An absorbing novel about the Cold War told from the perspective of one family torn apart by the construction of the Berlin Wall. The novel opens on Sunday August 13, 1961 when Monica Voekler is walking with her 3 year-old daughter, Luisa, to meet up with Monica's parents and younger sister in their neighbourhood in the western sector only to discover that barriers have been constructed overnight to prevent movement back and forth between East and West Berlin. The story is then told from the point of view of two narrators with Monica's husband, Haris Voekler, telling his story from the day the Berlin wall went up in 1961 through to November 9, 1989 and Luisa telling her story over a few days in 1989.

Luisa works in Washington, DC as a CIA codebreaker and has moved in with her Oma as her Opa has recently died. Luisa believes that she moved to the US with her grandparents after her parents were killed in a car crash but when she discovers a cache of letters which she refers to as The Berlin Letters, she realizes that her father is actually alive in Berlin and has been writing to her grandfather for 25 years embedding secret messages within the text of the letters. The most recent letter from several months earlier reveals that her father is in trouble and, as protests spread across Eastern Europe, Luisa races to save her father.

I was in university in 1989 and remember very clearly the protests across Eastern Europe and the incredible day when the wall came down in Berlin but didn't know much about the construction of the wall or what it was like to live in the GDR during the Cold War. The Berlin Letters is a fascinating, thoroughly researched historical fiction novel - it's fictionalized but has a firm foundation in the facts and I finished with a better understanding of how individual families were torn apart and suffered, how people existed with fear/paranoia about being watched by unknown informants for the government in Eastern bloc countries and how various geopolitical events in the late 1980s led to change. The Berlin Letters has all the suspense of a political thriller but is also a story about an individual family torn apart by a totalitarian regime and reunited with the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. A captivating page-turner that teaches history with an entertaining story!

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Muse for sending a digital ARC of this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

At the time of the Berlin wall, a mother on the east side tosses her baby daughter to her father on the west side, but is stopped before she can get over. Years later, the grown daughter finds letters from her father to her grandfather. She decides to go find her parents.

Well crafted story center on the time around the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and providing personal, historical stories of a family divided by it's construction. Characters are well developed and likeable, my only complaint is the rushed feeling to the final chapters and the epilogue - seemed like a "well, reached my word limit, so wham bam, that's the end. Worthwhile read for fans of Cold War thrillers / espionage stories.

Katherine Reay is taking on a very different storyline lately. Spy novels is not something I think of when I first think of Reay's books. But let me tell you, it is now.
Set as the wall goes up and then in 1989, the two different perspectives on when, why, and how the wall effected the citizens on both sides. Effects that continued long into the future.
Luisa Voekler knew her parents lived and died on the other side of the iron curtain. She doesn't know all the story and the hidden cache of letters written between her grandfather, the man who taught her all about codes and secrets messages, and her father, the man she thought long dead, turns her world upside down.
Behind the curtain, Haris Voekler has had his view of communism changed as he lives longer and longer under it. So much so he wants to do something about it. He starts writing his late wife's father and starts in motion something that may just change the world.
I know I would make a terrible spy. I just am not sure I would be able to keep it all straight, but Reay pens a story about ordinary people doing what they have to make sure the world is a better place. I am surprised by these stories, ones we never learn about in history class. Reay's book gives me different perspective on how hard people were working for freedom and what were some of the reasons for the wall coming down.
A very interesting historical fiction for those of us that remember that day well. It is also the story of how one person can make a big difference in the world if they just do the right thing.

My first Katherine Reay book was, “Dear Mr. Knightley,” which I adored. While the other titles written by Reay around this time didn’t grab me quite as much, last year I was blown away by, “A Shadow in Moscow,” my favorite book of 2023. When I saw that there was a new book coming out by this author, who is now a definite favorite, I was beyond excited to receive an advanced copy to read on NetGalley. I only hoped it lived up to her achievement of the previous year’s, “A Shadow in Moscow.” It did! “The Berlin Letters,” is (thankfully) a bit different than the many, many novels that have come out it the last several years surrounding the World War ll time period. I have heard a lot about the Berlin Wall over the years, and have read other novels on the topic. However, I learned many things that I had never heard before in this book. The overall concept of how a culture is infiltrated by Communism is very interesting and very relevant to our times. The story is engaging from start to finish, and is one I will definitely encourage others to read in the future!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Harper Muse through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Washington, DC, 1989

Luisa Voekler misses her beloved Opa and her life before he died. The life where she lives alone works as a code breaker for a super-secret branch of the CIA and visits her grandparents. But she promised her Opa she would move back home to care for her Oma when he died.

