THE NIGHTINGALE by Kristin Hannah

Note: I am not a paid reviewer, and I have purchased this title to read for my personal enjoyment.

The Nazis occupy France and sisters Vianne and Isabelle make their choices. Vianne wants to preserve her family by complying and enduring, while Isabelle’s fury at France’s occupiers boils and she decides to resist. Isabelle becomes a passeur, aiding Allied flyers to escape from occupied France to Spain over the Pyrenees. Our emotions and senses are engaged in scene after scene: As the French tolerate sneering indignities by the ruling Nazis; Vianne’s searing hunger pangs; Isabelle’s muscles straining as she scrambles up rocky cliffs with wind lashing her cheeks. But the writing that most moves me is Vianne’s transformation when her Jewish friend is deported, then Isabelle brings the resistance and its deadly peril to her home, and she realizes she must act. We feel Vianne’s pain as she submits to an unthinkable choice in order to save innocent Jewish children. With two million copies sold, I am certain that countless readers agree with me that this book is a terrific balance of story pacing and character depth.