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Book Review: War Girl Ursula (War Girl #1) by Marion Kummerow

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War Girl UrsulaAbout the Book

Berlin 1943: Compassion is a crime.

A prisoner escapes. A guard looks the other way.  Why does Ursula Hermann risk her life and brave the Gestapo to save a man she barely knows?

Ursula has always lived the law, never broken the rules in her life. That is until the day she finds escapee British airman Tom Westlake and all the right she’s worked so hard to maintain goes wrong… He runs. And she does nothing to stop him.

Torn with guilt about what she did, Ursula battles with her decision when suddenly Tom returns, injured and pleading for her help. This is her opportunity to make things right. But shadows from the past tug at her heart, convincing her to risk everything, including her life, in order to protect a man from the nation her country is fighting.

As they brave the perils and dangers of the ever-present Gestapo, will Ursula find a way to keep Tom safe? Or will being on the opposite sides of the war ultimately cost both of them their lives?

Format: ebook, paperback (136 pp.)    Publisher:
Published: 26th July 2017                       Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ  Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find War Girl Ursula on Goodreads

My Review

The book’s startling opening scene, once one appreciates the unusual nature of the event taking place, plunges the reader into the atmosphere of wartime Germany.  Frequent Allied bombing raids on Berlin are making the city a dangerous place for its citizens who are also coping with food shortages and the increasingly authoritarian measures of the Nazi government.    ‘During these awful times, death lingered around every corner, and nobody could trust to live to the next day.’  In addition, informers are everywhere.  In the case of Ursula, her sisters Anna and Lotte, and their mother, very close to home indeed.

In Ursula, the author creates a believable picture of someone who has always followed rules unquestioningly and has a strong streak of patriotism.  ‘She prided herself in accepting her fate with grace.  She did what was expected of her.’  However, as events unfold, even Ursula finds herself questioning the harsh measures introduced by Hitler’s government and wondering if the things taking place can be justified, even in time of war.  Working as a prison guard she sees firsthand the awful treatment meted out to those who dare to oppose the government – imprisonment, torture and execution.  ‘Days turned into weeks, and with every personal story Ursula came to know, her faith in the infallibility of the Führer and the Party was hacked away blow by blow.’

When Ursula finally acts as she does it has even greater significance because it is against her natural instincts and involves an agonising moral decision.  As local priest, confidante and ally, Pfarrer Bernau observes, ‘…things aren’t black and white.  Right has become wrong, and wrong has become right.’  However, it turns out that beneath that quiet, respectable exterior, Ursula possesses an inner core of steel.  Isn’t true courage facing up to your worst fears and trying to do the right thing anyway?

Ursula’s story is a timely reminder that there were plenty of Germans who became appalled by the actions of the Nazi government and demonstrated exceptional bravery in trying to help to escape Jews and other people made the focus of the government’s prejudice and hatred.

At the end of the book, the author skilfully sets up the story for the next in the series –War Girl Lotte – with some dramatic news for Ursula, her sister and mother.  War Girl Ursula is a slim novel but it is packed full of period detail and references to actual historical events that makes it feel completely authentic whilst at the same time being a thoroughly entertaining read.  It has two central characters, Tom and Ursula, that this reader found it easy to root for.  I was fascinated to read in the Author’s Notes that some of Marion Kummerow’s own family history also inspired part of the story.

I received a review copy courtesy of the author in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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In three words: Dramatic, authentic, engaging

Try something similar…The Good Doctor of Warsaw by Elisabeth Gifford (read my review here)

Marion KummerowAbout the Author

Marion Kummerow was born and raised in Germany, before she set out to “discover the world” and lived in various countries. In 1999 she returned to Germany and settled down in Munich where she’s now living with her family. She’s written several non-fiction books about Munich and Germany and published in 2016 her first historical fiction.

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My Week in Books – 27th May ’18

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MyWeekinBooks

New arrivals  

The Silence of the GirlsThe Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (eARC, NetGalley)

From the Booker Prize-winning author of Regeneration and one of our greatest contemporary writers on war comes a reimagining of the most famous conflict in literature – the legendary Trojan War.

When her city falls to the Greeks, Briseis’s old life is shattered. She is transformed from queen to captive, from free woman to slave, awarded to the god-like warrior Achilles as a prize of war. And she’s not alone. On the same day, and on many others in the course of a long and bitter war, innumerable women have been wrested from their homes and flung to the fighters. The Trojan War is known as a man’s story: a quarrel between men over a woman, stolen from her home and spirited across the sea. But what of the other women in this story, silenced by history? What words did they speak when alone with each other, in the laundry, at the loom, when laying out the dead? In this magnificent historical novel, Pat Barker charts one woman’s journey through the chaos of the most famous war in history, as she struggles to free herself and to become the author of her own story.

A Long Island StoryA Long Island Story by Rick Geloski (eARC, NetGalley)

It is 1953, a heat wave is sweeping across America and the Grossmans – Ben, Addie and their two children – are moving their lives from the political heart of Washington DC to suburban Long Island. Benny was a successful lawyer in the Department of Justice, but all that has come tumbling down. With the McCarthy era of paranoia, persecution, and propaganda at its height, his past has come back to haunt him, forcing him to pack up his family and leave the capital behind.