While she doesn’t regret her decision, her grandmother’s hovering and worrying have restricted her life. Her friends want her to join them more often and revive her social life. Luisa doesn’t know why she resists—she feels close to no one, has horrible dreams, and feels like a failure because she didn’t make the cut as a CIA agent.

When a coworker brings her the Berlin letters—pieces of coded correspondence from an agent in Berlin, a small mark on one of the envelopes sparks a memory of a long-ago conversation with Opa. All the games they played in her childhood have a new meaning, and Luisa races to crack the code and discover the truth about her parents.

Does she still have time to save one of them?

East Berlin, Germany, 1961

Haris Voekler, star reporter for the party newspaper, mourns when his wife, Monica, does the unthinkable. Rather than stay in East Berlin as the party builds a wall separating the city, she passes their three-year-old daughter over the concertina wire to her parents. Haris and Monica cannot escape the ever-restricting community and the ever-intrusive Stasi.

After Monica dies of a broken heart, Haris begins a coded correspondence with his father-in-law, Walther. The game of hiding the truth in banal pleasantries gives him a challenge his job no longer provides. Demoted at work, watched on every side, and living with the devastating realization that he chose the wrong side, Haris needs the correspondence to maintain his sanity.

As friends and coworkers suffer through arrest and face death for their courageous decisions, Haris must decide what he will do.

By 1989, Haris had joined the resistance, and someone had betrayed him. His father-in-law hasn’t written for months, and he wastes away in a Stasi prison. Hope dries up. Then, the unthinkable happens in the middle of a prison transfer.

What I Loved About This Book

This book intrigued me as someone who grew up hearing about the Berlin Wall and reading stories in the Reader’s Digest of daring escapes over it. I don’t usually read historical books set in my lifetime (I feel like a relict), but The Berlin Letters quickly grabbed my attention and kept it.

Reay explores how the missing pieces of our lives impact us more than we realize. Luisa has no firm memories of her early life, and those missing pieces cause nightmares and a vague sense of loss. Only as she works to uncover her past does she start to awaken. Haris discovers a way to fight against the society he once touted as perfect by writing to his father-in-law. His small rebellion keeps a spark of hope inside him because it fills in the missing pieces of his daughter’s life.

Thoughtful, thorough, and swirling with mystery and intrigue, The Berlin Letters will take you on a journey through despair and hope.

I have always found Katherine Reay’s novels interesting. This one struck me in that it is very historical, which seemed to beat a new path for the author. Sometimes books like that, in new topic fields, “show.” But in this novel by Katherine Reay, the plot, the research, the characters were all fantastic. I truly enjoyed the story. I am always very appreciative of books that lend a historical focus to them, an accurate historical focus. This novel did just that. Not only was it interesting, presenting a sort of mystery surrounding the coded messages, it also allowed the reader to step into the Cold War historically, seeing the impact of generational scars on the immigrants who experienced the War and it’s horrors more first hand before moving to the US. It’s good to be reminded that our grandparents lived through that time! We should never lose a grasp of history.

I adored this book. It was fast paced and had me hooked from the prologue. The action starts right away!
Before I read The Berlin Letters, I had a broad knowledge or what happened in Berlin when the wall went up in the 1960's but Katherine Reay's writing transported me right into it. How the citizens were feeling? How awful and disconcerting it would have been for them living on either side. Separated from family and having life change as they knew it, so seemingly permanently almost overnight. She painted that picture very well and it was so heartbreaking and realistic.
This is a dual timeline book. It was told from the perspective of Luisa Voekler in the late 1980's in Washington D.C and her father Haris Voekler in 1960's East Berlin.
The Berlin Letters is a story of political intrigue but more importantly of family relationships and deep seated and necessary secrets. Reay does such a great job of revealing those secrets in an electrifying way from start to finish. I couldn't recommend this book enough. My first read of 2024 is a 5 star! I feel so privileged to have had the opportunity to read an ARC copy before the books release. Thank you NetGalley for that opportunity.

