The Women in the Castle: A Novel

There are some very strong parts of this book and others rather weak. I am not sure I enjoyed the way it was organized and I keep feeling as if there were things missing. Was I glad I read it? Yes, for the language was lovely.

Really love the first 75% of this book, I just couldn't put it down. I loved the characters and wanted more back story, especially for Benita. It was unclear how she spent the years during the war and why she was so broken. Same for Ania, I was really interested in her back story during the war, but then it ended abruptly. I also wanted to learn more about Albrecht and Connie (the husbands). I really enjoyed the story, just wanted more!

This book wraps your soul in anger, sorrow, empathy and a sense of hopelessness. That is what makes this novel so real, so thought provoking and so helpless. It is the story of four young women caught up in a war they did not want and of the children they raised with hope for a better future. An amazing story of love, hate, and bonded friendships crated through torment. Read it.

The characters were deeply developed, flawed, and very human. You learn to love and hate them in equal measure , you try to understand war time choices and share in the struggles of both the good guys and the bad. You feel closure with each character as you join them from youth to second and third generation children.

Well, this was a hard one......I liked the book, and it was steady. All the characters were well developed, but there was something rote about the book, and no one ends up happy. The ending seemed rushed, like someone told the author to tie up all the pieces and get on with it. Questions about some characters actions abounded. But ala in all a good read.

A haunting tale that challenges the soul while examining the age old battle of good versus evil. This is a story of believing, questioning those beliefs, resisting, compliance, and after looking deep into a lifetime, finding a true understanding and believing in a greater good once more. Brings tears. A must read.

I really looked forward to reading this book so much that I bought it in hardcover as soon as it came out. Big mistake! The prewar story was very shallow and did not give enough depth of character with the spouses to care about their destinies. After the war the storyline was very linear and the characters quite unlikable. The storytelling itself was quite thready and lacks emotional depth. They actually spend very little time in the castle except for the five years after the war which they skip through pretty quickly. I also couldn't understand how Marianne and Benita could afford to live the lifestyle they do after the war. I'm sure the Nazis confiscated all of their capital. Found that part to be unbelievable but the rest of the story unlikable. Very disappointed!

I recommend reading books about WWII from the German people's point of view. This book was okay, but a far better book - one you won't be likely to forget - is "All The Light We Cannot See." Considering the toll in human suffering, it can be said that no one "wins" a war. What Germany went through (and caused), due to a mentally ill person, is staggering. Over time I've come to somewhat understand Hitler, how the extreme abuse he suffered as a child (coupled w. false beliefs about eugenics) led him to believe that power and control equaled good. We would do well to never forget these tragic lessons, especially when we have crazy people like the leader of North Korea alive and well in our world today.

This book wraps your soul in anger, sorrow, empathy and a sense of hopelessness. That is what makes this novel so real, so thought provoking and so helpless. It is the story of four young women caught up in a war they did not want and of the children they raised with hope for a better future. An amazing story of love, hate, and bonded friendships crated through torment. Read it.

The characters were deeply developed, flawed, and very human. You learn to love and hate them in equal measure , you try to understand war time choices and share in the struggles of both the good guys and the bad. You feel closure with each character as you join them from youth to second and third generation children.

Well, this was a hard one......I liked the book, and it was steady. All the characters were well developed, but there was something rote about the book, and no one ends up happy. The ending seemed rushed, like someone told the author to tie up all the pieces and get on with it. Questions about some characters actions abounded. But ala in all a good read.

A haunting tale that challenges the soul while examining the age old battle of good versus evil. This is a story of believing, questioning those beliefs, resisting, compliance, and after looking deep into a lifetime, finding a true understanding and believing in a greater good once more. Brings tears. A must read.

I really looked forward to reading this book so much that I bought it in hardcover as soon as it came out. Big mistake! The prewar story was very shallow and did not give enough depth of character with the spouses to care about their destinies. After the war the storyline was very linear and the characters quite unlikable. The storytelling itself was quite thready and lacks emotional depth. They actually spend very little time in the castle except for the five years after the war which they skip through pretty quickly. I also couldn't understand how Marianne and Benita could afford to live the lifestyle they do after the war. I'm sure the Nazis confiscated all of their capital. Found that part to be unbelievable but the rest of the story unlikable. Very disappointed!

I recommend reading books about WWII from the German people's point of view. This book was okay, but a far better book - one you won't be likely to forget - is "All The Light We Cannot See." Considering the toll in human suffering, it can be said that no one "wins" a war. What Germany went through (and caused), due to a mentally ill person, is staggering. Over time I've come to somewhat understand Hitler, how the extreme abuse he suffered as a child (coupled w. false beliefs about eugenics) led him to believe that power and control equaled good. We would do well to never forget these tragic lessons, especially when we have crazy people like the leader of North Korea alive and well in our world today.

A nice read, but a little too tidy. How did Marianne manage to keep her considerable fortune after her husband was executed by the Nazis? She and Benita were well drawn characters, but the rest tended to blur. Still, reading this book causes no pain and stirs no guilt.

How does one go forward after living through the cruelty and hideous atrocities of Germany in WWII? How do you raise your children during these years and then explain your actions during these years to them as adults? Thought provoking story. Excellent book.

Well written and presumably accurate fictional representation of how and why fascism and Hitler gained a hold. Raises questions and reminds the reader to ask "what would you have done under the circumstances?" Each character has her own response before, during and after WWII.
The ultimate question however is how relative is morality to ones place in time....or is a persons morality merely defined by their place in time and within their (perhaps insular) belief system?

I found the story interesting, particularly in its portrayal of the hardships endured by the Germans after World War II.
I did not feel that the characters were well developed and the ending was rather predictable. An average read for me.

Well developed characters. Interesting perspective both being German and being pre and post war. There are uncomfortable similarities between the enthusiasm for Hitler and our current enthusiasm for what Trump represents

This book starts strong, but never takes off. There is no climax. The characters start interesting, and I was encouraged by comparisons to Krstin Hannah's The Nightingale. But it never realizes that potential. It limps towards a very unsatisfying ending.

While the story was good, I would have enjoyed more background on the extent of Marianne’s involvement in the resistance. She is portrayed as a member of the resistance but her role is a protector of women who’s husbands were in the resistance. This is an honorable role, but I didn’t see her as a resistor.

Great writing- gives insight into post ww2 Germany and complexities of living with the past that includes the Holocaust - I didn't give 5 stars because the way the characters life stories were presented was a little hard to follow. Just a little. Really great read.

Thought is was an interesting story of what was the plight of the women left behind when their husbands left for war, Details have helped me understand unfortunate consequences of war. The ending completed
This novel of what happened to all three of woman who shared details of their experiences of living through war.

A very good novel! I really liked the women in this book! This was a harrowing tale which I found to be interesting. I felt for all the ladies in the book. The author does an amazing job telling the story.

They compare this to The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah, which is also a good WW2 novel, for me I liked this one better than Nightingale, however my favorite WW2 novel is still Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelley...

This had great character development, you do feel the angst in the characters life, and what they deal with, however it does jump around a bit, and it starts out a bit slow.

Overall, a strong four stars, very good novel, but not the best! I would be delighted to read another novel by Jessica Shattuck any day!!!

Im sure although this is fiction that much of what is written was based in fact. The depiction of what the years were like during this time are sobering. It has been heard many times before but is very real even now. Good characterization and absorbing.

So well written. Loved the characters and it was stunning to realize how naive the wives of Nazis soldiers were to the horror they were causing ! Somehow, you still had empathy for these women. They had no choice, but to focus on survival for themselves and their children. I understand why Jesse had to write this tale after learning so much first hand from her grandmother. This is an easy book and shares important history. A must read!

Good read, however, some detailed violence wasn't necessary. I suppose the author wanted to make sure the reader knew how bad the Germans
and especially violent the Russians were. But I am glad I read the book.

The book is absolutely boring and doesn't even have a point. Is way too slow and long and doesn't add anything to the subject of WWII. Was recommendation to me .. Won't listen to that person's advice again.

I enjoyed the depth of the characters and their interactions. I learned things, including three generations of insights and observations, as well as interpretations about facts and moral dilemmas of the times leading up to, during, and after WWII in Germany.

Interesting but somewhat shallow. For anyone who is aware of the period and the issues, it might be illuminating- but for those who have any knowledge of history the story is not new. The system apparently will not let me give the three stars I tried to give. it is not a long book- I expected more for the money

The tale is compelling. The writing is adequate. I will forever compare novels that take place in WWII to All the Light We Cannot See. It's probably an unfair comparison. It’s lyricism puts all others to shame, including The Women in the Castle.

Read this side-by-side with the non-fiction "Savage Continent" (Europe after WW II) The author does in gripping fiction what history outlines in broader strokes. The experiences of the three protagonists, both before, during, and after the War are so effectively rendered as to make sleep difficult. There were pieces of the plot I did not care for, e.g. Benita's suicide by sleeping pills, for which we are not prepared, and the ending of the story falls apart. Why do most of these people wind up in the U.S., even to Deer Island, Maine. I didn't mind a re-gathering (a partial, to be sure) at the Castle, but passing the reflections off to a minor 3rd generation character doesn't work. I still recommend it.

It's so shocking and horrifying to read how all these human beings could let this suffering and massacre happen right before their eyes and to think that they were privileged and above it all ! The story told the view points of a group of people who lived through the holocaust.

It was very hard to follow. I would read something and at the end of a chapter I thought “ what just happened”. I waited for it to pick up but it never did. I also felt it repeated the same thing over and over.

The story itself interested me but the reader hired to do the audio in highly ineffective. She adds nothing to the drama of the story and in fact, detracts from it with her breathy voice. There must be so much voice over talent out there....how does this reader get so many jobs?

I found the characters unappealing, and in many ways 2 dimensional, as is much of the writing. Could have used more background on the men who plotted against Hitler, and their relationships with their wives. Would have helped with the moral ambiguity that makes the story somewhat compelling. Disjointed in its narrative, the book lacks a central path around which an interesting story might be told. It falls flat ultimately, as do most of the characters, except Ania.

Window for return closed. I ordered several audio books and am just listening to this one. Some discs are scratched and skipping and I am so sad that I cant listen to it . Would like a refund but feel stuck with it.

There are numerous books about Nazi Germany, and this book is, too, but I have not read much about what happened to Germans right after the war. The women in this story are so different from each other, but they manage to survive the war and its aftermath. I had just finished the "Lilac Girls," also about women during the war. I am glad I read these books, but I am ready for something more light-hearted.

Wonderful and insightful story about three women thrown together after Germany was liberated from the Nazis. Their personal journeys that brought them to this point is fascinating, and how they coped during and after the war was profound. I've already recommended to friends. The parallel to today of how someone who is charismatic can gain power through lies is fascinating, and a warning sign. And the story of morale courage and fortitude provides hope.

