In Nazi-occupied the Netherlands, Nella Koning and her family endure years of violence, hunger, deprivation and tragedy. When their city, Arnhem, is devastated by heavy bombing, they evacuate to the province of Friesland. Nella’s brother-in-law, Lincoln, joins the Resistance, and though she fears that his risk-taking behavior will put the family in danger, he helps them to survive.
Meanwhile, in Amsterdam, Germans arrest a Jewish-Christian couple. Their daughter, Joslyn, finds sanctuary in a convent, but even here, she is in peril. She also must flee to Friesland, where her life intertwines with that of the Konings.
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As a young child, Annemarieke Tazelaar and her family survived the Battle of Arnhem, in World War II. Following the war, they emigrated to the United States and settled in Michigan.
Much of the inspiration for this novel came from the diaries of Willem Bouwman, the author’s grandfather, who recorded many of the family’s experiences during those war-torn years.
Ms. Tazelaar’s articles are published in A Cup of Comfort series, The Rocking Chair Reader, and in the just-released Christmas Through a Child’s Eyes.
Professional Reviews
Kirkus
Tazelaar’s debut is a work of historical fiction that draws heavily from her childhood experiences under Nazi occupation in the Netherlands.
We meet Nella Koning, mother of three young children, on the eve of the German invasion, as she is roughly elbowed in the street by a uniformed thug belonging to the Dutch National Socialists. Tensions between loyal Dutch citizens and German sympathizers climb ever higher after the Dutch army’s swift defeat by the Nazi’s Wehrmacht, with Nella’s own father urging cooperation with the occupiers even as her husband Mark, an American expatriate, and his visiting brother Lincoln fall under Nazi suspicion. Through the use of a parallel protagonist, the part-Jewish teenager Joslyn, the author also explores the extraordinary lengths undertaken by righteous Dutch citizens to protect those in their midst who would otherwise fall victim to the Nazis’ abhorrent racial policies. Mark, Lincoln and Joslyn are each forced to deal with the indignities of a hostile occupation in different ways—the roguish Lincoln adopts an alias and eludes authorities using a number of disguises; Mark is arrested, removed to Munich and imprisoned; Joslyn poses as a Catholic among friendly nuns in a convent until mounting danger forces her to flee. Tazelaar’s clear, reserved prose crisply tells the story without calling attention to itself, efficiently and confidently setting scenes, introducing characters and fading into the background, making for an easy and accessible read. The dialogue is lively and engaging when characters interact with each other naturally, but has a tendency to go slightly tone deaf when called upon to deliver historical or military exposition. The author sometimes seems unsure how to parcel out this information, often relying on her characters to rush through factual recitations in a way dissonant to the rest of the narrative. Though numerous, such difficulties are thankfully brief, as Tazelaar returns to the task of intertwining Joslyn’s history with that of the Konings while the family—and their new, paranoid neighbors in the Dutch Nazi party—brace for German defeat.
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