The Resistance Painter is a dual timeline novel that takes place in Warsaw, Poland during World War II and in Toronto, Canada in 2010-11.

In Warsaw in 1939, Irena is a teenaged art student living with her widowed mother and her older sister, Lotka, who is a nurse. After the Nazis invade Poland, she sets aside her dreams of attending art school in Paris to join the Home Army and, along with members of her resistance cell, she risks her life guiding people to safety through the sewers of Warsaw even after Lotka is abducted by the Gestapo.

In 2010 in Toronto, Jo moves in with her grandmother, Irena, a decorated war hero and a celebrated World War II painter, who's health is failing as she approaches her 90th birthday. Jo is also an artist who makes grave sculptures and is working on a commission for a sculpture which leads to questions about her grandmother's experience during the war.

This is a well-written novel - interesting and informative with respect to the Polish Resistance movement during World War II and also the role of artists in sharing their war-time experiences. An inspiring story of courage - definitely recommend for readers of World War II historical fiction particularly those looking to read more about the war in Eastern Europe and Hitler's invasion of Poland.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for sending a digital ARC of this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

If you’re new here (welcome!), you may not know that I love some good historical fiction, and yes, particularly set in and around the World Wars. Since I read so many, I’ve been finding recently that I’m much more picky about the stories that I’m reading as I’m now searching (somewhat desperately) for new and different stories that captivated me when these books got super popular. I thought perhaps The Resistance Painter was going to give me something new but the majority of it felt like a repeat of another historical novel I read a year or so ago. Is it Kath Jonathan’s fault that another author told a similar story and got their book published first? No. And it wasn’t the only issue I had with the novel. This should have been a winner but it ended up being quite the let down.

Here’s the book’s description:

Warsaw 1939. Irena Marianowska’s dreams of attending art school in Paris are crushed when the Nazis invade Poland. Instead, she joins the Home Army and, together with her resistance cell, risks her life guiding people to safety through the sewers of Warsaw. In 1942, after a harrowing mission, she returns home to learn that her sister, Lotka, has been abducted by the Gestapo. In her search for Lotka, Irena encounters a host of characters who lead her into greater danger.

Toronto 2010. Jo Blum lives in Toronto with her beloved grandmother, a lauded painter of WWII and a decorated war hero. Jo has a budding career creating sculptures for grave sites based on the life stories of her dying clients. Her recorded interviews with Stefan, her new Polish client, unveil an heroic wartime past eerily similar to her grandmother’s. But Jo’s quest to uncover the truth about Stefan and her grandmother opens an explosive Pandora’s box whose shockwaves threaten everything she’s known about her family.

As you can see from the book’s description, this was a dual narrative novel. I know. Another one. In the author’s note, Jonathan says that it was actually Jo’s story that she started with but then added in Irena’s POV. I found this a little surprising because the “present day” storyline was really weak to me and I always found myself wanting to go back into the past. Jo and her art just wasn’t riveting enough for me (which is weird since I do love a good art story).

Even though I did want to read the past part of the story more than the present, that doesn’t mean I was particularly thrilled with that storyline either. Characters and their actions didn’t always seem consistent but I will concede that they were dealing with a war and I can’t imagine how hard it would be to live and fight (or not) through that. As I said, I recently read another book that featured the invasion of Poland and it kind of felt like both authors were reading from the exact same references. Both books featured girls who were older teens, 16 or so, at the start of the invasion and were in Guides. Both girls had Jewish best friends. Both girls fought in the resistance in some way. Now, that’s where things got a little more interesting - Irena worked in the tunnels and ferried people through the sewers to safety. That’s a neat little tidbit (albeit a bit heartbreaking) but I didn’t need pages and pages of explanation on how they got people through the sewers or how badly it smelled.

Speaking of pages and pages - this book was 448 pages long. That was FAR too long. I do admit that I was skimming near the end because I just wanted to find out how everyone made it through the war (or not).