The author picked up on an interesting piece of history to write about but it seemed forced fed to make the book about the women very loosely associated with the assasination attempt. There is hardly any character development and there is very little about these women that make this a compelling read. I frankly didn't end up caring about any of these women. There are so many angles that she could have taken in a historical fiction novel like this but she took the most boring, underdeveloped route she could. It seemed like she was trying to force the story into a feminist story. Kind of like a round peg in a square peg.

The World Wars are a fascinating subject. There are many excellent historical accounts of the subject, particularly WWII.
There are also many fictional accounts, including historical fiction.

The Women in the Castle would likely be categorized as historical fiction. But it is so much more.

The story begins in the European village of Burg Lingenfels in 1938 and ends in the same place in the year 1991. Throughout these years we learn about the interwoven lives of Marianne, Benita, and Ania. These are the three women whose lives bring them to the castle to ride out the perilous end of the war together.

The castle belonged to Marianne's great-aunt and was not often used before the war. But once a year, a harvest party was held there, one that "had become famous for its anarchic, un-German atmosphere,...an outpost of liberal, bohemian culture in the heart of the proper aristocracy."
On the night of November 9, 1938, plans were being made here, plans that could affect the war that was on the cusp of breaking full out, looming like a monster in the background.

Marianne made a promise to her lifelong friend Connie that night. Connie (a man, by the way) was to be married in just two weeks to a beautiful country girl, Benita; a girl well below his station. Marianne had grave doubts about this union, and not only because of class distinction. But she made a promise to Connie that night, that no matter where the coming war led, she would do all she could to find and protect Benita.

But far more than that, Marianne also accepted another commitment that night. Several influential men had gathered in a room in the castle.These men were planning a resistance movement to counteract the Nazis. When Marianne walked into the room to urge the men to come down and join the rest of the party, she was waylaid there by Connie. After some discussion about how their plans for the resistance might affect their families, Connie turned "his intense gaze upon [Marianne} 'Then you will see to it that they are all right. You are appointed the commander of the wives and children,' Marianne met his gaze."

Thus Marianne took on a task that would become much more complicated than she could imagine that night, less than a year before the War officially began.

The first person Marianne searches for and finds, in the closing years of the war, is Benita. Other than Marianne and her daughters, Benita is also the first to arrive at the castle. This is in 1945. Marianne also finds Benita's young son, Martin, in a Nazi orphanage. Benita has been through a living hell in the hands of the Russian invaders. She is much jaded but she is still Benita. (Martin, Connie's son by Benita, is one of the most lovable characters in the book.)

Marianne then finds Ania, and her two young sons. These boys are unnaturally quiet. There is an aura of mystery around Ania. She is reserved and very practical; her arrival is, in some ways, a relief for Marianne. Benita is something of a child herself, and Marianne realizes just how much she has needed the support of another adult.

Each character in the book is fully defined. Even those who quickly appear and disappear are expertly made real for us through Shattuck's writing. Against the background of the war, the uneasy alliance of her three main characters is played out in depth. The events and, more importantly, the sentiments of the war are made real for us through the author's impeccable prose. She has an outstanding gift for weaving a story that seizes the heart and mind and won't let go. You will not soon forget what you read in this book.

In addition, I would like to mention how timely Shattuck's book is. We are forced to see the prescience of her account is in our world today. Most who would remember World War II with clarity have died now. It has become a chapter of history. But while it is human nature to forget, it is also human nature to remain unchanged. This book is a thought-provoking reminder that history does repeat itself.

4.5★
I’ve read many WWII books and friends may note that I’m often not singing praises to those written by women too heavily influenced with female energy, melodrama, and romance. For example, I was not as enamored with The Nightingale to which this has been compared. I say it's more in league with All the Light We Cannot See. Initially I was not interested in this until I read early reviews from friends who told me this one might be more to my liking (Oh thank you wise readers). Edelweiss and HarperCollins graciously approved my request for a pre-publication e-galley and the rest is reader’s appreciation history.

Jessica Shattuck has produced an insightful and emotionally charged read and done so with three women in the lead character roles. This is an expertly rendered human drama illuminating Germans in a beloved homeland before and after Hitler ruthlessly powered through Europe and shattered millions of lives and history. Through a “collection of choices and circumstances” Marianne, Betina, and Ania will call forth personal determination to make it through the apocalypse. To paraphrase: There was so much between the black and the white where most people lived in the gray fog of war. These women were built for love, yet love was dead to their generation. They will call forth the power of togetherness in a world where togetherness has been corrupted. I loved how the author brought to life the individual and shared stories, as well as the power of their forged and flawed, yet treasured friendships during the harshest of times and its legacy. This is the kind of rich, intelligent storytelling I yearn for and appreciate.

Years ago I had a lovely friend Paula who told me stories of her life in Germany and of the daring and successful escape of her husband who was in prison and scheduled to be executed for speaking out against Hitler. She and this book have helped to restore balance to my mother’s solid German heritage which had always taken the back row seat in our post WWII baby-boomer family. I assume my parents preferred to identify with my father’s Scots-Irish side after he returned from the war. I believe my great-grandparents, who settled into American farming life after being processed through Ellis Island, their progeny, and my friend, would applaud this story which brings into focus a people who have largely been ignored and were caught up in a terrible history-in-the-making they could not see coming and could not control once it was unleashed. Gut gemacht Ms. Shattuck.

