Tag: Reviews

#BookReview Hitler’s Taster by V. S. Alexander @AvonBooksUK 

whatcathyreadnext4 Comments

Hitler's TasterAbout the Book

Forced to protect him. Determined to bring him down…

Germany, 1943. Magda Ritter longs for a peaceful life. But war is drawing closer, and soon she is forced to serve the one man she hoped never to encounter – Hitler.

Taken to his mountain retreat, she is assigned the most dangerous job of all. She is to be the Führer’s ‘taster’ and check his food for poison. Desperate to escape, Magda joins an underground resistance group intent on ending Nazi rule.

To stop the atrocities around her, Madga must risk everything – her position, her family, and even her life.

Format: Paperback (400 pages)  Publisher: Avon Books
Publication date: 3rd May 2018 Genre: Historical Fiction

Find Hitler’s Taster on Goodreads

Purchase links
Bookshop.org
Disclosure: If you buy a book via the above link, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops

Hive | Amazon UK
Links provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

Her Hidden LifeI’ve been attempting to continue the good work started whe I took part in NetGalley November by reading some of the older books on my NetGalley To-Read shelf. Hitler’s Taster is one of those having been on my shelf for so long that it was originally published as Her Hidden Life.

Hitler’s Taster is described as ‘a poignant tale of hope, danger and betrayal from the heart of history’s darkest moments’. The fact that Hitler employed a number of women to taste his food for fear of poison was a surprise to me, although not that he was paranoid enough to do so or that he was willing to have others die instead of him. After all, many millions did as a result of his actions.

Having arrived at Berghof, Hitler’s mountain retreat, Magda quickly forms a relationship with Captain Karl Weber, an SS officer in charge of security in the kitchen where she and the other tasters perform their duties. From Karl she learns about the realities of the Nazi regime – the persecution of Jews and other minorities, the concentration camps and countless other atrocities. This is information which, for propaganda purposes, is being kept hidden from the German population, as is the truth about how badly things are really going in the war. Magda realises that not all Germans support Hitler’s regime, even within the ranks of his own army.

It was interesting to get a ‘behind the scenes’ look at what it was like to be close to the Führer and the rather bizarre nature of life in his household. At one point, Magda is invited to take tea and his favourite apple cake with Adolf Hitler, there are dances organised and showings of films such as Gone With The Wind for those stationed at Berghof. As she observes, ‘We were trapped in a make-believe world propagated by the Reich while all around us battles were being fought, troops slaughtered and innocents butchered’.

On a brief trip to Berlin to visit her family Magda discovers the reality of what ordinary Germans are experiencing: food shortages, nightly bombing raids, buildings reduced to rubble, hospitals overwhelmed by the injured and the dying. It’s this, along with other events, that makes her determined that Hitler must die. She fantasises about the ways she personally might achieve this. Some are rather outlandish, others are no doubt similar to those being considered by the Allies. However, all of them are likely to end in her own demise.

At this point in the book, any notion the focus will mainly be on Magda and Karl’s relationship is rudely shattered as the story gets progressively darker with Magda experiencing first-hand the worst aspects of the Nazi regime. If anything, it becomes darker still including nightmare scenes as the soldiers of the Red Army overrun Berlin and take their revenge on German citizens.   Students of history will know how Hitler’s reign of terror ends but perhaps cannot quite imagine what it would have been like to witness it in person.

Hitler’s Taster surprised me. It took a direction I was not expecting with some scenes that were distressing to read, not least of which because they depict things that happened in real life to real people. In fact, no doubt those real life experiences were worse than described in the book. I don’t think any of us would disagree with the author when he writes in his afterword, ‘Another global war would surely lead to annihilation; therefore, we must maintain a constant vigil against those who would use their power to destroy’.

I received a review copy courtesy of Avon Books via NetGalley.