I can see that Johnathan was trying to show that war is messy and hard and you don’t always know how you’re going to act until you’re in it. Which is scarily on point for today’s environment. I know some people made choices so they could save themselves and their families and others probably over exaggerated how much resistance work they did. But it gets hard to read about those who sided with Nazis and didn’t see how their actions impacted others. I don’t blame Irena one bit for how she felt. And I didn’t like reading about some of those characters and feeling like Jonathan wanted me to have more empathy for them. I could see where she was going, but I don’t think she hit the mark - at least not for me.

Some historical fiction readers may enjoy The Resistance Painter but I, sadly, was not one of them. I wanted to like Kath Jonathan’s debut novel but it missed the mark for me.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Simon & Schuster Canada, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

“Hanging on to each other, we cry for… all the others we can’t name, for all the reasons we can’t explain or begin to understand.”

Set in a dual timeline of 1939 Warsaw and 2010 Toronto, “The Resistance Painter” tells the story of Irena as a young women, an artist and resistance fighter in the Polish underground, and later as a grandmother and artist to Jo, the protagonist of the second timeline. Irena’s actions at the heart of the resistance movement were raw and emotional, leaving readers with the sense that they were alongside Irena as she and her team traversed the sewers in Warsaw to move people fleeing the war, weapons, and other members of the Polish Home Army.

“By agreement, none of our friends rings the doorbell unless there’s danger nearby; to visit they have their own coded knocks.”

While I enjoyed the timeline when Irena was a young woman joining the fight the most, the second timeline provided a sense of hope and closure for Irena after everything that was endured. Art and its ability to honour the past is an integral part of the story for both Irena and Josephine. Each uses their art work to speak for those who can no longer share their stories.

Johnathan creates a deeply layered world through intricate characterization and the depth of relationships Irena l shares with best friend Leah who is Jewish, the strained relationship with her mother, the connection with her sister, Mr. Godlewski, Mati, Ola, as well as the other members of the resistance.

This novel will make readers reflect on how they might react if they found themselves in a similar situation as Irena and her family: What lengths would we go to in order to help those we care about? What is the right thing?

Review: The Resistance Painter by Kath Jonathan

The Resistance Painter follows Jo, the granddaughter of Irena Marianowska, who is a well known painter of the Polish resistance in WWII. Jo, also an artist, is commissioned to create a grave sculpture for a man who says he was also part of the resistance. Through a compelling set of dual timelines, Jonathan reveals a series of mysterious connections, the importance of family, and the power of secrets. If you enjoy historical fiction authors like Maia Caron and Lisa Barr, this is a must read.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster for the advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

Another beautifully written book about how the resistance of people can survive the most intense situations by relying on the beauty of things around them. This was an interesting take on a typical world war 2 story, we have young sisters and their mother who are in a scary situation. Lovely book and I highly recommend to historical fiction fans.

This is a dual timeline novel.

Irena Marianowska is an art student living in Warsaw with her mother and sister when the Nazis invade Poland. She immediately joins the Home Army and remains involved in the resistance movement throughout the war, becoming an expert in navigating the sewer system of the city to transport people and goods.

In Toronto, 2010, Jo Blum looks after her grandmother Irena, a decorated war hero and renowned painter. An artist herself, Jo creates sculptures for grave sites based on the lives of her clients. She is hired to do one for Stefan Cegielski. When Jo comes to interview him, she discovers parallels between his wartime past and that of her grandmother. Intrigued, she starts investigating further and uncovers some surprising family secrets.

One issue with the novel is the number of names one character can have. It’s easy to remember that Jo is Josephine and Mati is Mateusz, but things become more confusing: Irena Marianowska, Irena Iwanowska, Renka, Ala, and Wit are the same person; Alexandra, Ola, Olenka, and Zofia are the same person; and Szarlota, Lotka, and Charlotte are the same person. I’m not sure there’s a need for so much obfuscation.