#TheBerlinLetters #NetGalley

✨I have been a fan of @katherinereay’s books going all the way back to her first novel DEAR MR. KNIGHTLEY which I loved. It has been a true pleasure to watch her writing evolve over time.

✨I need my historical fiction to give me captivating storytelling while teaching me something I didn’t know. This one delivers in spades.

✨The dual timelines and points of view masterfully tell the story of a family divided by the Berlin Wall as well the disparity between postwar US and Eastern Europe.

✨I loved the nuanced storytelling, the historical references, the themes of resistance and redemption and the second chance romance woven into the narrative.

✨An excellent Cold War espionage historical fiction that I highly recommend.

Don’t miss it.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read The Berlin Letters. Ms. Reay writes an incredible story set against the Berlin Wall. This is a story of choices, consequences and what we do for those we love. This story will keep you on the absolute edge of your seat!! You won't be able to put it down!!!

On my first trip to Berlin I had the privilege of listening to stories of people who experienced the wall going up and the wall going down while sitting at a breakfast table. In this book Katherine Reay has captured the essence of that experience in a page turner while transporting you to one of my favorite cities in the world. She has done so while creating characters that are real and match their time. I highly recommend this novel.

The Berlin Letters was a really interesting look into something that happened not too long ago in history: the Berlin Wall. I haven't read many historical fiction books that center around this event, and it was fascinating to step into the shoes of the characters and experience this time in history for myself. I really loved the idea of a father-and-daughter timeline. It gave the book a definite family feel to it, which I so appreciated.

I think my forever favorite book by the author will be The London House, but The Berlin Letters was an intriguing read. Full of themes such as family, sacrifice, forgiveness, and beauty from ashes, The Berlin Letters is a touching read. The climax of the story had me on the edge of my seat, and the ending...I couldn't have asked for a more perfect ending.

The only thing that kept me from giving this book a full five stars is because the pacing felt a bit slow initially, giving the story a dragged-out feeling. However, I knew if I stuck with it, I would get invested in the story, and I was right. ;)

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for an eARC of The Berlin Letters. A positive review was not required, only my honest opinion. All thoughts are expressly my own.

This story had me on the edge of my seat. Setting the scene in post WW2 Berlin and giving the perspective of how fast things changed for the citizens of Berlin was compelling. Seeing how the characters had to use secret ways to communicate and how many years later it all came into play was exciting! I definitely recommend this book!

Luisa Voekler is a CIA code breaker in the dying days of the Cold War, in the novel, "The Berlin Letters." by Katherine Reay. Although born in East Berlin, Luisa is curried away to the West by her grandparents just as Germany erects the wall. At the age of three, she leaves behind her parents who were not able to get to West Berlin, and several years later die in a tragic car accident.

Now secure in her job as a code breaker in 1989, Louisa comes across lost letters from her father to her grandfather. She quickly realizes that her father is still alive and languishing in an East German jail cell. So the adventure begins for Louisa to understand the nature of the letters from her father and race to rescue him.

The novel is quick paced, engaging and filled with characters that fill there own purposes. The historical context is riveting and gives the reader a feeling of what It might have been like to live in east Berlin through the cold war.

This novel is an excellent read where one can get lost in this fascinating historical period, while still rooting for a heroine who refuses to give up.

Thank you Netgalley and Harper Muse for the ARC.

A trip to Berlin in February 2023 sparked the imagination of author Katherine Reay as she began work on her latest novel, “The Berlin Letters.” She wrote this roman à clef about a fictional family living in East and West Berlin, then the U.S., during the Cold War era. The novel begins in 1961 when Germany had an Allied portion in the West and a Soviet portion in the East. Refugees were crossing in droves from the east to the west. General Secretary Walter Ulbricht, a German communist leader, stockpiled materials and prepared troops to quickly put up the Berlin wall to keep the Western “fascists” out, he said. Really, they wanted to stop the flow of people fleeing to the West they saw as “fascists.”

Reay begins on a day that changed everything. Monica and Haris Voekler still in bed on Aug. 13, 1961, the day the Berlin Wall began construction. People were running as fast as they could to cross over the barbed wire barrier. Some lived in a building that faced West Berlin and used a window to climb down.