Marianne is a woman of high integrity who expects the same from everyone else in Nazi Germany. Her husband and Marianne’s longtime friend Connie (a man) are resisters who die in a plot to assassinate Hitler. Marianne tracks down Benita, Connie’s wife, and their son Martin and brings them to her family’s castle to wait out the aftermath of the war. Then Ania and her two boys join the household, where Ania brings much-need cooking skills and a practical nature. Over the course of the next few years, the women grow closer, but Ania and Benita’s secrets that eventually come to light appall the judgmental Marianne, causing rifts that may never be mended. Benita is beautiful, but we never fully understand, nor does Marianne, what else, if anything, Connie saw in her, because she comes across as shallow. She is also resentful that Connie died in a plot she was unaware of and didn’t necessarily support. As for Ania, Marianne would never have taken her in had she known the truth about her past. The author takes a stab at explaining why Germans were so enthralled with Hitler, particularly before he began systematically exterminating Jews. As with so many books of this sort, the ending entails a reunion of sorts. I’ve seen reviews that likened this book to Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale, and, although I was not overly impressed by either book, at least the writing here is much better. The sentences are not so stubby, but the characters don’t really come to life. Marianne and Benita are one-dimensional. Ania is a more complicated character, but her role in the novel trails off at the end.

Jessica Shattuck writes historical fiction that features plenty of bravery along with lots of regret for most of the main characters in her novel. To paraphrase one of the women in the castle (Ania), “At the end of your life you have done what you have done. There is nothing you can change now. No talk in the world can change the past. It is what it is.” She was remembering her participation in the early Nazi movement with the Hitler youth camps and her convenient blindness to what was really happening in Hitler’s Germany. In the novel’s prologue, the story centers around the Burg (castle) Lingenfels beginning with a 1938 harvest party hosted by Marianne Von Lingenfels, niece-in-law of the castle’s countess. The castle is of her husband Albrecht’s ancestors. They have three children, Fritz, Elisabeth and Katarina, who will be in the story in somewhat minor rolls through the novel’s end.

The castle has fallen into a slightly ruined state by the time the drums of WWII are being heard. While the party is going on, Marianne notices that her husband, Albrecht; her dear childhood friend, Constantine (Connie) Fledermann and other leading citizens are not partying. She finds the men in Albrecht’s study. Marianne wants to know what’s going on. Albrecht says, “It seems Goebbels has given orders for the SA to incite rioting, destruction of Jewish property. They’re throwing stones through shop windows and looting, making a sport…” Marianne says, “How terrible!” Albrecht says, “It’s descent into madness-Hitler is exactly the maniac we’ve suspected!” It appears that the men are plotting to assassinate Hitler. What will happen to the wives and children of the plotters if they fail to kill Hitler? Her friend, Connie, knows that he and his co-conspirators will be hung if they botch the assassination attempt. If that happens, Connie says to Marianne, “Then you will see to it that they (the plotter's women and children) are all right. You are appointed the commander of the wives and children.” This prologue is the presupposition of the story.

History tells us that the attempt to assassinate Hitler failed in 1944. All the conspirators were executed. That left the job of finding the scattered wives and children up to Marianne Von Lingenfels. Each of the recovered women seemed brave (and they were) on the surface but they also had hidden flaws that emerged later on in the novel. Connie Fledermann’s young wife Benita and her son, Martin, were found wandering around the Russian section of Berlin in 1945. “In Berlin, sleep had been rare. If it wasn’t the Russian captain barging into what what was left of Benita’s bombed-out flat, it was some other bas***d who didn’t yet understand that she belonged to the captain.” By the perseverance and bravery of Marianne, Benita is rescued from the Russians and Benita’s son, Martin, is found in a Children’s Home under the name of Martin Schmidt. They are carted back to the castle, which will eventually become part of the American zone.

At this point, the author starts flip-flopping between years 1938,1945,1944 and 1950 to give the reader a better insight to all the women. Next to be found and brought back to the castle is Ania Grabarek. Her husband was the Polish diplomat who brought the word of Kristallnacht to the 1938 harvest party secret meeting at the castle. She was found at the Tollingen Displaced Persons Camp. Marianne tells Ania’s boys, Anselm and Wolfgang, “Your father was a brave man...it’s my honor to host his family.” Once the families are settled in Burg Lingenfels, the story gets engrossing as we find out (remember we are flip-flopping years) what happened between the years 1938 through 1950 amongst these three women and their children individually. This is the juicy part that I’m not going to divulge. I thought that the author, Jessica Shattuck, had excellent command of her prose and put down her words in a stark realistic way. Her style made the novel seem sad and dreary, which I’m sure is the mood she wanted to effectuate.

Two of the biggest publishing sensations of the past few years are Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale and the Pulitzer Prize-winning All The Light You Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Both dealt with people trapped by the horrors of WWII in France and Germany.

Jessica Shattuck's new novel, The Women In The Castle, tackles that same era and will definitely appeal to readers who were so moved by those two books.

The story opens in November of 1938 at Burg Lingenfels, a castle in Bavaria, where the Countess' annual harvest party is about to begin. We meet Marianne von Lingelfels, the Countess' niece-in-law, who will act as hostess to the party. She is married to Albrecht von Lingelfels who fears that the Nazi regime and Adolf Hitler have become too powerful.

Albrecht is disgusted by the actions of Hitler, and actively participates in the resistance movement along with others, including Connie Fledermann, a man who is always the charming life-of-the-party and Marianne's dear friend. Connie is married to the beautiful, young Benita, and if Marianne admits it, she is a little jealous.

