Gina’s Review: The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

The Nightingale 
written by Kristin Hannah
published by St. Martin’s Press, 2015

find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble, Amazon, iBooks, Book Depository, Goodreads

Did I enjoy this book: Yes. I didn’t simply enjoy it . . . I savored this book. Fiction based during World War II is one of my favorite things. Some of the best books I’ve found pull out every emotion I have and leave me a blob on the floor, and The Nightingale is no exception. Isabelle and Vianne are beautifully written; if I had sisters, I would want them to be like these two women. I shared every moment of heartache and every moment of joy with them. I don’t know how Hannah is able to do it, but her writing is powerful. She is a gifted storyteller. This is yet another novel I’ve read this year that will stay with me.

 

GOLDEN LINE

“If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.”

 

Would I recommend it: YES! Please go buy it!

About the book – from Goodreads:

In love we find out who we want to be.
In war we find out who we are.

FRANCE, 1939

In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When France is overrun, Vianne is forced to take an enemy into her house, and suddenly her every move is watched; her life and her child’s life is at constant risk. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates around her, she must make one terrible choice after another.

Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets the compelling and mysterious Gäetan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can…completely. When he betrays her, Isabelle races headlong into danger and joins the Resistance, never looking back or giving a thought to the real–and deadly–consequences.

With courage, grace and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah takes her talented pen to the epic panorama of WWII and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women’s war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France–a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime.