In love we find out who we want to be.
In war we find out who we are.
FRANCE, 1939
In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.
Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gäetan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can…completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.
With courage, grace and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of WWII and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women’s war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France–a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime.
The Amazon Spotlight Pick for February 2015: Kristin Hannah is a popular thriller writer with legions of fans, but her latest novel, The Nightingale, soars to new heights (sorry) and will earn her even more ecstatic readers. Both a weeper and a thinker, the book tells the story of two French sisters – one in Paris, one in the countryside – during WWII; each is crippled by the death of their beloved mother and cavalier abandonment of their father; each plays a part in the French underground; each finds a way to love and forgive. If this sounds sudsy. . . well, it is, a little. . . but a melodrama that combines historical accuracy (Hannah has said her inspiration for Isabelle was the real life story of a woman who led downed Allied soldiers on foot over the Pyrenees) and social/political activism is a hard one to resist. Even better to keep you turning pages: the central conceit works – the book is narrated by one of the sisters in the present, though you really don’t know until the very end which sister it is. Fast-paced, detailed, and full of romance (both the sexual/interpersonal kind and the larger, trickier romance of history and war), this novel is destined to land (sorry, again) on the top of best sellers lists and night tables everywhere. — Sara Nelson
What An AMAZING Novel — Five Stars Isn’t Enough For the first time in ages I stayed up through the night reading a book, reaching the last page after 9:00 a.m. “The Nightingale” by Kristin Hannah is that good. I simply couldn’t put it down. This isn’t just a book about World War II, or women who worked in the French Resistance; it goes much, much deeper. You’ll be quickly drawn into the lives of Viann and Isabelle, their history and complicated relationship, as well as France during its German occupation. Yet “The…
May Be Kristin Hannah’s Best Book … “The Nightingale” may be Kristin Hannah’s best book yet! Combining history, family relationships and dynamics, as well as focusing on individuals doing what is necessary to survive the horrors of war, this novel draws readers into the story and holds them firmly in its grip from first page to last. It is a novel of finding the courage to do what is right and then of doing what is necessary to do the right thing.
Fantastic! I have long been fascinated with the stories of World War 2, which is why I chose to read this book. The story focuses on two sisters – Isabelle and Viann— in occupied France, and what they did to survive the war. While the characters in this book are not real, their stories are based on things that really happened during World War 2. It was a new perspective for me to read of what women did during the war; not just them surviving at home without their men, (fathers and husbands) but…