The Women in the Castle

The Women in the Castle
by Jessica Shattuck
Narrator: Cassandra Campbell
Pages: 13
Published by HarperAudio
Publication Date March 28th 2017
Genres: Historical Fiction
Goodreads

Three women, haunted by the past and the secrets they hold

Set at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played host to all of German high society, a powerful and propulsive story of three widows whose lives and fates become intertwined an affecting, shocking, and ultimately redemptive novel from the author of the New York Times Notable Book The Hazards of Good Breeding.

Amid the ashes of Nazi Germany s defeat, Marianne von Lingenfels returns to the once-grand castle of her husband s ancestors, an imposing stone fortress now fallen into ruin following years of war. The widow of a resister murdered in the failed July 20, 1944, plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Marianne plans to uphold the promise she made to her husband s brave conspirators: to find and protect their wives, her fellow resistance widows.

First Marianne rescues six-year-old Martin, the son of her dearest childhood friend, from a Nazi reeducation home. Together, they make their way across the smoldering wreckage of their homeland to Berlin, where Martin s mother, the beautiful and naive Benita, has fallen into the hands of occupying Red Army soldiers. Then she locates Ania, another resister s wife, and her two boys, now refugees languishing in one of the many camps that house the millions displaced by the war.

As Marianne assembles this makeshift family from the ruins of her husband s resistance movement, she is certain their shared pain and circumstances will hold them together. But she quickly discovers that the black-and-white, highly principled world of her privileged past has become infinitely more complicated, filled with secrets and dark passions that threaten to tear them apart. Eventually, all three women must come to terms with the choices that have defined their lives before, during, and after the war each with their own unique share of challenges.

Written with the devastating emotional power of The Nightingale, Sarah s Key, and The Light Between Oceans, Jessica Shattuck s evocative and utterly enthralling novel offers a fresh perspective on one of the most tumultuous periods in history. Combining piercing social insight and vivid historical atmosphere, The Women in the Castle is a dramatic yet nuanced portrait of war and its repercussions that explores what it means to survive, love, and, ultimately, to forgive in the wake of unimaginable hardship."

Marianne
Marianne was a strong character who wanted to take charge not only of difficult situations but also the lives of everyone living in the castle. I went back and forth on my feelings on her but eventually settled on well-meaning bitch. This was mainly because she pretty much wrote people off if they did something Marianne didn’t approve of without listening to the other side.

Benita
Benita was a complex character, with a troubled past. Reading Benita’s parts of the book was like pealing an onion, and like an onion it made you want to cry.

Ania
I thought Ania was the most clear-cut character of the three. That is until the author digs deeper into her past and shit gets real. It is always the quiet ones.

Overall
I listened to part of this on audio, not because the hardcover wasn’t engaging but because I love Cassandra Campbell’s narration and she did not disappoint. She is a master with accents which brought a lot of depth to The Women in the castle.

The intertwining of the novel were fabulous and created a fascinating post-WWII historical fiction novel.