The action moves back and forth in time, and a few years later we find Marianne and her young children living in the castle, a shadow of its former grand self. Marianne has promised Connie that she take care of Benita and their young son, and along the way also picks up Ania, a refugee with her three children.

The three women and their children band together to survive the horrors and deprevations of war. We learn where Benita and Ania were before they came to Burg Lingenfels, and what they had to do to survive.

We see the horrors of war through their eyes, and some of the scenes are so jarring, such as the one of Ania and her friend seeing what they believe to be sacks of food piled high on open air wagons. As it gets closer they realize that the sacks are actually people. There are more than a few heartbreaking scenes in this searing novel.

The story moves along, following the war's end and what happens to those who survive. Some do their best to move on, forget the past, while others are haunted too much. Marianne does her best to live up to her high principles, even if that hurts those she loves, while others do whatever it takes to survive. Which way is right? That is the big question to be answered.

The women face many moral dilemmas, and the reader is left to wonder what she may have done in their situations. Shattuck does an admirable job of putting the reader in their shoes, making us identify with these women, creating empathy.

The Women In The Castle is a haunting story, one that you cannot rush through, but must read and contemplate. These characters' stories will stay with you for a very long time. Fans of Chris Bohjalian's The Sandcastle Girls and David Gillam's City of Women should put this one on your TBR list as well.

November 9th 1938—Kristallnacht. German bourgeois Marianne and Albrecht von Lingenfels plot Hitler’s assassination. Marianne is charged with protecting traitors’ (patriots’) families if the plot fails: “You are appointed commander of wives and children.”
Yeah, I was excited too.
Jessica Shattuck’s "The Women in the Castle" non-sequentially yawns through its template: Observe Marianne, Benita, Ania, and their children before, during, and after Germany’s collapse in 1944. You will constantly flip pages to figure out what year it is. Eventually, like Shattuck, you won’t even try.
The weekly product of literary nepotism is available, and Power Nouns “Women” and “Castle” will sell plenty of copies of this YA-Grade Hist-Fic. Shattuck avoids every potential dramatic scene, favoring a reflection by a character figurine after the fact, with an unbearable dosage of the amateurish past perfect tense: “Marianne had said,” “One of them had disappeared,” “They whispered about what had happened.”
Between precious descriptions of clouds, friction between puddle-deep Castle-roommates exhibits "Real World" temper escalation, resolved by teenage storm-offs:
Benita interrupted. ‘You are cruel, Marianne. Connie always said so, but I never saw it.’
She looked directly at her. ‘But now I can see it.’
All day, Marianne felt the words like an ache. …It was an arrow to her heart.

No one should get out of Harvard without learning to delete "arrow to her heart" from one’s vocabulary. Instead of finding the words to convey human emotion, expect clichéd shortcuts usually erased from a professional’s lexicon after attending a mid-grade writing workshop.

Usually, I will read the one and two star reviews to see if there are valid criticisms which might lessen my enjoyment of a book. Having read a couple of the one star reviews for this book, I can only say they are idiots. Yes, everyone is entitled to her opinion, but to dislike a book because it is sad? Grow up. Life is often sad. By that criteria, we should all avoid To Kill a Mockingbird or Sophie's Choice because they are sad.

This book is pure brilliance and the story it tells - mostly of immediate post war Germany - is one which I haven't read before. There are two things I didn't like about, but neither is the author's fault. First, I am DONE, DONE, DONE with reading about the Holocaust and the like. I've simply read too many stories about this terrible period in world history. In telling the back story of one character in particular, there are a few horrid flashbacks and I suffered along with this character in their re-telling. Second, I am not a big fan of stories that go back and forth. It is the author's prerogative to tell her story any way she likes, however, so I don't fault her for it, just pointing out that I am not a big fan.

My mom was German, born in 1941 in Berlin. Reading this novel made me FEEL what is was like in the immediate aftermath and how desperate and hungry the citizens of Germany were. Yes, they brought it on themselves by starting the war, but like in every war, the vast majority of the people had no say in what happened. The author brilliantly paints a picture of what the characters lived through; from what I know of Germany and Germans (and I've spent quite a bit of time there), her characterization of the people was very true. There were several parts where I laughed out loud at the author's descriptions or use of an adjective. And I simply ached for the loss of the hero/conspirators. I wished so badly that they had succeeded or at least not been caught.

Brilliant story, brilliant writing. I plan to digest it for awhile and then re-read it so I can appreciate it all over again.

I am most likely going to be in the minority when I say that this book did not blow me away. I struggled with this book. I will even go so far to say that I thought it was a snooze-fest at times. That's right! I found some parts to be downright boring and felt the story dragged on and on. The book started out fine for me and then I lost my interest, then my interest picked back up and then I felt bored again. I have been reading a lot of books that have gripped me lately and not let go, this one felt like a slow burn.

There was a lot of hype for this book and I have said it before...I wonder if when I read the hype, my expectations get too high. By the description of the book, and the reviews of friends, I thought this book would knock my socks off. Well, my socks stayed on and I was not blown away.

This is a book about survival of women during the last parts of WWII. Their journey to the castle, their hardships, sacrifices, loss, grief, determination, hope, and resiliency. Marianne, Benita and Ania lost their husbands during the failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Marianne had made a promise that she would help look out for their wives in the event that they did not make it. She holds up her part of the bargain. But I still found her to be somewhat of a unsympathetic character. Marianne finds the two women and Martin, Benita's son, one and by and brings them to the dilapidated castle owned by her husband's relatives.

This one did not live up to the hype for me.