Journalist Haris runs off to cover the story about this “anti-Fascist protection barrier” going up for the Neues Deutschland, East Berlin’s newspaper. Monica wonders how anyone could place a barrier based on an ideology. But she soon sees thousands of soldiers have descended on the city. Monica with baby Luisa in her pram sees people panicking, some crying. She had planned a lunch meeting with family in West Berlin. She can see her mom, Gertrude, and dad, Walther, her sister, Alice, on the other side of this structure, but the guards won’t let her through. Fear takes over her when the guard speaks to her in Russian. In a split section decision, she launches baby Luisa over the barbed wire into her grandfather’s arms. Monica watches him run with the child away from the guards. It’s a gut-wrenching prologue.

Reay wrote from two perspectives in the novel, Luisa and Haris. I learned about life in East Berlin through Haris. He realizes too late the great lie he’s both fed and spread as a truly “fake news” reporter, writing propaganda pieces for the Socialist Unity Party’s paper. The people aren’t free in East Berlin. They have no way to escape the Soviet’s tyranny. No one who tried to go over the wall survived; in fact, a total of 171 people would die trying to go over or under it.

Until this story, I had never heard of the East Berlin secret police, the Stasi, short for Staatssicherheit. Formed after World War II, they were the “official state security service for the newly formed German Democratic Republic (GDR or DDR for Deutschland Democratic Republic).” They were similar to, but apparently worse than the KGB. The Stasi police spied on the population in East Berlin “to quash any discontent before it became a threat.” Reay’s depiction had me thinking often of George Orwell’s dystopian 1984, fiction that became fact for many in East Berlin. Surveillance became the norm. People who tried to leave often died mysterious deaths. They kept political prisoners in the worse of prisons. They tortured people to the point they would agree with the police or make up information. After the wall came down, people had access to their files, Reay said, and people saw which neighbors and friends had been spying on them all that time. People shared intel with the Stasi in an effort to save themselves.

In Arlington, VA, a now 27-year-old Luisa Voekler lives with her Oma, Gertrude, following the death of her Opa. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen at 18. Early on, Luisa set her sights on work as a CIA agent who goes on clandestine missions, but she didn’t pass at the “farm.” She blames the loss of her dream, the disappointment and embarrassment for the self-imposed isolation she expected would happen after. She cut herself off from the friends she went through training with as a result, even Daniel, a love interest in the novel who shows up when she least expects him.

Luisa breaks codes from World War II letters and memos as part of a team, which I found fascinating. She has a natural affinity for the work because her Opa made up puzzles and coded messages for her as a child. Her family thinks she works for the Labor Department, so Opa had no idea the kind of work she did for the government. On Nov. 3, 1989, a pregnant co-worker Carrie asks Luisa for help with 20 unsent letters she dubbed “the Berlin letters” that run from September 1945 to July 1961. Luisa recognizes an infinity sign on each of the letters. She is sure it is a signature and she tells Carrie, but then stops herself. Opa had received similar letters with the symbol, but he had wanted her to say nothing about those to her Oma.

That night, Luisa wars with herself, worried about betraying her Opa. She decides to ask her Oma if he had been a spy. She doesn’t answer her though, so when Oma goes to bed, Luisa searches for the letters. I don’t know that I needed to follow Luisa into every room, but I did and she eventually finds them in a surprising place. The next day Oma reveals more letters, but her fear pushes her to try to destroy them until Luisa stops her. The fear she faced in Germany still haunted her in the U.S. Luisa spends the weekend reading them in order before she has to turn them over to her boss at the CIA. The letters are coded correspondence between her father Haris to her Opa. All this time she believed a lie. She thought her father and her mother died in a car accident. But her father is still alive. And Luisa jumps into action to rescue him behind the Iron Curtain.

And it is here where the story takes off. I will not reveal too much, except to say I felt a sense of panic while reading. I felt like I became Luisa when she flew to West Berlin. She finds help is on the way as her personal mission continues. Reay jumps between Luisa and Haris, who take turns telling of the events of Nov. 9, 1989.

