Polar opposites with some years between, the younger Isabelle is passionate about doing whatever she can to aid her country in the fight against the Germans. Still, overall she paints the devastating horrific picture of carnage we’ve been given through survivers and she paints that scene behind the story of two French sisters, Viann and Isabelle. Hannah may have taken just a few liberties with certain WWII factoids. But I’m not going to hold her feet to the fire for using a modicum of artistic license to spin a riveting tale. Okay, yes, I had a few of the same arguments I’ve seen voiced in reviews as I’ve long believed the old adage, “ when poverty comes in the door, love flies out the window.” So during war with so many atrocities happening as well as rampant starvation, can you really believe a spark of anything much past the drive to survive? There was more. As usual, I manage to come in when the dust has settled. It’s another where the divide between the perceived outstanding literary fiction and bad chick-lit sparks an arc between one and five stars. Well, mercy, I do pick up some major tear-jerkers. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France–a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. With courage, grace and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of WWII and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women’s war. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gäetan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can…completely. Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent.

In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. Best Literature & Fiction Book Blurb: Audie Award, Fiction, 2016

The nightingale a novel book review