The only real downfall to this book, for me, was the POVs. I thought there were too many (i.e. Florian and Joana's stories were basically the same) that some characters (like Alfred) were featured too often. Because of the amount of POVs and frequency at which they changed, I found it quite difficult to warm to the characters or work out what was happening to each of them individually at the beginning.

Once I got around that and got more into the book, I loved it. I really like historical fiction, especially when it's like this book: a true event retold with fictional characters. I appreciated the way the author chose to retell an event isn't widely known. It is well worth the read.