that she would protect this child with her life.
So the child who wasn’t meant to survive would become a child who lived."

One of my favorite quotes that gave me goosebumps.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC read.

I absolutely loved this book and devoured it! There were descriptions that gave me visions of nightmares, and also passages that provided hopeful and wholesome short glimpses. I got mad, I laughed even, and the only reason why I give it four stars (4 and a half really) is because I was close to, but in the end didn't cry.

Lore is going through divorce proceedings following WWII. She shares her story with the court of everything she went through during her stays in multiple concentration camps as a criminal prisoner.

I loved this story and the underlying love story that was told.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and author for this eARC.

This is a very good and engaging read which I enjoyed. I really like the way the author opened the story and was drawn in quickly right away. I think the authors writing style is good, in my opinion Ellie Midwood forges a connection with her readers by creating a cast of believable and likeable characters who jump out of the pages. I think the story flows easily, I love how it moves from past to present times effortlessly, and the plot line is good. I really liked and found I cared for the main character Lore and was rooting for her and the other camp ladies just to survive. At times the authors writing touched my emotions as it was that descriptive I was able to picture the characters and scenes in my mind as I was reading. There are certain characters I loathed, and I think the author has done their job well making me feel this way. I loved the ending which I think gives the book a good, satisfying and fitting closure. If you're a fan of historical fiction set in WW2 I'd recommend this book to you.

4 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Ellie Midwood writes with such clarity in describing human emotions that the reader slides effortlessly into the story. You easily identify with the characters from different times and places, making reading this book a visceral experience. The graphic brutality and atrocities endured by female prisoners in Ravensbruck and Mauthausen were at times overwhelming and difficult to read. However, if they had to experience it, we can certainly bear witness to it.

The story is told with a dual timeline, beginning in an Austrian divorce court in 1946. We learn of Lore's story as she tells it to the judge. The writing is so smooth that I barely noticed as the story switched between past and present. The unconditional support and love that these tortured women had for each other soothed my soul. Even in the darkest of nightmares, their compassion & humanity never faltered.

As Judge Brodbeck said about Lore, "a rebel with a moral compass always pointing in the right direction in spite of the circumstances." High praise indeed. This was an excellent book, dealing with a stark reality for women often overlooked in WW II historical fiction. It will be released on August 15, 2023.

Many thanks to NetGalley & Bookouture for the opportunity to read the ARC. The review & opinions are my own.

This story opens in 1946 during a divorce proceeding. The husband spewing derogatory terms about his "whore" wife ,
It's here Lore opens up about the horrors of the Mauthausen concentration camp, or THE BONE GRINDER as it was called by It's prisoners.

The story very seamlessly goes back and forth between the courtroom and the the years at the camp (1942-1945).
She tells of the atrocities the soldier's put them through, the sexual slavery when a brothel was
constructed, the food rations and beatings. Throughout all that, Lore inexplicably finds love and unknowingly conceives a child ....in the darkest of times.
All the women know that if found out , this is an instant execution for her and the unborn child.

This is a story of strength, bravery and the bonds of sisterhood during the worst times in history.


𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗱

I highly recommend you read this wonderful albeit heartbreaking novel, in the hopes that the victims never be forgotten

Thank you to netgally and bookstore for the arc. All reviews and opinions are my own.
Publication date - 15 August 2023

3.5 stars. This was your average, run of the mill World War II historical fiction novel. It was nothing special, but I guess that I was not really expecting anything special either.

An amazing read! Based on true events, this unforgettable World War Two novel shows that even in darkness, love can sometimes find a way. This is definitely a book that all should read. It'll have you thinking, starting discussions and speaking out when the time comes. I found it an intriguing and great read. I read it through very quickly.

"The Child Who Lived" is a gripping fictionalized tale that immediately opens up into a no-holds-barred presentation faced by everyday citizens facing the horror and reality of WW2. Based on the accounts of women prisoners of war forced into sexual slavery, the story while fictional, doesn't refrain from depicting the horror women prisoners had to endure, and recounts from a first-person perspective taken from excruciating testimonies in the book "Born Survivors".
Midwood's writing and research are precise. Framed within the story of the protagonist undergoing a divorce trial, the story is presented as part of court testimony, making the presentation of the tale which unfolds all the more gripping for readers, and heart-wrenching with its tale of atrocities, and hope despite the darkness.
Much of what Midwood presents is based on historical fact, making this tale, despite fictional, difficult, but a necessity to read. Using testimonials of the hardships women had to endure in the concentration camps, the book serves as a reminder of unknown and forgotten parts of history, but within it, tales of immense bravery which over time have all but been forgotten. The writing in many cases is necessarily raw and brutal. Yet, there is still within the framework, a reminder of the perseverance of the human spirit, even in the eyes of immense odds.
Ellie Midwood has presented to both the world of fiction, and the world in general, a work of writing, which strives both to capture historical authenticity, and at the same time, explore both sides of human nature, both good and bad.