With their future uncertain, life in Long Island starts to open old wounds for Ben and Addie, both start to wonder if they were meant for more, whether their future might look different than they planned, and whether their marriage – their family – is worth fighting for . . .

A Long Island Story is a portrait of a marriage in crisis, of a unique and fascinating period in US history and of a seemingly perfect family fighting their demons behind closed doors.

SongSong by Michelle Jana Chan (hardcover, review copy courtesy of Unbound and Random Things Tours)

Opening in the mid-nineteenth-century, this dazzling debut novel traces the voyage of Song, a boy who leaves his impoverished family in rural China to seek his fortune. Song may have survived the perilous journey to the colony of British Guiana in the Caribbean, but once there he discovers riches are hard to come by, as he finds himself working as an indentured plantation worker.

Between places, between peoples, and increasingly aware that circumstances of birth carry more weight than accomplishments or good deeds, Song fears he may live as an outsider forever. This is a far-reaching and atmospheric story spanning nearly half a century and half the globe, and though it is set in the past, Song’s story of emigration and the quest for opportunity is, in many ways, a very contemporary tale.

The TeacherThe Teacher (DS Imogen Grey #1) by Katerina Diamond (ebook, NetGalley)

You think you know who to trust? You think you know the difference between good and evil? You’re wrong…

The body of the head teacher of an exclusive Devon school is found hanging from the rafters in the assembly hall.  Hours earlier he’d received a package, and only he could understand the silent message it conveyed. It meant the end.

As Exeter suffers a rising count of gruesome deaths, troubled DS Imogen Grey and DS Adrian Miles must solve the case and make their city safe again.  But as they’re drawn into a network of corruption, lies and exploitation, every step brings them closer to grim secrets hidden at the heart of their community.

And once they learn what’s motivating this killer, will they truly want to stop him?

The Artist and the SoldierThe Artist and the Soldier by Angelle Petta (ebook, review copy courtesy of the author)

Two young men come of age and fall in love, set against the backdrop of true events during World War II.

It’s 1938. Bastian Fisher and Max Amsel meet at an American-Nazi camp, Siegfried. Neither have any idea what to do with their blooming, confusing feelings for one another. Before they can begin to understand, the pair is yanked apart and forced in opposite directions.

Five years later, during the heart of World War II, Bastian’s American army platoon lands in Salerno, Italy. Max is in Nazi-occupied Rome where he has negotiated a plan to hire Jews on as ‘extras’ in a movie—an elaborate ruse to escape the Nazis. Brought together by circumstance and war, Bastian and Max find one another again in Rome.

Exploring the true stories of Camp Siegfried and the making of the film, La Porta del Cielo, The Artist and the Soldier sheds light on largely untouched stories in American and Italian history.

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I took part in the blog tour for I Will Find You by Daniela Sacerdoti sharing my review of this emotional dual time romance set in Scotland.  I also published my reviews of The Magpie Tree by Katherine Stansfield and Mr Peacock’s Possessions by Lydia Syson, both great historical fiction novels.

Tuesday – I was pleased to mark publication day by publishing my review of The Biographies of Ordinary People, Vol. 2 by Nicole Dieker, described as a ‘millennial Little Women’.   This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Best Character Names and I decided to give my list a John Buchan theme.

Wednesday – WWW Wednesday is the opportunity to share what I’ve just finished reading, what I’m reading now and what I’ll be reading next.   I also participated in the blog tour for That Summer in Puglia by Valeria Vescina, sharing my review of this compelling story of love, loss and regret.

Thursday –My Throwback Thursday book was The Scribe’s Daughter by Stephanie Churchill.  The follow-up book, The King’s Daughter, is in my review pile and I was pleased to learn the author is working on a third book in the series.  I also shared a fabulous guest post by Jim Kelly about his research for historical crime mystery, The Great Darkness, which I read recently and loved.

Friday – It was time for another of my Fact in Fiction features where I pick out interesting things I’ve learned through reading novels.  This week my list included training cormorants to catch fish, Cornish dialect and an Italian liqueur.

Saturday – I published a write-up of an evening spent listening to local authors, Claire Dyer and Amanda Jennings, talk about their current books, The Last Day and The Cliff House.

Challenge updates

  • Goodreads 2018 Reading Challenge – 79 out of 156 books read, 3 more than last week
  • Classics Club Challenge – 14 out of 50 books read, same as last week
  • NetGalley/Edelweiss Reading Challenge 2018 (Gold) – 29 ARCs read and reviewed out of 50, 4 more than last week
  • From Page to Screen– 10 book/film comparisons out of 15 completed, same as last week
  • 2018 TBR Pile Challenge – 5 out of 12 books read, same as last week
  • Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2018 – 37 books out of 50 read, same as last week
  • When Are You Reading? Challenge 2018 – 7 out of 12 books read, same as last week
  • What’s In A Name Reading Challenge – 1 out of 6 books read, same as last week
  • Buchan of the Month – 4 out of 12 books read, same as last week

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: The Last Day by Claire Dyer
  • Book Review: War Girl Ursula (War Girl #1) by Marion Kummerow
  • Book Review: A Lost Lady of Old Years by John Buchan
  • Book Review: The Concubine’s Child by Carol Jones