Vera is an Australian woman who lives with her husband Axel, a German zookeeper, in Berlin. The year is 1944. That plot summary alone is enough to sell this book. Yet this isn’t just another story set in that over-used genre of ‘love in a time of war.’ It is so much more. Vera has made the decision to stay in a city crumbling around her rather than return to the relative safety of Australia. This means hiding her nationality, surviving on dwindling food rations, sheltering from bombs and convincing herself that she will survive the war. Beautifully textured and extremely well realised, this novel brings home the plight of foreigners living in Germany during these hostile years. My only criticism is that the story starts quite slowly, and also that the relationship between Vera and one of the Czech workers at the zoo doesn’t ring true to the characters and could have been left out entirely. Thankfully there is much to love about this novel. This is a clever, inspired, insightful, tension-filled drama that has an ending you won’t forget in a hurry. Read it if you enjoyed The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons and The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean.

Anna Hood is a bookseller at the Avid Reader

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

Tags: steven conte