Very well written. I loved how the story had unexpected turns more than once. The characters were very emotional and also dry sometimes.

Christa is a lovely German girl living at home with her parents and grandmother. Her father is a distinguished business man and her mother owns a box company. And her Oma, her beloved grandmother, all play roles in this gripping story of oncoming war and Hitler’s hate for the Jews.

The story begins in 1933 Germany when Hitler steals power and begins his lying insinuations about Jews being insignificant. Young girls like Christa are sent to BDM classes to learn how to hate, and to be groomed for marrying, or plainly, getting impregnated by German soldiers to produce more Aryan children.

Christa has three friends who attend these classes – Gertrude, Vera and Brigit. Of the three, Gertrude and Brigit are proud Germans and Jew haters, while both Christa and Vera are very uncomfortable with what they are learning and witnessing.

Christa’s brother gets ‘sent away’ for being seen with a Jew, and her parents are adamant about Christa not talking to or showing any concern for Jews. But Christa and her Oma are both compassionate people, and as the story unfolds, take on some very scary situations as their compassion cannot help but help a young Jewish man, Paul, who Oma knows well.

For Christa’s birthday, Oma gives her a pendant necklace, which somehow gets broken, and there the real story begins. Oma offers to take Christa to a distant town where she knows a jeweler who can repair it, but upon their arrival to her friend, Nahum’s house, learns he’s no longer alive, but his son Paul, now running the business out of his house, is. Christa feels an immediate attraction to Paul, and later sneaks out of her house to pay him another visit. He is forlorn and opens up to her about the neighbors terrorizing him and gives him her necklace because she says it’s lucky.

Christa’s friend Gertrude becomes a true nazi, not surprising as her father is the brother of the famed Rudolph Hess. Gertrude visits Christa and tells her how she snoops in her father’s briefcase and finds plans for the removal of Jews after the 1936 Olympics. Christa’s dad is hired by the Reich, against his will, to help with the architectural plans to eliminate Jews, while her mother is steeped in grief at what has happened to her brother.

Paul stows away to Ravensburg where Christa lives after his home was set ablaze and underground resistance alerts Christa, who helps to hide Paul. It is Oma who has contact with Paul’s German neighbor who gets the action going to try and save Paul amongst the fear and angst going on in the new nazi Germany. Christa’s growing fondness for Paul puts her in some dangerous situations as her and Oma plot to get Paul out of Germany, as Christa’s relentless desires sometimes has her forgetting that she is putting her own life on the line, while her father is away from home months at a time working on plans for SS Himler to build concentration camps. As Oma’s plan to help save Paul puts the family in peril, a second necklace comes into play to help save Paul’s life.

I couldn’t put this book down in this gripping tale of good German’s risking their own lives to save one Jew from the likes of Hitler and his monsterous nazi regime. I’ve read many books and watched many documentaries on the horrors of the nazis and their capabilities and their zero regard for human life, but this story takes us on a journey through the other side of things – compassionate Germans who are against the regime, risking their own lives in secret to save the lives of others.

This book is a fast-paced page-turning read as we get a glimpse of war and hatred from the view of citizens who are unwillingly trapped in it, and a good look at human compassion that can still exist in a time where that alone could get one killed.

This was a great WWII historical fiction read. It gave a great look into what families faced under the nazi regime from its start to its greater control of power. Good historical fiction read with a love story thrown into the mix. If historical fiction is of interest to you then I highly reccomend this book!

Not only does this book have a beautiful eye catching cover but the story is the best one I’ve read so far this year. From the first chapter I was so drawn into the story that I didn’t want to put the book down. I read it every opportunity I had to sit down with a book. This author is new to me and I will be searching out more of her books in the future.
WWII fiction is one of my favorite genres. I found that this book was well researched. It felt like it was really happening and I felt the characters anguish from the current events in the prewar years. This story takes place in Germany and starts in 1933. Not every German citizen agreed with Hitlers opinion of the Jews. Many secretly helped the Jews to escape the threat of being sent to concentration camps. Life certainly wasn’t easy for German citizens during the prewar years or the war years. For the most part this story is about the prewar years. Romance between a German girl and a Jewish young man will have your stomach in knots as the story progresses. What can be the outcome of a secret and forbidden romance between a Jew and a German? What part did the two necklaces play in this story? Find out when you read this intriguing story.
I highly recommend this book to readers of WWII fiction, Romance fiction and historical Romance.
This book is available now at most book retailers sites.
I voluntarily read an advanced readers copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions expressed here in this review are solely my own
#TwoNecklaces #NetGalley

No one can control what you think!

It is 1933 in Ravensburg, Germany and Christa, along with her close friends are at the BDM - the club for young girls teaching them how to be good German wives and mothers. A gold necklace, a head injury and more have Christa questioning what is happening to her beloved country. People she knows and loves are gone - but where? Will others be lost as well?

This story of survival made me consider what is really important in life. What is our world if we strive for racial purity at the expense of innocent lives? May we never sink to this depth of evil again.

A copy was received through Black Rose Writing and NetGalley. These thoughts are my own and were in no way solicited.

the themes covered in this book are so very important - history is what makes the world, after all - but i felt the romance was very immature, and i found the main character to be insufferably petulant and pouty at points. the way the author wrote about the policies of nazi germany was very interesting, but i found the writing style distracting - and not in a good way. most likely a me-thing, so this is worth a try if this genre is up your alley!

1933 Germany. Very well researched. A coming of age story and a love story. They are two very different people who come together in a difficult time. Great story.

A poignant love story set among the horrors in Germany leading up to WWII. Brava to the author on her gripping way of presenting her intensive research and for creating the wonderful character of Oma, my favorite character in the story. This review is also on BookBub, Amazon and Goodreads,

Young Christa is a member of Hitler’s Youth Group for Girls. She and her friends enjoy the hiking, camping, and exercising they get to do as a group. Lately, though, since becoming teenagers, the girls are being taught about becoming good wives and bearing Aryan babies for the glory of the Fuhrer. And also about how Jews are responsible for all the problems that exist in Germany. Christa’s brother has a close friend that is Jewish, so she doesn’t really understand why so many Germans hate them. As Hitler’s regime grows ever stronger, and the Jews become relentlessly persecuted, the Nazi ideology began to affect Christa’s and her families’ lives in very personal, and very tragic ways…

An unputdownable novel about Nazi atrocities in Germany during the WW2, and about the choices that ordinary citizens had to make to keep loved ones and friends alive and safe through that time of terror.

*I received a digital copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are strictly my own.*

The lovely story of a young woman who chooses love over politics and cruelty in 1930s Germany as the Nazi regime tries to tell her what to think about the man she falls in love with.