In Another Time

November 15, 2018

Violinist Hanna Ginsberg wakes up in a field outside Berlin in 1946, clutching her instrument and having no idea of how she got there. Her last memory was standing in the bookshop of her beloved Max Beissinger in 1936, with the climate in Germany perilous to Jews and their sympathizers. Max isn't Jewish, but he has loved Hanna since first hearing her play. He wants to save her, save them both, and he just might have a means to do it, but it involves entering a portal to the future. While presenting the circumstances in Germany during the 1930s, Cantor (The Lost Letter) demands that readers suspend disbelief on several levels (e.g., Hanna and Max are physically intimate almost from the beginning of their relationship, yet there is never a pregnancy). VERDICT What might have been a truly fascinating tale of pre-Holocaust Europe asks too much of its audience. The most intriguing details come near the end, when truths are revealed. However, libraries with large collections of Holocaust fiction might be interested. [See Prepub Alert, 10/1/18.]--Bette-Lee Fox, Library Journal

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 15, 2019
Max Beissinger and Hanna Ginsburg fall in love, but their relationship is destined for heartache when Hitler comes to power and outlaws marriage between Germans and Jews.Max, a bookstore owner, stumbles across Hanna playing her violin at the Lyceum and is smitten. Hanna takes care of her sick mother and practices her instrument in hopes of earning a place in an orchestra. She conceals her growing affair with Max from her mother and sister, who would not approve of her dating outside the Jewish faith. Max has a secret, something he discovers in a journal his father kept, that causes him to suddenly vanish, often for months at a time, telling no one where he is going or where he has been. Hanna breaks off their engagement because of Max's disappearances, but Max believes his secret can save Hanna should the fraught political climate take a turn for the worse as Hitler continues to rise in power. One evening, when he and Hanna are at his bookstore, Nazis bash the door open. Max grabs Hanna to secure her in a hidden closet, but she breaks away and rushes back for her violin. The Nazis grab them both, and they are separated. The next thing Hanna knows, she awakens in a field, not remembering the events of the past 10 years. Max, who had a mysterious glimpse of the future, knows she must be alive and works to find her. Cantor propels readers back and forth from the 1930s to the '50s in this well-researched historical novel, showing how the past impacted the future, including the secret of Hanna's lost decade. Readers may want to urge Max to confess his secret to Hanna...but then there would be no story. Cantor elevates love as a powerful force that transcends tragedy and shows how music speaks to even the cruelest hearts.A powerful story that exalts the strength of the human spirit.

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February 1, 2019
Hanna Ginsburg wakes up in a field in Germany in 1946, clutching her violin. The last thing she remembers is being with her beloved Max in his bookshop in Gutenstat 10 years earlier, as the SA pounded on the door. Now, she suffers from memory loss related to trauma?but what trauma? As she goes on to rebuild her life and, in particular, fulfill her dream of finding a place in a symphony orchestra, alternate narrative threads carry the reader back to the 1930s, with events presented from both Hanna and Max's perspectives. Hanna is a gifted violinist, but her single-minded focus on her music blinds her to rising anti-Semitism, while Max, who is not Jewish, recognizes the threat. He has already helped some Jewish neighbors escape into the future through a closet in his bookshop, and he hopes he can save Hanna this way as well. Though the answer to the mystery of Hanna's lost years feels underdeveloped, Cantor (The Lost Letter, 2017) endows the novel's historical and musical elements with enough interest to keep readers engaged.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)