I didn’t think I would feel as nostalgic as I did when I read about the East Berlin youth in the punk movement who helped Luisa on this quest. I graduated high school in 1989, so I knew a little bit about the punk movement in the U.S. and the UK from their fashions to the music scene. East Berlin punks were on another level entirely. I admired their resistance and activism in the novel and in real life.

At the end, Reay shares some of the materials that aided her research for the novel that listed on my blog post. I finished reading this book thinking, “This is why I love historical fiction.” It’s a genre that both teaches history and entertains. This novel took me back in time to the first day the wall speedily went up to the day when the people helped tear it down at 11 p.m. Nov. 9, 1989.

The Berlin Letters is a well written historical novel that doesn’t seem to stay that long in my mind after finishing it. Katherine Reay is good at characters but overall the story falls flat and pales in comparison to other stories set during the Cold War and set near the Berlin Wall.

This is an odd one, but I rather like it. It took me a bit to get into, largely because the plot doesn't reveal itself for a bit and the protagonist is very closed-off. That said, it's one of the few recent books about the Berlin Wall and it involves one of my lifelong interests: cryptography. Reay writes a very small plot that exists within a large, complicated world. If a reader can commit to getting over the initial barrier, it's a great read packed with details of the era and about the rise and fall of East Berlin.

Thanks to @NetGalley for the chance to read an ARC. I really enjoyed this book. I was a child in the 80s and remember very clearly the day the wall was open. But as a 14 year old, I couldn’t truly grasp the significance. I feel as if I’ve met the characters in person and they took me back in time. At times, their feelings of despair felt as if they were mine. The twists and turns kept me turning pages late in the night. This is not a “light” read. But it was an enlightening one. Thank you to the author for this beautiful tale of family drama, suspense, determination, and desire for freedom

The events of this book take place during the Cold War leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The two primary points of view telling the story are Luisa and her father, Haris. I felt the tension of the decisions the characters were making as they navigated the complex dynamics of country, family, and friends.

I'm always fascinated by codes that were utilized in WW2. A complex coding system is an important part of this book, and i found it interesting!

In the book, Luisa calls her Germany grandparents Oma and Opa. I also had German grandparents that I called Oma and Opa. It was sweet to be reminded of my grandparents as I read those familiar German names throughout the book.

I also LOVE the cover of this book!

I've been a big fan of Katherine Reay's work for a long time. I think this might be my favorite of her historical fiction novels. If Katherine has a book out, I've either read it, or I am eagerly waiting to get my hands on it.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for an advanced reader copy in return for an honest review.

“Some secrets can get you killed.”

This utterly absorbing historical fiction/Cold War espionage thriller will rate right up there with some of my top reads of the year. Not only did it have me grabbing my air mic, channeling my inner Cher, and belting out “If I Could Turn Back Time,” it also hooked me with a fascinating look at life in East Berlin and a protagonist with whom I empathized.

In short: Set during the Cold War, a CIA code-breaker risks it all to free a loved one from an East German prison.

Luisa Voekler, CIA cryptographer, is frustrated cuz her work is stuck in the past decoding Third Reich ciphers from WW2 while her co-workers have been given exciting and new Cold War assignments until one day she notices a symbol she recognizes from her childhood. Seeing it changes everything.

Harris Voekler, an East German, and the chief reporter for Neues Deutschland, the Party’s newspaper, is disgruntled that Soviet promises haven’t materialized. His outlook causes challenges within his marriage and he soon discovers that the Berlin Wall has separated him from his daughter. In desperation, he learns to send coded letters to his father-in-law in an effort to communicate with his family.

Luisa discovers this treasure trove when she’s working on decoding the WW2 messages and it opens up opportunities to understand the past and begin a new future. I loved reading about the Voekler family and their drive to freedom and reconciliation. Luisa’s examination of her past as a way to move forward captivated me and I was tempted to go down a rabbit hole learning about Vigenere and Caesar cipers. My curiosity was piqued reading about why there was no advertising in East Berlin and why contact with the West was seen as disloyalty. Luisa’s life was forever changed on Sunday, August 13, 1961 … come find out why and how!

This compelling read about a family torn apart by the effects of a totalitarian regime and devastating secrets needs to be in every historical fiction reader's sights.

I was gifted this copy by Harper Muse and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.