I enjoyed learning about the Armia Krajowa, the Home Army, which was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. Though my ancestors come from Poland, I knew little about his period in the country’s history. I had never heard about how the sewer system allowed the Polish Home Army to move supplies and people between isolated districts. The descriptions of the smells and rats emphasize the horrors of navigating these underground routes.

I found it difficult to believe that Jo knows so little about her grandmother. Jo, her mother, and her grandparents lived together yet Jo asks, “How is it that I know so little about my grandmother’s life?” Then as she becomes more curious, she avoids asking, more than once using the weak excuse “Now is not the time to ask.”

There are other issues with Jo’s behaviour. Despite her Polish heritage, she can’t differentiate German and Polish when spoken? She has a confidentiality agreement with her client Stefan but she breaks it so unthinkingly, telling what she’s learned not only to Irena but also to Irena’s art dealer? She looks after Irena as her health fails, yet only at the very end does she notice “for the first time a small, deep scar on her left leg above her ankle”? She struggles to make doctor’s appointments for her grandmother, but then she doesn’t insist on Irena going?

There are a lot of coincidences that had me shaking my head in disbelief. How many times does Ala encounter Davey just by chance? Irena doesn’t figure out the clue about meeting at the bakery, but she manages to arrive just at the right time?

To add local colour, the author added some Polish words, but I found the repetition of cholera (23 times) tedious after a while. Some terms like łapanka and Hitlerow are not explained.

The book is unnecessarily long. It drags at time; for instance, Jo’s avoidance of questioning her grandmother feels like plot manipulation. There’s interesting information, but there’s also some unnecessary repetition.

A solid WWII historical fiction debut by a new Canadian author that focused on Poland during the war and featured a part of history I didn't know much about. Recommended for fans of authors like Pam Jenoff. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

A fresh take on the dual timeline with parallel storytelling of a WWII story. The way the truth of the more mysterious characters is slowly eked out throughout the timelines is very well done. I had the guttural feeling that we needed to see some characters again but was genuinely surprised when and where they popped up again. I did find the names a little difficult follow at times. Even considering the strict use of aliases in the middle of the story, there was a moment in chapter one where I had to go back to double check the protagonists name and at least three pet names or name variations. It is thought provoking and emotional.

Are you a historical fiction fan on the lookout for a take on WWII that’s different from what you’ve read before (for instance, something NOT set in France or London)? Are you less interested in “feisty” heroines than ones more aptly described as “fearless”? If this sounds like you, you’re in luck, because Kath Jonathan’s The Resistance Painter is out today and features one of the most courageous female protagonists I’ve ever encountered.

This dual timeline story of Irina, a teenage girl who starts the Occupation as a Girl Scout and ends it as a war hero, and her sculptor granddaughter Jo, who lives with her grandmother under the long shadow of that history, is unlike any WWII hist fic I’ve read before. I love when a work of fiction teaches me something new, and Kath’s extensive research shows in how vividly war-time Warsaw is brought to life on the page. The action that takes place underground is especially intense—at times I felt almost claustrophobic as our resistance fighter heroine carried out missions in the sewer tunnels under the city, and had to remind myself it was just a book. And then I reminded myself that for some, it wasn’t fiction.

It’s a lot to take in. The fact that real people really did things just like this. At one point in The Resistance Painter, Irina asks another if the madness will ever end, and is told that of course it will, “It always does. The problem is, it starts again.” That, too, is a lot to take in, and very real.

It’s also timely. It’s hard to read the Resistance Painter and not think about current events and the frog-in-a-pot way it’s possible to watch the advance of evil but not feel in any way equipped to do something tangible about it. Or the way you can be put in the impossible position of watching someone you care about embrace an ideology you can’t reconcile with the person you thought you knew.

I finished this one weeks ago and am still thinking about it.

This is an incredibly moving, sad but beautiful story. It’s exactly the kind of book I thought I’d be getting, especially when you know going in that it focuses on the Second World War. It was a longer book, and there was a lot of information packed into those 450 pages, but I think it needed to be that length to get through the full story. Even though it was set during a horrific time in human history, Jonathan was also able to bring out some humour from the characters, to show that they were still able to find little joys in the scary place they were in.
As someone who has lived in Toronto for a significant time in my life, I also loved all of the references to Toronto locations throughout the Jo storyline.

