My Father's House
As seen on BBC Between the Covers
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4.1 • 17 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
**AS SEEN ON BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS**AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4**THE NUMBER ONE IRISH BESTSELLER**
When the Nazis take Rome, thousands go into hiding. One priest will risk everything to save them.
September 1943: German forces occupy Rome. SS officer Paul Hauptmann rules with terror.
An Irish priest, Hugh O'Flaherty, dedicates himself to helping those escaping from the Nazis. His home is Vatican City, a neutral, independent country within Rome where the occupiers hold no sway. He gathers a team to set up an Escape Line.
But Hauptmann's net begins closing in and the need for a terrifyingly audacious mission grows critical. By Christmas, it's too late to turn back.
Based on a true story, My Father's House is a powerful thriller from a master of historical fiction. It is an unforgettable novel of love, sacrifice and what it means to be human in the most extreme circumstances.
'A spectacular, thrilling novel...suspense crackles...celebrates triumphant against-the-odds camaraderie' Sunday Times
'A masterwork... so urgent, so incredibly alive... A searing and beautiful example of storytelling's infinite importance' Donal Ryan
'Impressive and pleasurable...the diverse ventriloquism of O'Connor's novel evokes a city in peril with wonderful vitality' Financial Times
LONGLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD 2024
LONGLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024
*The second book in the Rome Escape Line Trilogy, THE GHOSTS OF ROME, is available to pre-order now.*
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The riveting latest from O'Connor (Shadowplay), the first in a trilogy, chronicles the meticulous planning and execution of the escape of hundreds of Allied prisoners and Jews hiding in Vatican City during WWII. It's December 1943 and Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty and seven associates who refer to themselves as "the Choir" have exploited the Vatican's sovereignty as a minuscule neutral state to hide refugees from the Nazi occupation of Rome in numerous abandoned sheds, bombed-out buildings, and tunnels. Though they undertake their work with extreme caution—using aliases and forged IDs, referring to their charges in formal communications as "Books" and the hiding places as "Shelves"—they have aroused the suspicion of brutal Gestapo Obersturmbannführer Paul Hauptmann, whose efforts to apprehend the fugitives come to a head early Christmas morning. Through wonderfully developed and varied characters, O'Connor conveys both the painful privations of life during wartime and the nobility of the Choir's goals, and the unfolding of O'Flaherty's marathon of undercover subterfuges that lay the groundwork for their mission in the middle section is a storytelling tour de force. This is top-drawer WWII fiction.