In three words: Dramatic, emotional, intense

Try something similar: People Like Us by Louise Fein

Follow this blog via Bloglovin

V S AlexanderAbout the Author

V. S. Alexander is an ardent student of history and the arts and loves writing historical fiction with strong women protagonists. The author of several novels and short stories, Alexander’s first novel was The Magdalen Girls, an Amazon best seller, set in 1962 Dublin. Her Hidden Life is V. S. Alexander’s second book. The author lives in South Florida where summer is never far away. (Photo: Goodreads author page)

Connect with V. S. Alexander
Goodreads | Twitter

Hitler's Taster

#BookReview Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan @FaberBooks

whatcathyreadnext4 Comments

Small Things Like TheseAbout the Book

It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season.

As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him – and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church.

Format: Hardcover (128 pages)         Publisher: Faber & Faber
Publication date: 21st October 2021 Genre: Literary Fiction

Find Small Things Like These on Goodreads

Purchase links
Bookshop.org
Disclosure: If you buy a book via the above link, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops

Hive | Amazon UK
Links provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

I rarely re-read books but in the case of Small Things Like These as soon as I’d finished the book I turned back to the beginning and read it again, not wanting to miss any little detail I may have overlooked first time around. And there were many.

The book is set in the approach to Christmas – ‘It was a December of crows’ – traditionally a time of generosity which, although absent in others, is embodied in the person of Bill Furlong.  Although they may be considered ‘small things’ by some, Bill’s acts of kindness – a lift home in the rain, a pile of logs for a loyal customer – are of great significance to the recipients.

I loved all the domestic details of family life in the Furlong household – making the Christmas cake, baking mince pies, decorating the Christmas tree and Bill’s daughters writing their letters to Santa. (One of many poignant moments for me was later in the book when Bill goes into a toyshop to ask if they have a five hundred piece jigsaw puzzle of a farm.)

At one point, Bill asks himself ‘was there any point in being alive without helping one another?’ It’s that instinct that motivates him to take the action he does at the end of the book even though it will mean going up against the power of the Church and may have unwelcome consequences for him and his family. In part, it’s a way of ‘paying forward’ the generosity of Mrs Wilson, the woman who continued to employ his unmarried mother even after she became pregnant, provided Bill with a home after his mother’s death and gave him the funds to start up his business. He recalls Mrs Wilson’s daily kindnesses ‘how she had corrected and encouraged him, of the small things she had said and done’.  Yes, those small things again.

How can any reader not fall in love with Bill, the quiet, unassuming hero of the book who epitomises the generosity of spirit preached in the Bible, a generosity which is not always demonstrated in practice by others, especially those proven to have offered only cruelty and condemnation where there should have been mercy and understanding.

I loved the gentle lilt of Claire Keegan’s writing and the sense that every single word has been carefully chosen – which it probably has. The opening paragraph of the book is a good example. ‘In October there were yellow trees. Then the clocks went back the hour and the long November winds came in and blew, and stripped the trees bare. In the town of New Ross, chimneys threw out smoke which fell away and drifted off in hairy, drawn-out strings before dispersing along the quays, and soon the River Barrow, dark as stout, swelled up with rain.’ 

Small Things Like These is a quietly powerful novel, an exquisite little gem of a book. It’s no surprise that so many readers have fallen in love with it.

In three words: Eloquent, tender, sublime

Try something similar: Stoner by John Williams

Follow this blog via Bloglovin

Claire KeeganAbout the Author

Irish writer Claire Keegan’s debut collection of stories, Antarctica, was a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year. The Observer called these stories: ‘Among the finest recently written in English’. It was also awarded the William Trevor Prize, judged by William Trevor.  In 2007, her second collection, Walk the Blue Fields, was published to huge critical acclaim and went on to win The Edge Hill Prize for the strongest collection published in The British Isles. The prize was adjudicated by Hilary Mantel.  Foster (2010) won The Davy Byrnes Award, then the world’s richest prize for a story. It judged by Richard Ford: “Keegan is a rarity-someone I will always want to read’.”

Keegan’s stories are published in English by Faber & Faber, have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, The Paris Review, Best American Stories, won numerous awards – and are translated into 17 languages.  She is internationally renowned as a teacher of creative writing. (Photo/bio: Author website) 

Connect with Claire
Website | Twitter | Goodreads