First published 2019
Max meets Zia on a Parisian street in 1939. He is a British Territorial soldier. She is Jewish, from southern France. They fall in love and plan to marry in England. The Gestapo kidnaps Zia on May 26th, 1939, over a year before Germany invades France. They want a painting owned by her wealthy grandmother. Max wakes up in a hospital to find Zia gone. The Red Cross reports she was sent to Sachsenhausen Labor Camp near Berlin. By June 6th, 1944, Max lands at Normandy with 150,000 Allied troops. He has spent four years planning to find Zia or kill those who took her. SS Hauptsturmführer Dieter Baumann has moved Zia through three concentration camps. She now suffers in Auschwitz. Berlin ordered Baumann to break her but keep her alive. Max fights across Nazi Europe with unlikely allies to reach her. Berlin makes one final attempt to claim the painting. Max faces an undercover Gestapo officer in a deadly confrontation as Zia's life hangs in the balance.
Genres: romance, historical-fiction, 20th-century, military-fiction
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family
Setting: Paris, England, Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz, Normandy
Period: 1939, 1944
259 pages · Paperback · Independently Published
Content warnings: kidnapping, violence