Marianne is the widow of a man who helped to plot Hitler's death.  The plot, rather famously, failed, and Albrecht and his co-conspirators were executed horribly, their families were torn apart, wives imprisoned, and children snatched away.  But Marianne is tough and stubborn.  She resisted Hitler before and during the war, and after it, she is determined to find the remaining families of those conspirators, and offer them what aid and sanctuary she can.

She finds three widows and their children, and brings them all together in the castle that belonged to her family.  Together they navigate the post-war years in spite of being essentially very different sorts of people.  And its those differences which informs much of the conflict of the novel.

I haven't often come across books which tell the story of post-war Germany from the viewpoint of ordinary Germans.  Pre-war, wartime, post-war non-fiction discussing the fate of the men who drove the Nazi agenda, yes. But just people scraping by, trying to cope with the guilt or anger of having been part of one of the most horrific events the world has ever seen? Not so much.  And that makes these stories that much more compelling, because along with the secrets, the personal tragedies, and the conflicts that ultimately arise between people, there is an additional layer of conflict.  Participation guilt, survivor guilt, wholly understandable rage at having been forced into a situation in which everything you value was stolen from you.  It's harrowing.

It's also a thoughtful, sensitive study of how different people approach moral quandaries.  Marianne is a black-and-white thinker with a clear moral compass.  Her confusion when that compass points her in the wrong direction is painful.  Benita has simple desires, yet somehow she is never able to have the few things she feels would make her happy.  Ania does what she can to protect her children from a secret life that might devastate them. Their friendship is ultimately a recipe for disaster.  That there aren't more victims is a tribute to the ability of people to learn and change.

Shattuck's writing is strong and direct.  She doesn't flinch from talking about painful things, or prettify evil.  She does allow us, though, to view her characters with empathy and to understand why they have done the things they've done.  She lets us watch them grow and come to understand their existences in a deeper way.  That's the best any of us can hope for, I suspect, so Shattuck's novel can give us hope as well as a remarkable story.

Historical fiction, to me, is the strictest test of an author’s talent. Immense research and assemblage of mounds of information must be skillful, then, with careful and grammatically correct prose, transposed into an entrancing story. Few authors do this better than Jessica Shattuck, author of “The Women in the Castle.”

Author and winner of many awards, Shattuck tells us the story of a determined and principled woman, Marianne von Lingenfels, who, at the end of World War Two, gathers together women whose husbands died resisting Hitler’s attempt at dominating the world. She attempts to protect them by housing them in a decrepit stone castle belonging to her own dead husband’s ancestors. The women and their children advance through their lives of secret and dark emotions, forcing Marianne to alter her belief that her generous attempt at unification will be realized. The union results in trials of survival, love, and forgiveness bringing tremendous hardship to this makeshift family.

Shattuck, with her insightful writing, manages to touch the raw emotions occurring in the widows and the children. Their backgrounds, formed from dissimilar experiences, present a variety of views and emotions. The author is marvelously adept at taking the reader into the background of each person and, in simple and stark language, explore the many different versions of the Nazi impact on their lives. There is neither a romantic nor heroic element here, simply a very nuanced explanation of responsibility and maturity.

I urge you to read this book. It’s a vivid demonstration of an author’s skill.

Schuyler T Wallace
Author of TIN LIZARD TALES

I had really been looking forward to reading this book and had waited weeks to get it on our library's Overdrive, because so many others were waiting to borrow it. Disappointing and not at all what I expected. I love non-fiction and historical fiction of this time period and have read much better stories. This one could have been better. I don't mind going back and forth in stories, but this one was too choppy, and the main characters were not very likeable. There really wasn't much time spent in the castle - just a very brief portion of their lives. The main stories were what happened before and after. The story only got worse when it got to 1991, and the ending was just blah. Was the author in a hurry to beat a deadline? Or struggling to come up with a reasonable ending? It started with so much promise, but sadly it got lost along the way.

The Women In the Castle by Jessica Shattuck
I finished this book a week or more ago but didn’t sit down right away to write the review. I struggled with this book. It seemed to start out ok, but this book was one that seemed to catch me for a chapter or two and then drag along then pick up for a while and then drag along. I have always enjoyed reading books about WWII this one just left me hanging between reading sessions. It wasn’t a book that I picked up and couldn’t put down until I finished it. I wished that it had. I really had more hope for this book than it delivered for me. It was nice that it seemed to tell the story of how these women met and were married to men who were plotting to kill Adolf Hitler and about their lives, after WWI, up to and after WWII. The men were killed. Marianne made a promise to find the women and their children after the war and to bring them back together and help them recover. She does that, and the story tells as she finds the children and two of her friends. It tells of the women and each of their stories and how they lived through WWII, and where they ended up. It also tells the stories of how they stayed together and tried to recover their lives after the war. The difficulties that they faced and some of the small joys. The book is pretty sad, and the interest for me lagged I’m very sorry to say. There were some historical facts shared in the book and I found them to be interesting. There were many people who found the book to be much more interesting than I so I can’t say don’t read it, just examine the book and read a sample of it before you decide to buy it, find out if the book is for you first.

As always, I thank Good Reads for allowing me to read a book by a new author, a story I may not have been able to read otherwise. I won this book through Good Reads.com and it was sent to me with the hope that I would leave an honest review of the book which I have.

Here is the description of the book as found on Good Reads:
Three women, haunted by the past and the secrets they hold

Set at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played host to all of German high society, a powerful and propulsive story of three widows whose lives and fates become intertwined an affecting, shocking, and ultimately redemptive novel from the author of the New York Times Notable Book The Hazards of Good Breeding.

