Sisters of Night and Fog by Erika Robuck

Violette is young, energetic, athletic, and smart. She is also half-British, half-French and staying with her aunt in France as the country is invaded during WWII. Quickly hustled away with her younger brother, she vows to return to France but her life is complicated. When she finally gets the chance to return with the Special Operations Executive, parachuting into France to help out with the Resistance, she is thrilled but knows that it means her child may grow up without a mother. 

Virginia is an American married to a Frenchman and living in France. When the country is invaded and then occupied, she could easily escape to Florida and sit out the war. But, she won't even entertain the idea. Philippe is everything to her. When Virginia and Philippe realize they can help with the Resistance by working to house soldiers who have been shot down or escaped from Germans, they are happy to have the chance to do their part.

Although they have very different lives, the two women cross paths when they're caught and imprisoned. But, will their fates be the same? 

If you hang around here much, you might recall that I took a writing workshop in August of last year and Erika Robuck was one of the guest speakers. She talked a little about Sisters of Night and Fog, at the time, although I don't think it had an official title, yet. The Invisible Woman (link leads to my review) was either about to be released or just had been and she talked about how she discovered the stories of Violette and Virginia during her research about Virginia Hall for The Invisible Woman. 

Although much of Sisters of Night and Fog has been fictionalized to fill in the gaps, their general storyline is based on the true stories of these remarkable women who risked their lives to fight the Nazis. 

I had trouble getting into the story, initially, but it was my problem, not an issue with the book. I wasn't in the mood to have my heart broken and a little piece of your heart is always shattered when you read about WWII. There was so much cruelty. But, there was a great deal of heroism, as well. and Sisters of Night and Fog is absolutely a story of women willing to lay down their lives in the service of others. 

Highly recommended - I can't say much more without giving away plot points and details that are best revealed slowly but while Sisters of Night and Fog is definitely heartbreaking, it is also uplifting and awe-inspiring to read about the courage of these two women and the people they worked with. I recommend reading it during a time when you're feeling like you can handle intrigue, tension, danger, and sadness. I was fighting depression hard this entire month (improving, now) so I kept picking the book up and setting it aside to read lighter fare but when I finally felt up to it, it was difficult to put down. 

I have a feeling Violette and Virginia will stick with me for a long time and I'd like to read more about them. Obviously meticulously researched and another beautifully written book by Erika Robuck, if a tiny bit overlong. Be aware that the book tells their stories from the beginning of the war to the end and their work was later in the war, so much of Sisters of Night and Fog feels like backstory if you're expecting to jump right into the action, as I was. Initially, I thought the book started too far back in time but I trusted the author's timing and it turned out that you really do need to understand where they came from.

My thanks to Berkley Books for the review copy!

©2022 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Invisible Woman by Erika Robuck

The Invisible Woman by Erika Robuck is a fictionalized account of Virginia Hall's work in occupied France during about the final 6 months before the invasion of Normandy during WWII. Virginia Hall was an American socialite who helped build and support the French Resistance. 

During the time this portion of Virginia's story takes place, she's dealing with her own personal trauma and also post-traumatic stress after her Resistance network was betrayed and most of the people she worked with fighting the Nazis were arrested, possibly killed, although she's uncertain of what's become of her friends. After spending some time in the UK, she is back in France, rebuilding a Resistance network, calling for supply drops to support her recruits and the local Maquis living in a nearby forest, and helping to hold them back from sabotage efforts until she gets the signal that D-Day is coming, so that they can do the most damage to bridges and rail possible without time for reprisals. 

I recently read about half of A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell, which is a biography of Virginia Hall, and I confess I was a little thrown at the beginning of The Invisible Woman because I hadn't come anywhere close to the dates in which this particular part of Hall's time in France took place. So, at first I thought the author had fictionalized a great deal. Then, I realized it was me that was off. It's been a couple of months since I set A Woman of No Importance aside so I was discombobulated, date-wise. But, once I realized the dates were off in my head, I found the story gripping and captivating. Virginia Hall was an incredibly heroic woman and I believe Erika Robuck did an amazing job of bringing her to life. 

Highly recommended - An engrossing story of heroism, danger, and the horrors of war. The only problem I had with The Invisible Woman was that I had difficulty keeping the characters straight because there were so many of them. It didn't occur to me to pull out my copy of A Woman of No Importance, which has photographs of many of the key characters, who were real. There is a lot of information to digest because of the complexity of working as a spy in an occupied nation during war but the author presents it well and I found the story fascinating and ultimately satisfying. 

Side note: I got to hear a little about Erika's writing process, yesterday, when she was a guest author in the online writing workshop I'm taking, this month, and I think it's of interest that she chose to write the novel in 3rd person because Virginia kept her story close and was such a private woman that Erika felt like she needed to keep a bit of distance. She believed Virginia Hall's personal preference probably would have been not to have her story told at all so it was necessary not to crawl into her head and tell her story in 1st person. I think that was a wise choice. 

