SISTERS OF NIGHT AND FOG by Erica Robuck

In this recent release, Virginia is an American in Paris who has married a Frenchman and refuses to return to the states when war breaks out in Europe and the Nazis overrun France. Violette narrowly escapes the Nazis to England with her French mother and English father, where she meets an exiled Frenchman who becomes the love of her life. In alternating points of view, Virginia and Violette each deal with upheaval and tragedy, and become witnesses to atrocities. Each woman desperately tries to hold onto her love while hatred of the Nazis grows with every increasing deprivation and punitive measure. Subtle prose imagery portrays Virginia’s coming to terms with being under the yoke of the Nazis at a bar in Montparnasse, where  “art deco walls echo with the laughter of many years ago…and mirrors reflect endless faces that merge in the change of the light, the tilt of the head, one face becoming another.” Each woman makes her life-altering decision to fight back, Virginia with the French resistance and Violette as an agent dropped into France as a courier and saboteur. Scenes chock-full of fear, suspicion and danger unfold convincingly. After many successes, Virginia and Violette are each captured and their stories converge at the infamous Ravensbruck. Captivity is movingly portrayed with hunger and fleeting hopes of Allied deliverance, fears and courage, pain and despair, and the tightly-forged bonds among the prisoners. Ultimately, only an indomitable human spirit can see a prisoner through. This world war-based novel is my favorite so far in 2022 and one that will be enjoyed by fans of The Nightingale and The Alice Network.