The Winter Guest

July 15, 2014
An 18-year-old Polish girl falls inlove, swoons over a first kiss, dreams of marriage-and, oh yes, we are in themiddle of the Holocaust.Jenoff (The Ambassador's Daughter,2013, etc.) weaves a tale of fevered teenage love in a time of horrors in theearly 1940s, as the Nazis invade Poland and herd Jews into ghettos andconcentration camps. A prologue set in 2013, narrated by a resident of theWestchester Senior Center, provides an intriguing setup. A woman and apoliceman visit the resident and ask if she came from a small Polish village.Their purpose is unclear until they mention bones recently found there: "And wethink you might know something about them." The book proceeds in the thirdperson, told from the points of view mostly of teenage Helena, who comes uponan injured young Jewish-American soldier, and sometimes of her twin, Ruth, whois not as adventurous as Helena but is very competitive with her. Their fatheris dead, their mother is dying in a hospital, and they are raising their threeyounger siblings amid danger and hardship. The romance between Helena and Sam,the soldier, is often conveyed in overheated language that doesn't sit wellwith the era's tragic events: "There had been an intensity to his embrace thatsaid he was barely able to contain himself, that he also wanted more." Jenoff,clearly on the side of tolerance, slips in a simplified historical frameworkfor the uninformed. But she also feeds stereotypes, having Helena note that Samhas "a slight arch to his nose" and a dark complexion that "would make himsuspect as a Jew immediately." Cliches also pop up during the increasinglycomplex plot: "But even if they stood in place, the world around them wouldnot."Romance and melodrama mix uneasilywith mass murder.

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August 1, 2014
Jenoff (The Ambassador's Daughter, 2013) specializes in stories of forbidden love with dramatic wartime settings. Here, twins Helena and Ruth live in the small Polish village of Biekowice. The Nazi invasion is looming, and with their father dead from drinking and their mother dying in a Jewish hospital in nearby Krakow, the two young women are raising their three younger siblings on their own. The bond between the two sisters has deteriorated as they have taken on different rolesHelena as the provider and Ruth as the nurturerand the schism deepens when Helena discovers an injured American soldier in the woods near their home. A young Jewish American man named Sam, he was trying to get a message to the local resistance fighters when his plane crashed, and as Helena cares for him, the two fall in love. Afraid of endangering her family or Sam, Helena tries to keeps him secret. Helena is a resourceful and brave heroine with a bit of a lucky streak, while Ruth shows her mettle in the novel's heart-pounding ending. Brisk, romantic, and emotionally satisfying.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)