Girl in a Smart Uniform by Gill James

 

 

Gisela adores her brother Bear, her gorgeous BDM uniform and her little half-brother Jens. She does her best to be a good German citizen and is keen to help restore Germany to its former glory. She becomes a competent and respected BDM leader.

But life begins to turn sour. Her oldest brother Kurt can be violent, she soon realises that she is different from other girls, she feels uncomfortable around her mother’s new lover and there is something not quite right about Jens.  It becomes more and more difficult to be the perfect German young woman.          

Girl in a Smart Uniform is the third book in the Schellberg Cycle, a collection of novels inspired by a bunch of photocopied letters that arrived at a small cottage in Wales in 1979.

The letters give us some insights into what life was like growing up in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.

This novel explores what may have motivated young women growing up in Nazi Germany and offers an explanation as to how a school for disabled children was allowed to carry on functioning throughout World War II.    

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£10.00  paperback

£2.39 Kindle  

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I very much enjoyed this novel. It is fairly straight forward to find stories about war written from a male perspective, not so easy to find one that not only has a young woman as the main protagonist but Gisela is also a committed member of the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM) the female equivalent of Hitler Youth in World War 2. She is so proud of her uniform and her opportunity to serve Germany and right the wrongs she perceives as having been foisted on her country. The reader follows her journey through adolescence and into womanhood, as she comes to terms with love, loss, identity and the discovery of the fickle nature of trust and truth.

            The short diary style chapters allow the reader to become engrossed in a narrative that switches between time, place and narrator. This technique works well; I could put the book down, pick it up a few days later and carry on with the story. As with all good stories, the reader is left with a few questions about some of the characters. This book is part three of a series of four book, The Schellberg Cycle, and I now want to read the others. That said this is a complete and satisfying read. It ends on a note of hope and possibility as Europe struggles into peace in the late 1940s.

            This is a terrific book that I wholeheartedly recommend.

Book club guide 

 

 

The Duchess of Sydney by Dawn Knox

 

Betrayed by her family and convicted of a crime she did not commit, Georgiana is sent halfway around the world to the penal colony of Sydney, New South Wales. Aboard the transport ship, the Lady Amelia, Lieutenant Francis Brooks, the ship’s agent becomes her protector, taking her as his “sea-wife”, not because he has any interest in her but because he has been tasked with the duty.

Despite their mutual distrust, the attraction between them grows. But life has not played fair with Georgiana. She is bound by family secrets and lies. Will she ever be free again – free to be herself and free to love?

 

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I read this when it first came out as a pocket novel, and I enjoyed it so much I swallowed it in one sitting! Having read some of her other books too, I can say that one thing you can be sure of with Dawn Knox is that her writing is really well researched. I have never been to Australia, but I got a real sense of heat and dust, and also the sense of abandonment, mingled with independence, that the protagonist feels as she tries to make her way in a strange country. Dawn's writing makes you feel as if you're right there with the characters. I didn't know this book was the start of a series, but I'm really excited to read the next one. Loved it. 

 

The story grabs you from the first chapter, and then whirls you along through the emotional storms and calms of a sea voyage to Australia. The vulnerability of an innocent girl prisoner is only matched by her determination to survive, in a world vibrating with authentic detail of life on board a prisoner transport. The twists come thick and fast as they reach New South Wales and the story ricochets between Sydney, London and China.

 

As an Aussie by birth from Sydney, the title grabbed me immediately. I read it with a critical eye and was pleasantly surprised that this historical author had, unlike many, done her homework. The settings were captivating, the characters engaging and the plot flowed well, with quite a few surprises. I learnt quite a bit about those times of transportation of convicts too. More importantly was the romance which felt as though you were there sharing their adventures and trials. Thoroughly recommended for all lovers of a fine story..  

The House on Schellberg Street

 

Renate Edler loves to visit her grandmother in the house on Schellberg Street. She often meets up with her friend Hani Gödde who lives nearby. This year, though, it is not to be. Just a few weeks after a night when synagogues are burned and businesses owned by Jews are looted, Renate finds out a terrible secret about her family.

At a time when the world is at war and the horrors of the Holocaust are slowly becoming apparent, Renate has to leave behind her home and her friends, and become somebody she never thought she could be.

The house on Schellberg Street needs to stay strong. Will it and those who work in it be strong enough? Will Renate ever feel at home again? And what of those left behind?

RRP £10.00

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'This is a lovely take on the kindertransport phenomenon. The story is told partly through the experience of one girl sent to England at the dawn of the Second World War, to escape persecution because of her Jewish ancestry, and partly through the exchange of letters of a number of young women who experienced the war in Germany. There is a link between Renate, the transported girl, and the letter writers, and this link is slowly revealed to us as the war progresses. Like many good stories, it's a mixture of real-life and imagination, and it rings true.

In an added twist, the personification of the Third Reich has a voice in this book, and makes its own unpleasant but effective contributions to the story.'

 

'This is a great cross-over book with an appeal to teenagers and adults alike. It gives an insight into how people's lives were torn apart by the war and how they managed to adjust and survive. A must-read for anyone studying World war II. Anyone who enjoyed 'The boy with the striped pyjamas' will love it.'

I really enjoyed this. I know many ladies of this generation and in and from Germany, and it has a clear ring of truth to it.    

 

ISBN: 9781910542231