The Woman with the Blue Star
A Novel
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4.3 • 698 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
"An emotional novel that you will never forget." —Lisa Scottoline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eternal
From the author of The Lost Girls of Paris comes a riveting tale of courage and unlikely friendship during World War II -- Now a New York Times bestsller!
1942. Sadie Gault is eighteen and living with her parents in the Kraków Ghetto during World War II. When the Nazis liquidate the ghetto, Sadie and her pregnant mother are forced to seek refuge in the perilous tunnels beneath the city. One day Sadie looks up through a grate and sees a girl about her own age buying flowers.
Ella Stepanek is an affluent Polish girl living a life of relative ease with her stepmother, who has developed close alliances with the occupying Germans. While on an errand in the market, she catches a glimpse of something moving beneath a grate in the street. Upon closer inspection, she realizes it’s a girl hiding.
Ella begins to aid Sadie and the two become close, but as the dangers of the war worsen, their lives are set on a collision course that will test them in the face of overwhelming odds. Inspired by incredible true stories, The Woman with the Blue Star is an unforgettable testament to the power of friendship and the extraordinary strength of the human will to survive.
Highly recommended by Entertainment Weekly, Washington Post, CNN, BookTrib, Goodreads, Betches, AARP, Frolic, SheReads, and more!
Don’t miss Pam Jenoff’s new novel, Last Twilight in Paris, a gripping mystery and an unforgettable story about love and survival.
Read these other sweeping epics from New York Times bestselling author Pam Jenoff: Code Name Sapphire The Lost Girls of Paris The Orphan’s Tale The Ambassador’s Daughter The Diplomat’s Wife The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach The Kommandant’s Girl The Winter Guest
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jenoff's spellbinding latest (after The Lost Girls of Paris) follows a Jewish family hiding from the Nazis in Kraków, Poland. Famished 18-year-old Sadie Gault's parents insist she hide in a crawl space of their ghetto apartment in 1942, to spare her from grueling forced labor. A year later, facing intensifying raids, the family escapes into the sewer system with help from a worker who explains the tunnels and brings them food. Sadie bonds over books with the 20-something son of another family hiding with them, and their friendship blossoms into romance. Meanwhile, in a parallel narrative, a young Catholic woman named Ella Stepanek dreams of marrying her boyfriend and yearns to flee from her cruel Nazi collaborator stepmother. While running an errand at the market, Ella happens to glance down at a sewer grate in the street and sees Sadie looking up at her. Thus begins a lifesaving friendship in which both young women discover great inner resources neither one knew she possessed. Jenoff drew on a true story for this harrowing narrative, and shapes it with precise details of the subterranean world and of the city's churches, markets, and cafes. This moving tale of young women's will to survive on their own terms will appeal to readers of all ages.
Customer Reviews
The Woman With the Blue Star
Never thought about the sewers being a safe place to escape the Nazi’. Good read.
Riveting story with heartfelt character development
I read this book in one day. Just couldn’t put it down. Such a sad history with so many silent heroes
Loved it
True and heartbreaking. To think so many people still don’t know what really went on just a few years ago.