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.

This was an enjoyable read with lots of historical detail on the lead up to the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the conditions of what life was like under the Stasi in Eastern Berlin. The author clearly did a lot of research into the place, period and lives of the people behind the wall. I've come to really like Katherine Reay's books, She is absolutely a new favorite historical fiction writer.

This was an extremely interesting story about a time that is often ignored in historical fiction. It is set in the modern era (1980s) as well as in post-WWII Berlin and the creation of the Berlin Wall. I loved the connection between the two time periods and the amount of history that can be learned through story.

THE BERLIN LETTERS by KATHERINE REAY is a well researched and beautifully written novel which takes place during the Cold War.
On Sunday 13th August 1961, when barbed wire closed off East Berlin, Monica Voekler throws her three year old daughter Luisa to her father on the other side.
When his inlaws, Walther and Gertrude, move to the U.S., a correspondence starts up between Haris and Walther. When Luisa, who works for the C.I.A., cracks the codes, many secrets come out……
I like the way the story is told alternately by Haris and Luisa and the way in which the author gets us right into all the different characters’ emotions.
I also like the way she gives us insight into the punk ideology in Eastern Europe, one of whose slogans is “Don’t die in the waiting room of the future,” meaning don’t be complacent. We learn that their music is “rage, discordance, anarchy and destruction. …..angry and alien…..political opposition aimed straight at the dictatorship.”
Life in East Berlin is one of living in constant fear of betrayal, of courage and self sacrifice. We see the importance of true friends and family at a time anyone could be a Stasi snitch. The importance of forgiveness is also strongly brought out.
I cannot recommend this thrilling and inspirational read highly enough.
I was given a free copy of the book by NetGalley from Harper Muse. The opinions in this review are completely my own.

This story is about the Berlin Wall and how it separated East from West. However, more than that it separated families, such as the family in this novel. Tossing over their child Luisa as the wall is being built, Luisa is taken by her grandparents as they all moved to America...Luisa thinking her parents are dead. The research and writing are impeccable and make for an interesting read. Even though this is a work of fiction, there is much to learn.

I felt as if I had fallen into a time vault as I began reading, The Berlin Letters. Luisa Voekler works for the CIA deciphering codes. It is mainly posited in 1989 when Luisa first finds the letters that her Opa hid from her. She is of East German descent and though her grandparents raised her, she didn’t know how her grandparents really came to America and became her sole guardians and she didn’t question it growing up.

I am not one to read spy novels but The Berlin Letters had that feeling considering it starts just after WWII ends and the Cold War has just begun. Without knowing it, Lusia has continued the duplicity that her Opa and Oma began as they think she works for the Labor Department, not the CIA as a code breaker deciphering codes, ciphers, etc.

Lusia has noticed infinity symbols in the letters that Opa and her father, Haris exchanged over the last twenty-four years, and she knows that she has to show these letters to her boss at the CIA. Even though I wouldn’t classify this as a historical novel, as it doesn’t take place in the 1800s or 1900s, I think it could easily slip into that genre just based on the scale of history that you learn reading this.

I don’t know what I was expecting of The Berlin Letters but it far exceeded what I thought it was going to be. It showed what parents would do for their children, what love can and will do for better or worse, and what it means to sacrifice.

My gratitude to Netgalley and Harper Muse. All opinions expressed are mine and honest.

Fascinating Cold War novel! Told from the perspective of an East Berlin family that is torn apart by the wall, the grandparents and granddaughter Luisa move to America. Luisa believes both her parents are dead. But her father, once a top reporter for East Berlin’s party newspaper, is still alive and missing her.

I hadn’t realized that the assassination attempt on President Reagan may have kept the Soviets from invading Poland during the Solidarity Movement because the US automatically went on a war footing.

I have read a few books about the Cold War and the Berlin Wall but this is by far my favourite.

