2.5 ⭐️s rounded up. The storyline itself was ok and the look into the Dachau Porcelain Factory was an interesting one. But between the errors and the fatalistic and hard-to-swallow characters, it lost a lot of its shine for me.

The number of grossly poor decisions by Bettina especially but also Max, Richard, and their friends, did not feel believable, especially when they were all in their 30s, so not exactly young and naive. For people in their circles who had long been opposed to the rising Fascist and Nazi demands with their lifestyle choices, once it was apparent they could not escape Germany, it felt a little ridiculous that they wouldn’t hide and resist undercover, understanding the danger. But they decided instead the wisest decision was having intimate and submissive relationships with the SS. Twice. And in only one of them in a partial effort to resist. Mostly to hide. With the SS.

So much of the story became rather fatalistic and depressive, and there didn’t feel like a lot of redemption by the time it was done.

As for errors, I know ARCs have more edits they normally go thru but I’ve never seen an ARC with so many typos. It was unreal.

The other is that it was mentioned that Max (and his rabbit) had tattoos from Dachau. Except Dachau didn’t do that, only Auschwitz camps did. It made it feel poorly researched and looking for sensationalism for that to be added unnecessarily.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are mine.