Amid the ashes of Nazi Germany s defeat, Marianne von Lingenfels returns to the once-grand castle of her husband s ancestors, an imposing stone fortress now fallen into ruin following years of war. The widow of a resister murdered in the failed July 20, 1944, plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Marianne plans to uphold the promise she made to her husband s brave conspirators: to find and protect their wives, her fellow resistance widows.

First Marianne rescues six-year-old Martin, the son of her dearest childhood friend, from a Nazi reeducation home. Together, they make their way across the smoldering wreckage of their homeland to Berlin, where Martin s mother, the beautiful and naive Benita, has fallen into the hands of occupying Red Army soldiers. Then she locates Ania, another resister s wife, and her two boys, now refugees languishing in one of the many camps that house the millions displaced by the war.

As Marianne assembles this makeshift family from the ruins of her husband s resistance movement, she is certain their shared pain and circumstances will hold them together. But she quickly discovers that the black-and-white, highly principled world of her privileged past has become infinitely more complicated, filled with secrets and dark passions that threaten to tear them apart. Eventually, all three women must come to terms with the choices that have defined their lives before, during, and after the war each with their own unique share of challenges.

Written with the devastating emotional power of The Nightingale, Sarah s Key, and The Light Between Oceans, Jessica Shattuck s evocative and utterly enthralling novel offers a fresh perspective on one of the most tumultuous periods in history. Combining piercing social insight and vivid historical atmosphere, The Women in the Castle is a dramatic yet nuanced portrait of war and its repercussions that explores what it means to survive, love, and, ultimately, to forgive in the wake of unimaginable hardship.

The Women in the Castle begins with the Prologue at Burg Lingenfels, site of a Bavarian Castle. The year is 1938, setting a picture of the pre-war days, the Countess’s famous harvest party is being assembled, organized, and hosting this party is Marianne von Lingelfels, niece-in-law of the Countess, accompanied by her husband, Albrecht, her once-upon-a-time professor.

Hosting the party was like setting up a civilization on the moon. But this was part of what kept people coming back despite yearly disasters – minor fires and collapsed outhouses, fancy touring cars stuck in the mud, mice in the overnight-guest beds. The party had become famous for its anarchic, un-German atmosphere. It was known as an outpost of liberal, bohemian culture in the heart of the proper aristocracy.

Among the guests are Connie Flederman, and his betrothed, Benita Gruber. Connie has been Marianne’s lifelong friend, dear to her heart, and she is just beginning to take in the reality of Benita when Connie extracts a promise from her to take care of Benita should plans go awry. She gives her word.

In 1945, Marianne returns to Burg Lingenfels with Benita, after Marianne has finally found, and rescued her. The castle is worse for the seven years that have passed since the night of the harvest party. Her son Martin has been with Marianne ever since Marianne was able to locate him and bring him home. Since that night of the party when Connie declared her commander of wives and children she has taken this role very seriously, but her first duty was her promise to Connie to watch over Benita and Martin. Still, she drew up a list of names, names taken from Albrect’s journal, checking everywhere she could to see if anyone on the list appeared, giving names to Herr Peterman so she could be notified when they found anyone. And so this is how Ania and her two sons come to join their mismatched family. The wife of one of the men who attended the party, Pietre Grabarek. The one who brought the news of Kristallnacht that evening.

Their new lives are very different from their old ones; much has changed aside from the destruction of the war. They’ve changed. Endured much, knowing those who endured worse. Lost loved ones, lost homes, rebuilding lives. Surrounded by a new morality, the blaming, the guilt. Hanging onto, or trying to hang onto what little is left of hope and belief in goodness and kindness. It is heartbreaking, but there is love and maybe even a flicker of faith. Three women bonded by the place and time, by their husbands’ friendships, and eventually through their friendships with each other. Friendships that are tested time and again, and yet remain. No one else could understand what they’re endured, who they’ve become, no one else knows their stories.

Jessica Shattuck’s story is a gem, a unique perspective on a story which most of us feel we know fairly well. There are so many variations on the theme of the Holocaust, but this explores it from a perspective I’ve not encountered before. All through this narrative Shattuck manages to move effortlessly back and forth through time, filling in details from an earlier time as they become relevant to the unfolding of this heartbreaking and heartwarming story.

Highly recommended

Many thanks for the ARC provided by William Morrow

Before we get to this excellent book, there were two passages that resonated given these turbulent political times. Consider this, "Germany was being run by a loudmouthed rabble-rouser, bent on baiting other nations to war and making life miserable for countless innocent citizens." Those who ruled Germany "were not deterred by complex facts." Yes, I know, it is not fair to make such direct comparisons to current affairs but these words jumped out and deserve the attention.

All modern politics aside, this was one of the best books I have read in the last three years. Part of that acclaim must be attributed to a dictum from my wife...no more iPad in bed. And she was right. Yes, I would read off the Kindle app but then drift to the news, e-mail and eventually Netflix under headphones. I was once reviewer number #1,232 on the store.com and #15 on the store.ca. My reading has suffered due to technology and my own lack of discipline so this book I purchased in paperback. The format works for me. I like page numbers over percentages, seeing the cover and remembering the title, and the tactile comfort of a printed book.

So now to the review. It is simple. Read it. There has been precious written in fiction and nonfiction on the plight of women in Hitler's Germany. Shattuck gives strong voice to three women whose lives are forever entwined when their husbands participate in Germany's too-little, too-late resistance to Nazism. It jumps through the years, back and forth, in a pleasing cadence. The author has a depth of phrase that is intelligent and illuminating. I look forward to re-reading it in the coming years because its lessons of resilience, strength, and will are timeless.