Thank you Net Galley and Simon and Schuster for the advance copy of The Resistance Painter. I will post this on Goodreads and Linkedln as well.

This book will speak to many. I think it was shown with books like The Tatooist of Auschwitz’ that people want the story of those that lived through the Holocaust, whether real history or historical fiction.
The story of Girl Guides and Scouts doing their part in Poland is very interesting.
The use of the sewer system is also really interesting.

I especially like that the focus of Girl Guides, showing the desire of girls and women to do their part to fight back.
However…..yes, there is a however, the book was “meh” for me. Meaning, it was readable and the facts and history was interesting. However, I really took my time to read this, I was not ever excited to open this book.
I believe there are readers who will really enjoy, this, I’m just ok with it.

4.25 stars!

As a big historical fiction reader I end up reading a lot of WWII books. So its always nice to get a change of local for the setting. We get that with The Resistance Painter with Jonathan set in Poland. Alternating with a present day timeline in Toronto. While I love a dual timeline I definitely enjoyed the past timeline more. The 2010 sections felt like they could have been a bit more fleshed out. But this was all balanced out by the past and such strong characters.

A story that weaves together the past and present, it follows Josephine as she discovers her grandmother Irena's heartbreaking past in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II and reveals a long-hidden secret.

Josephine learns of Irena's involvement in the resistance, helping people escape through the sewer tunnels. Later, Irena is captured and sent to a concentration camp. But the biggest surprise comes when Josephine learns of the existence of her grandmother's sister, whom she did not know about.

Every time I read a book about war, I feel great admiration for people fighting the enemy. And this time, Irena, along with other young people, showed the world how strong the fight for freedom of the homeland is.

A well-woven historical fiction about the cruelty of war, but also about courage, survival and sacrifice.

Poland was gripped with despair and desperation during the Nazi occupation during World War II. Life grew from living to survival. People, especially Jews, were heavily cloaked with constant threat of persecution, humiliation, torture and death. Germans devised so many layers of torment which caused confusion and terrible fear. But the fate of Ravensbrück prisoners meted out by pure evil is even more impossible to contemplate.

One extended Warsaw family lived in a four-buulding home. Papa had died before the war and Mama worked for the Education Ministry. Though sisters Irena, an artist, and Lotka, a specialist nurse, felt helpless, they became a crucial cog in the Resistance by smuggling others through the dangerous and fetid sewer system. The vivid descriptions took me there immediately. All my senses were involved there and in the Ravensbrück scenes.

In Toronto in 2011, sculptor Jo discovers connections to her grandmother, Irena. A client of hers has a secret past.
I like dual timeline stories and was especially invested I the war timeline.

The author has a personal link to this terrible time in history through her partner's Polish family. It is important to tell these stories and I am glad she felt compelled to share a bit of it. Bravery and courage shown by so many is astounding. Ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada and NetGalley for providing me with this ARC to review.

In this dual timeline novel, we meet Jo, an artist living in Toronto and looking after her Polish grandmother, Irena, in 2011. We also meet Irena in Warsaw during the Second World War. As Jo begins work on a commissioned sculpture for a client, his connection to her grandmother’s past brings up many questions about Irena’s time in the Home Army after the Nazis invaded Poland. What horrors did Irena face, and what secrets is she still keeping about the war?

While I appreciated learning about the history of Warsaw’s experience during WWII, this novel felt much too long. Even with the action of the war and Irena’s bravery in the face of risky missions, it dragged at several points. Unfortunately, this novel felt like so many other historical fiction novels that use dual timelines. As heartbreaking as the story is, I don’t think this book brings anything unique to the genre, and the ending lacked resolution for some of the characters.

In the legacy of freedom fighters like Harriet Tubman, The Resistance Painter by Kath Jonathan is an exceptionally moving story about the little known history of the Polish resitance during WWII.