Also, wow, I loved hearing about Erika's writing process. She is incredibly disciplined and I loved how she described the way the characters who need their story told come to her in an almost mystical way. It sounds like she has two more WWII stories under contract, one to be released in the spring of 2022. You can bet I will be putting them on my wish list as soon as I'm able. 

©2021 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Fallen Beauty by Erika Robuck

[. . . ] like it or not, this town was a part of me.  I could feel its dust on my feet, its rivers like blood in my veins, its street patterns etched on my skin; to leave would mean amputating a part of myself.

~ from Advance Reader Copy of Fallen Beauty (some changes may have been made to the final print version)

Two up-front warnings: 

1.  It's 2:00 in the morning. I diddled around all day when I knew I should have been finishing this book to review it because . . . 
2.  The timing was wrong.  But, I loved where Erika Robuck took the story, in the end. I just had a terrible time getting into Fallen Beauty.

Fallen Beauty follows Erika Robuck's pattern: the fictional biography of a historical character told via the placement of an entirely fictional character whose life intersects with that of the real-life character, in this case poet Edna St. Vincent Millay and fictional seamstress Laura Kelley.

The year is 1928. Laura is 19 when she falls in love. In the course of a single night of passion, she becomes pregnant. But, the man she loves is not available. Before her child arrives, tragedy strikes, leaving the family business on shaky ground.

Laura chooses to keep baby Grace and becomes a pariah in her small community. It is difficult enough to survive as a seamstress after the stock market crash. With few people willing to cross the threshold of her shop, Laura is barely surviving when Edna St. Vincent Millay (who chose to go by the name "Vincent") comes into the picture.

Vincent is married but her marriage to Eugen is open and she is bisexual. She's known for her wild parties and love life as much as her poetry in the town near her mountain home.  Vincent is drawn to Laura after hearing Eugen's description of her and wants Laura in her life. But, she also desires to help Laura after realizing the hardship Laura endures, both as an outcast and a single mother.

There's much more to the story than I can or should go into, but . . . gypsies, sister, kind sculptor, nasty village woman, one-night stand between Millay and a villager that complicates things . . . those are some of the other elements.  

What I loved about Fallen Beauty:

Exceptional characterization, to the point that "Vincent" initially made my skin crawl, believable dialogue, skillful narrative and an uplifting ending are some of the things I loved about Fallen Beauty. Laura is a fascinating character. She battles grief and guilt yet she's willing to place herself in an untenable position because she is also a loving person.  She is strong enough to remain true to herself, even while filled with self-doubt.  By the end of the book, I admired her deeply.  Edna St. Vincent Millay struck me as bizarre, at first.  But, the author managed to show her humanity at the same time she revealed her dangerous weaknesses (which eventually led to her death), the impact of her upbringing on her behavior and her mad genius.  When Robuck spoke from Vincent's point of view, I felt a little like I'd jumped on the crazy train but it was the fact that Millay's wildly creative viewpoint was believable that made it so uncomfortable.

What I disliked about Fallen Beauty:

That skin-crawling distaste for Edna St. Vincent Millay's wild life and her unique point of view really put me off to the point that I considered not finishing Fallen Beauty.  Fortunately, Tammy (whose review I'll link up to, below) convinced me that I would not regret finishing. She gave it 5 stars and it was thanks to her encouragement that I continued reading. While it took me nearly a week to read the book, I truly think that can be chalked up at least partially to poor timing because I did love the writing; it's both fluid and self-assured.

And yet I had enough trouble dissociating myself from the discomfort of reading the portions told from Millay's viewpoint that I kept dragging my feet and occasionally zoning out. Fallen Beauty is, for me, a book that I appreciate more upon reflection than I managed while I was reading it. Weird but true.

Other thoughts:

I didn't mind the secret of Laura's unknown lover being dangled throughout most of the book, even though some small part of me was thinking of the secret as a literary device. So what, another small part of me said. I rather like the not knowing because it opens up the option to gleefully theorize. 

Recommended - Fallen Beauty is at once a fictional story of love and loss, pain and redemption and a glimpse into the life of a famous poet, masterfully told. Between my distaste for Edna St. Vincent Millay's lifestyle and the wrong mood, I can't say I fell in love with Fallen Beauty; my attention strayed. And, yet, after finishing I have that, "Oh, I see what she did," sensation that Tammy described.  I get it, now; Tammy was right. I am quite impressed with Erika Robuck's storytelling skill.  

Tammy's review of Fallen Beauty at Under a Blood Red Sky

My thanks to TLC Book Tours and NAL for the review copy of Fallen Beauty.  Thanks, also, to Tammy for convincing me not to give up.

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.