Time travel is possible. All you have to do is pick up A Woman Of War by Mandy Robotham and you will be well on your way back in time to a world where Hitler still wielded his power. If you haven’t guessed it already, you should know that I love historical fiction. The world war two was something that interested me ever since I read Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl as a child. So when I noticed that Mandy had a written a book that revolved around a midwife and the Nazi regimen, I just had to read it.
A Woman Of War By Mandy Robotham
I don’t have much information about Mandy Robotham other than the fact that A Woman of War is her debut novel. So without much ado, let me just plunge in and tell you what I thought about the book.
Ever had a book catch hold of you so badly that it threatened to smother you? That is exactly the way I felt when I started reading A Woman of War. I was intrigued, fascinated, horrified and petrified at different points of time and I think that the emotions that I felt are all but a hazy reflection of what people who suffered in the World War 2 felt like.
A Woman of War by Mandy Robotham weaves a tale that takes place during the second world war. Anke Hoff, a young woman in Germany finds her life upturned as World War II unfolds. As a German woman she treads a cautious line between helping everyone she can irrespective of their religion. Her day job as a midwife brings her in close contact with the medical resources required by the Jews to survive so she does what any decent human would do. Being caught red handed however means that her life and the lives of her family members is changed forever.
Anke finds herself in one of the many infamous camps run by the Nazis. The tide of change may have caused things to perk up in her favour but Anke finds herself being blackmailed. In a gripping story, she finds herself closer to Hitler than she ever wanted to be. From just an ordinary midwife, her actions now hold power and can change the tide of the war. The question however is whether she will allow her moral values to stop her from committing an act so vile that it leads to build up bile in her mouth.
A Woman of War by Mandy Robotham is a griping story which made me feel a range of emotions. The fact that love can exist in the most heinous situations is a revelation to the reader. Mandy Robotham’s flair in historical fiction is commendable and her descriptions are rather graphic which in this case is a really good thing. I kept oscillating between wanting to know the end of the book and wanting to prolong the book. In my opinion, it symbolizes that the book had me hooked.
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**Globetrove received an advance reader copy of the book from NetGalley to review. All opinions are our own