France at War: The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

I thought this book got off to a slow start, but I decided to stick with it as I am reading a lot of books (fiction and non, with a WWII setting). I thought it was well-researched and getting an inside view of the conditions faced by the French during the Occupation, it was enlightening, as well as horrifying. 

It put a personal spin on the individual deprivations, moral dilemmas and fear faced by everyday people in a terrible situation, and the fictionalized story of the Nightingale sketched out more of the detail that would have involved members of the Resistance. 

Plot-wise, though, there were few surprises. I wanted to see, however, if I was right in my expectations of how it would all turn out, and I was, overwhelmingly. Despite that, it's a good and fast read, once the story truly gets going, if a bit formulaic. Hannah is not an author I would deliberately seek out, but I might try her again, depending on the setting and subject matter.

Two women, two wars – The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

My last audiobook of 2018. 

Historical fiction that makes for very compelling listening. Two parallel stories converge and intersect. Two women who are somewhat unconventional for their time and place, both with personal obstacles, but who have strong drives to fulfill their goals connect.

One of two is Eve Gardiner, a British woman who first becomes a spy as part of the Alice Network (a real-life clandestine organization of women who spied for the British against the Germans) based in Lille, France during World War I. Eve is sent to join a group of women reporting to "Lili", the pseudonym for Louise De Bettignies, the group's leader, a non-fictional character. The spies are seeking information that will aid the British in extricating captured soldiers, and obtaining the secrets of French collaborators working with the Germans. Though she has a speech impediment, Eve also has language facility in French and German. Her spying is successful for a time, but eventually she is caught and punished.

Fast forward to post-World War II. Charlotte "Charlie" St. Clair is a wealthy but bored American college woman who has muddied her reputation while away at college. Her conservative parents whisk her off to Europe where she can have her "problem" solved at a clinic in Switzerland, but their first stop is 
London.

Charlie is obsessed with locating her older cousin Rose who was caught up in Occupied France. They lost contact and Charlie is committed to finding out what became of her.

The determined Charlie manages to make contact with the now alcoholic and embittered Eve, whom she believes will have insights on what happened to Rose, and from that point, their stories entwine...  

The Bialy Eaters: The Story of a Bread and a Lost World by Mimi Sheraton

Accomplished food and travel writer Mimi Sheraton published this book 18 years ago. It is a touching and often fascinating look at a nearly-vanished world. Bialys were made by a multitude of Jewish bakers in Bialystok, Poland before WWII. When nearly all of the Jews of Bialystok were murdered in the Holocaust, most aspects of their culture also died, except for the few survivors who dispersed to places as far-flung as Argentina, Australia, Israel, France and, of course, New York. 

While this is the story of a unique food item, it is more the story of the people who baked and ate bialys, and how that food tied them together in the memory of a shared experience.

One of the survivors Sheraton interviewed was Samuel Pisar, who wrote an acclaimed account of his experiences. His book, Of Blood and Hope, is next on my reading list. One book leads to another.