Friday, September 27, 2013

The Baker's Daughter

The Baker's Daughter
Sarah McCoy

The Baker's Daughter

Genre: Historical Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads):  In 1945, Elsie Schmidt was a naïve teenager, as eager for her first sip of champagne as she was for her first kiss. But in the waning days of the Nazi empire, with food scarce and fears of sedition mounting, even the private yearnings of teenage girls were subject to suspicion and suppression. Elsie’s courtship by Josef Hub, a rising star in the Army of the Third Reich, has insulated her and her family from the terror and desperation overtaking her country. So when an escaped Jewish boy arrives on Elsie’s doorstep in the dead of night on Christmas Eve, Elsie understands that opening the door puts all she loves in danger.

Sixty years later, in El Paso, Texas, Reba Adams is trying to file a feel-good Christmas piece for the local magazine. Reba is a rolling stone, perpetually on the run from memories of a turbulent childhood, but she’s been in El Paso long enough to get a full-time job and a full-time fiancé, Riki Chavez. Riki, an agent with the U.S. Border Patrol, finds comfort in strict rules and regulations, whereas Reba knows that in every good story, lines will be blurred.

Reba's latest assignment has brought her to the shop of an elderly baker across town. The interview should take a few hours at most, but the owner of Elsie's German Bakery is no easy subject. Elsie keeps turning the tables on Reba, and Reba finds herself returning to the bakery again and again, anxious to find the heart of the story. For Elsie, Reba's questions have been a stinging reminder of darker times: her life in Germany during that last bleak year of WWII. And as Elsie, Reba, and Riki's lives become more intertwined, all are forced to confront the uncomfortable truths of the past and seek out the courage to forgive.


Review: I thoroughly enjoyed the story of young Elsie, coming of age in Germany towards the end of World War II.  It was rewarding to see her growth from a good German girl to a woman who follows her conscience regardless of consequences.  The details of the Lebensborn program and the actions of her Nazi fiance were disturbing, of course, but weren't the primary focus of the story.  While I appreciated learning what happened to Elsie and her family and friends after World War II, I am downgrading this to 4 stars because I didn't feel that the story of Reba and Riki was as well-thought-out or compelling as the younger Elsie's story.

Rating: 4 stars

1 comment:

  1. I recently read a book about the Lebensborn program too! How coincidental because I had never heard about that before.

    ReplyDelete