Saving Amelie

June 15, 2014

On a trip to Germany in 1939, Rachel Kramer encounters her former suitor, Gerhardt Schlick, who is now an SS officer and married to Rachel's best friend, Kristine. Prior to her arrival, Rachel had received a letter, the first in five years, from her estranged friend who fears that her deaf daughter will become one of the people "unworthy of life" in the eyes of the Nazi regime. Meanwhile, Rachel also discovers that her well-known eugenics-scientist father's research may have a more sinister purpose than finding the cure for the TB that killed her mother. As World War II heats up, Rachel joins the German Resistance with American journalist Jason Young to help smuggle the "unworthy" out of the country. VERDICT In this compelling and tense novel, Christy Award-winning Gohlke (Band of Sisters; Promise Me This) tells a haunting story of the courageous few who worked tirelessly and at great risk to themselves to save people they did not know, whom they would not see again. Reminiscent of Tatiana de Rosnay's stirring stories of human compassion and hope, this should appeal to fans of both authors as well as to historical fiction readers.

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