This dual narrative and timeline captures the haunting tale of a grandmother’s legacy as a young woman and resistance figther, who helps strangers escape while simultaneously losing the people she loves. As the war comes to an end, her raw talent as a painter saves her from the fate of so many others. Sharing her grandmother’s artistic talent, the granddaughter unintentionally unlocks a past that threatens to unravel a lifetime of buried memories.


I enjoyed the dual POV, especially Irena's (the grandmother). I knew nothing about the Home Army in German occupied Poland and felt transported and emotionally invited into Irena’s incredible journey as she overcame the bitter and horrifying challenges brought on by war. Every chapter dedicated to her story felt like an intimate bts of a movement.


I also really enjoyed Jo’s timeline, Irena’s granddaughter. Her dedication to her grandmother while managing her own grief and the desire to know more about her past - the devastating consequences included - was so relatable. Her and her grandmother smoking cigarettes and sipping on liquor though? I just loved those shared, quiet moments between them.


There were a lot of really dark and frightening moments in this novel, so I really appreciated how the story was fully resolved… similar to Irena’s life, hope in the face of heartbreak.


This book is for those interested in women led activism under fascism and the role of art in preserving culture.


Thank you Simon & Schuster Canada and NetGalley for the ARC

The Resistance Painter is such a powerful story. Written in a dual timeline from WWII during the Nazi occupation of Poland and 2010 Canada. It tells the story of a young Irena, a Resistance Fighter who transfers people through the Polish sewer systems to get them to safety and the current time where her granddaughter Jo is working on a grave sculpture and soon becomes intrigued by possible connections to her grandmother's time during the war.

This story is filled with so much heartache and grief. Add into this that so many people experienced this war and it hits you in the most heartbreaking way. Such a well written book giving us just a tiny glimpse at the atrocities these people went through. How some survived and lived to share their stories while so many others brutally lost their lives.

**Received ARC through NetGalley. Voluntarily reviewed**

Rating - 4/5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Date Read - January 19, 2025
Publication Date - March 25, 2025

*I received an ARC of this book for free in exchange for an honest review* - Thank you @kathjonathanauthor and @simonschusterca!

The Resistance Painter starts with action right away, which was great because I love being thrown into a story. There are past and present alternating timelines and POVs, and I liked that they were well marked, so I never felt lost or confused. My favourite parts happened during the past timeline with Irena because I felt more connected to her than Jo. However, the present was still interesting to read because of the mystery and suspense! A cool extra in this book is the inclusion of book club questions at the end. WW2 is my favourite time period to read about in historical fiction books and I am extra happy to support a fellow Canadian! It was fun being able to recognize landmarks. Also, this cover is gorgeous and caught my eye right away (it looks amazing on my bookshelf and will be a lovely addition to yours, too)!

If you like WW2 historical fiction, you should try The Resistance Painter!

Get excited to read The Resistance Painter, available March 25! 🎉

*Please check trigger warnings*

As a big historical fiction reader I end up reading a lot of WWII books. So its always nice to get a change of local for the setting. We get that with The Resistance Painter with Jonathan set in Poland. Alternating with a present day timeline in Toronto. While I love a dual timeline I definitely enjoyed the past timeline more. The 2010 sections felt like they could have been a bit more fleshed out. But this was all balanced out by the past and such strong characters.

Jonathan does a great job of telling the struggles and atrocities faced but the Warsaw residents during the German occupation, while evening it out with smaller soft moments, reminding us to find the joy in the little things. Even as we have hard choices to make. I also really enjoyed learning about the existence and importance of the girl guides and scouts in Poland. I always thought they were a North American thing.

This was a heart warming and heart breaking tale and a great debut effort. I found myself connected to the story and characters and engaged in the story.

Delighted to include this title in the March edition of Novel Encounters, my column highlighting the month’s most anticipated fiction for the Books section of Zoomer, Canada’s national lifestyle and culture magazine. (see column and mini-review at link)