by Gwen Strauss
First published 2022
Hélène Podliasky leads eight other young French women through the final chaos of World War II. All under thirty, they had smuggled weapons across Europe, sheltered Allied agents, and hidden Jewish children before the Gestapo captured them. French police arrested them. German interrogators tortured them. The Nazi system shuttled them through prisons and finally enslaved them at a labor camp in Leipzig. The women met at different points along this brutal journey. Some knew each other from prison cells. Others connected during transport or at Ravensbrück concentration camp. By Leipzig, they had become a tight group of friends. As Allied forces close in and guards force the prisoners onto a death march, the nine women see their chance. They break away from the column and begin a desperate ten-day trek across the collapsing front lines. Their destination is Paris, but first they must survive the journey home through a landscape torn apart by war.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, war, world-war-ii
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: found-family, survival
Setting: Europe, France, Germany, Leipzig, Paris, Ravensbrück
Period: World War II
336 pages · Paperback · Griffin
Content warnings: torture, violence, war