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Book Review – Small Acts of Resistance by Anita Frank

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About the Book

May 1915. When his aircraft crashes in Northern France, British airman Henry finds himself stranded behind enemy lines. His survival depends on the courage and compassion of a local family who risk everything by hiding him in their farmhouse.

With her village already suffering under Occupation, Marie knows sheltering Henry will put her in family in grave danger, and that peril only increases when two German officers are unexpectedly billeted with them. Forced to live cheek by jowl with their occupiers, it takes all their cunning to keep their deadly secret.

As the shadow of war spreads, loves blooms, offering a glimmer of hope amidst the darkness.

But before long love is put to the test as everyone’s loyalty is called into question. The ramifications of the choices they must now make will be felt long after the war is over.

Format: Hardcover (480 pages) Publisher: HQ
Publication date: 20th November 2025 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

A French village under German occupation whose inhabitants endure nightly curfews, confiscation of possessions, rationing, deportation to labour camps and brutal punishment if found harbouring British soldiers and airmen. If you didn’t know when the book was set you’d probably imagine it was World War Two. But it’s not, it’s World War One. This is one of the most remarkable aspects of the book because many of the experiences of French people living near the frontline in World War One were not so different from those living in occupied France a few decades later.

My favourite character was Claudette, Marie’s grandmother. She’s a woman of resilience, courage and determination. Her ‘small acts of resistance’ include hiding the family’s valuables in a place the Germans are unlikely to look, or want to look. Her greatest act of resistance though is her decision to shelter Henry, even when that gets increasingly difficult.

Acts of resistance feature in other ways. On a daily basis, Marie has to withstand the prejudice of some in the village because of the circumstances of her birth. And increasingly she finds herself wanting to resist the path she has been persuaded to take in her personal life. It’s especially problematic because, were she to think again, it would dash the hopes of someone she cares for deeply.

Despite the author’s best efforts, I struggled to warm to Henry. Whilst admiring his stoicism in enduring his confinement, I felt he often needlessly put the family at risk. His belief that it was better for him to avoid capture than try to make it back to territory held by the British felt like self-justification of inaction. However, the author cleverly introduces a character to provide an opposing viewpoint.

I would have liked the first half of the book to move more quickly and I found some things rather too convenient, such as the fact Henry and one of the German officers billeted with the family just happen to speak fluent French. Other things seemed a little implausible, such as the family’s ability to pass off Henry as a cousin in a small village where everybody must know one another and even the Germans must surely have wondered why a man of his age hadn’t been conscripted into the French army or sent to a German labour camp.

However, as the story progressed and depicted the brutal realities of life under occupation, I found myself more and more gripped. I thought the author explored very well the difficult decisions people have to make in wartime and how those decisions could come back to haunt them. And that there are life or death moments when you have to decide what’s right and what’s wrong.

I liked that the love story didn’t progress along obvious lines and, although I eventually guessed the direction it was going to go, I still found myself a little tearful at the end of the book. Perhaps that just goes to prove I’m more of a soppy old romantic than I like to think.

Small Acts of Resistance is a well-crafted, sweeping story that reveals the consequences of war and the difficult moral decisions people on all sides are forced to make.

My thanks to HQ for my review copy via NetGalley.

In three words: Emotional, dramatic, moving
Try something similar: Daughters of War by Dinah Jefferies

About the Author

Anita Frank was born in Shropshire and studied English and American History at the University of East Anglia. She lives in Gloucestershire with her husband and three children and is now a full-time carer for her disabled son. Her debut novel The Lost Ones was shortlisted for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award and the Historical Writers’ Association Debut Crown Award, and The Return was shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists’ Association Historical Novel Award. Her novel The Good Liars was an instant Sunday Times bestseller. Small Acts of Resistance is her fourth novel. (Photo: Amazon author page)

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#6Degrees of Separation – A book chain from Seascraper to The French Lieutenant’s Woman

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It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation.

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own #6Degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on X using the hashtag #6Degrees.

This month’s starting book is Seascraper by Benjamin Wood, a book – for once – I’ve read, and which I highly recommend. Links from each title will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.

Seascraper‘s protagonist is twenty-year-old Thomas Flett who, like his grandfather before him, makes a living as a ‘shanker’, scraping for shrimp along the shoreline of the (fictional) coastal town of Longferry.

The Geometer Lobachevsky by Adrian Duncan features another traditional shoreline activity, the harvesting of seaweed by the inhabitants of a small island in the Shannon estuary in the 1950s. The book’s main character, Nikolai Lobachevsky, arrives in Ireland to help with surveying peat bogs in preparation for the provision of electricity to rural areas of Ireland.

In This Is Happiness by Niall Williams the small Irish village of Faha is also awaiting the arrival of mains electricity, paving the way for modern appliances such as refrigerators and toasters that initially bemuse the locals.

SPIT by David Brennan is also set in a small Irish village, the eponymous Spit. An unseen witness to everything that goes on in the village, and the book’s predominant narrator, is a ghost known as the Spook of Spit.

Another book narrated from beyond the grave is The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. Susie Salmon, murdered when she was fourteen years old, watches from heaven as life on earth continues without her.

Saoirse Ronan played Susie in the film adaptation of The Lovely Bones. She also played the part of pioneering palaeontologist and avid fossil collector Mary Anning in the film version of Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier.

Mary Anning was born in Lyme Regis on the Dorset coast which is also the setting for The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles.

My chain has taken me from the seaside to… the seaside! Where did your chain take you?