As the Cold War winds down CIA code breaker Luisa’s world is turned upside down. A symbol on a series of letters at work trigger a memory that will send her digging into her past and discovering her grandfather was keeping secrets and she might not be an orphan after all.
I loved everything about this book, the pacing, characters, even the timeline switches were done flawlessly. I have read other books set in this time period but the stories can get bogged down in the politics and leave the stories a bit dry. @katherinereay does a fantastic job of balancing the facts and the human elements to create a truly informative but engaging story.
Look for this one March 5 2024, I highly recommend it.
Thank you to @netgalley and @harpermusebooks for letting me review this book.
#theberlinletters #readersofinstagram #readersofig #historicalfiction #coldwar #reader #book #bookstagram #bookreview #bookrecommendations #bookworm #booknerd #readmorebooks #reader #readeveryday #readallthebooks

An enthralling story, The Berlin Letters commences in 1961 when East Berlin starts erecting the wall to divide the city. In an impulsive, emotional split-second move, Luisa’s mother tosses her young daughter over a barrier into the arms of her parents who live in West Berlin.
Thus, begins this Cold War novel. Filled with anguish, secrets, lies, and deception, Berlin Letters is masterfully written such that the reader feels the suspense of the time.
Luisa is adored by her grandparents. They gave up their comfortable life in West Berlin to move to the United States to keep her safe and offer her greater opportunities. “My Opa was my greatest champion, my best friend, and my true north. If Opa said something was right, it was right. Wrong, and it was wrong forever. …And when he said I was his girl of infinite possibilities, I believed him because I believed in him…” (Pg. 40)
Solving codes and riddles was one of her and Opa's favorite activities. She learned about more and more difficult ciphers. Oma now recalls, “He was so proud of you. He was sure he was helping you develop your ‘little gray cells.’” (Pg 42)
After college, Luisa lived on her own but now she lives with her grandmother again as she promised her beloved Opa before he died. “My Opa was my greatest champion, my best friend, and my true north. If Opa said something was right, it was right. Wrong, and it was wrong forever. …And when he said I was his girl of infinite possibilities, I believed him because I believed in him…”(p 40)
Ironically, it is now 1989 and Luisa works in Arlington, Virginia in the CIA’s code deciphering division. Coincidently, she currently is deciphering coded communiques from 1945 to 1961 from Berlin. Something catches her eye on one of the messages…
Luisa feels compelled to investigate the possible connection to her Opa. As she literally digs for evidence at home, she discovers earth-shattering information about her parents. “It was all a lie.” (Pg.69)
Three days later, Luisa takes a life-threatening step to know more.
Luisa’s character is so well developed that the reader can feel her every emotion. “Outside Langley, the day has grown cloudy and it feels personal. Dark clouds hover above me, against me, I keep glancing in my rearview mirror and forcing out strange stiff laughs, hoping they will dispel my sense of foreboding.” (Pg. 190)
Wow, I loved this historical story even though I shivered with fear through much of it. While this is historical fiction, so much of it is historically accurate. I lived in West Berlin in the early 1970’s. I know the danger that permeated from the East. Since then, I’ve searched for and read books about life behind the “wall.” Fiction and nonfiction. The Berlin Letters contains so much ugly truth. The ending of this book has a wonderful metaphor, “The world tilts, almost like a kaleidoscope, one click from clear.” (Pg. 342)

Having grown up during the time period this book covers – the Cold War era of the Berlin Wall - I really enjoyed reading The Berlin Letters. Reay brings to life the events of that time, and makes history so interesting. I’m glad there are such books for those who did not live through that time. The book sucked me in, and thankfully I had time to read it all in one day! I had to find out what was going to happen to all the various characters, even though I knew the outlines of what happened historically. If you like historical fiction, I highly recommend this book.

“I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own." #TheBerlinLetters #NetGalley

1961: As the Berlin Wall goes up, Monica makes a wrenching choice—she passes her daughter over the barrier to her parents in West Berlin. Their lives will never be the same.

1989: Having moved to the US with her grandparents as a young child, Luisa has grown up knowing the power of secrets—enough so that she's a CIA codebreaker. But the discovery of a cache of letters turns everything she thought she knew about her past on its head and upsets her orderly life and sends her deep into the desperation of a crumbling East Berlin.

I've been more and more curious about life in East Berlin and the DDR more generally, and I absolutely flew through "The Berlin Letters". There are two timelines here, and although initially I was far more invested in the 1961+ timeline, it didn't take long to get wrapped up in Luisa's story as well. As the plot goes on, Luisa gets more and more invested not just in what happened in the early days of the Cold War but in what is happening now, with the DDR teetering on the edge of collapse—and with crucial parts of her own story trapped behind the wall. I said above that I was initially more invested in the earlier timeline, but I didn't expect to sympathize so much with that section's narrator. Reay does skilful work in the gradual growth and learning of her characters.

The codebreaking aspect is fascinating, though I wished I better understood what the particular key in a given letter was—not sure if that will be clearer in hard copies of the book (I read an e-copy, and sometimes hard copies manage differences in color, formatting, etc., than e-copies do). I was also a bit sorry not to see...more urgency to Luisa's present-day work, maybe. Without giving too much away, I'll say that the codes she's breaking here have huge implications for the earlier timeline, but the implications for the later timeline are more abstract—enough so that, because we learn about them first in the later timeline, they don't hold quite as much suspense as they might otherwise.

All told, this makes me want to look for more of its ilk—accessible fiction about a time and place that I struggle to bring to life in my own imagination.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley. (I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.)

Fabulous dual timeline read! Ms. Raey has dug deep in her research and crafted a superb authentic story. The smallest details are historically accurate. I moved to the city of Berlin quite a few years ago, and remnants of DDR times were all around me. One of my previous superiors (former Stasi) had not picked up on the fact that the Stasi ways were no longer the norm (but fortunately faded into oblivion after his Stasi past came to light.) Fascinated by this new city I lived in, I read a lot of historical fiction about this era. This book provides information that is new to me, which makes it interesting and worth reading. Initially, it has the depressing mood that seems pervasive in books dealing with DDR times and the incredible injustices done, but that dissipates as the story picks up speed and before long you find yourself wanting to read non-stop. I very much enjoy the cryptographer angle, the switch between the two settings, and the in-depth characters with real life emotions. The story and relationships are complex and clearly show the effects of war on the lives of subsequent generations. Wonderful life lesson at the end, “If I’ve learned anything this week…..it’s to let the past go. It may feel uncomfortable, perhaps unnecessary, or….be the most vital aspect of healing: forgive and move forward. The Berlin Letters is a historical fiction lover’s dream and leaves you wanting more. Fortunately, the author has several suggestions for more research at the end. I will definitely check out more of Katherine Raey’s books.


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

The Berlin Letters
by Katherine Reay
Pub Date: 05 Mar 2024

From the time she was a young girl, Luisa Voekler has loved solving puzzles and cracking codes. Brilliant and logical, she’s a natural to quickly climb the career ladder at the CIA. But while her coworkers have moved on to thrilling Cold War assignments—especially in the exhilarating era of the late 1980s—Luisa’s work remains stuck in the past decoding messages from World War II.

Journalist Haris Voekler grew up a proud East Berliner. But as his eyes open to the realities of postwar East Germany, he realizes that the Soviet promises of a better future are not coming to fruition. After the Berlin Wall goes up, Haris finds himself separated from his young daughter and all alone after his wife dies. There’s only one way to reach his family—by sending coded letters to his father-in-law who lives on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

When Luisa Voekler discovers a secret cache of letters written by the father she has long presumed dead, she learns the truth about her grandfather’s work, her father’s identity, and why she has never progressed in her career. With little more than a rudimentary plan and hope, she journeys to Berlin and risks everything to free her father and get him out of East Berlin alive.

As Luisa and Haris take turns telling their stories, events speed toward one of the twentieth century’s most dramatic moments—the fall of the Berlin Wall and that night’s promise of freedom, truth, and reconciliation for those who have lived, for twenty-eight years, behind the bleak shadow of the Iron Curtain’s most iconic symbol.