I have a soft spot for Holocaust stories, since I was a little girl. This one had great interplay between past and present and presented a really interesting angle (POV: German woman trying to survive and a bit of a Stokholm syndrome as well) that isnt much explored. The ending was a bit too neat, but sometimes you need that. I think overall the character traits and reactions were all more realistic than I have read almost anywhere else...people didn't change just to fill in a story line. impressive.

Super well developed story! Great research behind it, and of course I love the subject matter.

This book was powerful. I really didn't know how much I was getting into when I started reading. Besides the fact that it deals with WWI, which honestly I believe has been one of the worst in "modern" times (most horrific conditions, with the trenches and mustard gas, etc. along with the utter lack of mental health care available to soldiers when they returned home) it also addressed homosexuality, in a time way before it was considered even remotely ok, and in a setting (the military) that can be considered one of the most hostile towards it, even today. The author handled the topics brilliantly and really brought home the heartache of personal secrets and betrayal, love and guilt, on top of the heartache of suffering and war in general. I liked the perspective he used to write the book and the "current day" back story of Tristan as a writer. I cannot imagine the life he lived, from beginning to end I felt for him. And where everyone blamed/accused/rejected him for his actions, I can only imagine that they are partly at fault themselves, for putting him in a frame of mind that would allow him to make those choices and commit those actions. This book was eye opening and, in light of the continuing struggle we face today for the exact same things (acceptance of homosexuality and better mental health care for veterans) even though we think we have come so far, it was so so powerful. Wow.

This was fantastically written. So compelling. The past and present were weaved together with such precision and skill. And the nonfiction and fiction were mixed just as well. This was so believable (even in the fiction spots) and so much fun to read. I have always had a soft spot for Anastasia and the Romanovs and this book has been one of the best I've read, playing on the mystery surrounding Anastasia better than really anything else I've encountered, I could totally see this being what really happened. So impressive with well developed characters that he seems to bring to life and show sides of that are just so intimate, despite the fact that there is so little left about them that is a secret. And Georgy is a superb narrator. Reading a story like this, where the plot is really already so known, the author must really be good to make you want to read it, and boy did he!And the last line, about the uncrowned tsar of Russia on the bak of a London bus, was just an enormously overwhelming image to be left with. It says so much in that one line...amazing and heartbreaking and freeing all at the same time. This is my 3rd book by Boyne and I will definitely be reading a third. He does not disappoint.