Pros: Wow - another great WWII book - up there with The Lilac Girls, All the Light We Cannot See and The Nightingale. Great job of contrasting the choices people took, whether to ignore (or "not notice") the current political affairs or to do something and stand up for a belief to change it. A hero vs villain story of normal people. The story lines moved along quickly and there were great descriptions of the horribleness and glimpses of hope interwoven. Great twist at the end with Ania. Benita's ending was well done. Wonderful supporting cast of children, too. Love that this was based on 3 strong and very different women. The main message can be updated to change the historical figures to current political figures with the same idea of intolerance, hate and lack of human compassion.

Cons: Wish there was more info on Marianne's life growing up. Felt like got more background on Ania and Benita during there youth and motivations. Thought the ending could have wrapped up a bit sooner, felt it dragged a little and didn't need as much detail at the end.

Cover Art: 4 out of 5; Gets the message across without being Gothic-y or scary. Reasonable yet a bit dark. The lighter sky is perfect, as well as the almost invisible airplane. (With special thanks from @WmMorrowBooks for the free book in exchange for a honest review)

The Women in the Castle, Jessica Shattuck, author; Cassandra Campbell, narrator
It is 1938. The place is Burg Lingenfels, in Germany. A traditional yearly party is being planned by Marianne von Lingenfels for her aunt, the countess, who is confined to a wheel chair and no longer able to supervise the arrangements for this yearly festive celebration at the castle. It is also a terrible time of foreboding for certain segments of the German population. Hitler is in power and is being extolled and lionized, more and more, by his followers. The worst is yet to come as he puts his plans in motion. Some Germans sensed the approaching onslaught and wanted to do something to prevent it. Others faced the rumors of German brutality with disbelief, and there were some who were simply in denial because it served their purpose to pretend blindness and reap the benefits of German cruelty and injustice. Others outright supported his plans for a “Final Solution”. Who was guiltier? Who was free from guilt? The story seems to be an attempt to understand and humanize Nazi sympathizers. They had their reasons for doing what they did, and in the end, didn’t they suffer as well?
Three women are the main characters. Marianne, the niece of the countess, is married to Albrecht von Lingenfels. He is of the aristocracy, wealthy and well thought of, and he is very much involved in conversations about setting up a resistance movement against the policies of Hitler, but he needs some additional convincing.
Another is a beautiful young woman, Benita Fledermann, the wife of Connie Fledermann a man who actively pursues the effort to resist Hitler and hopes to create a resistance movement. She, however, is a Nazi sympathizer. She met Connie when she was 19 and was the leader of a group of young girls in the Bund Deutscher Madel, the BDM, Belief and Beauty, a branch of the Nazi Organizations Female Youth Group.
The third woman calls herself Ania Grabarek when she meets Benita and Marianne. She was once the wife of Rainer Brandt, a leader of a Landjahr Lager, a place where German youth were trained to become part of Hitler’s new agrarian society. When she met him, he persuaded her to join the Nazi Party. When she met Marianne, she was pretending to be a displaced person rather than someone who had once been a Nazi sympathizer married to a devout Nazi. She had become disillusioned with Hitler when she witnessed atrocious behavior by his followers and had taken her children and run away from her husband and the Party.
Circumstances evenutually placed all three women together, sharing a living space. Each had a different agenda and hidden secrets. Each had a different way of looking at life, of surviving during and after World War II. Marianne believed in doing the right thing, in honoring the memory of the resisters, in helping those who were hurt by Hitler’s minions. However, she was self righteous and cold hearted at times, unable to forgive the things she did not approve of or to accept the wrongdoing of others, for any reason. She did not want the black deeds of Germany to be relegated to the forgotten shelves of history. Was she self-serving? Belita wanted to go forward and to lose the burden of her memories and her pain. She wanted to begin again, to have a new life, forget the past, but would it be possible? Ania wanted to escape from her past. She had always disregarded her own deceptions and created a false history, distorting the things she had done in order to excuse her own complicity and guilt. When she could no longer do that, she reversed course and wanted only to remember and would not forgive herself for her sins. Was that the right path?
While the story is interesting as it presents the effect of Hitler on Germans of all backgrounds, rather than only his specific targeted victims, it attempts to make those complicit with his ideas sympathetic in some way. I could not do that, perhaps because I am Jewish. I know the impact of the monster named Hitler, and his followers, on real people. There was no one who was truly blind to his madness, as far as I am concerned. There were simply those who chose to turn a blind eye to it because they saw only benefits for themselves and saw no downside.
Perhaps the author wanted to figure out what it was that created the Nazi or how it was possible for Germans to go forward with such a stain on their country’s history. What was the motivation for their brutality, what was the reason for their acquiescence, their hate? In a simplified explanation, perhaps it was because Germany had suffered a devastating defeat after World War I and was totally strapped and shamed. It was a self-inflicted wound to a country that had sought once again to overpower weaker neighbors. So, perhaps Hitler was the result of a disastrous economy and humiliated citizenry. They were demoralized. However, couldn’t it also be blamed on jealousy and greed, on a lack of a moral compass, on religious bias, and pure prejudice, coupled with a disregard for the lives of humans they decided were worth less than themselves. More likely it was about a pervasive ignorance of common decency and the Germanic personality which was orderly and cold, rigid and mechanical. Emotional responses were not highly valued. Little compassion was felt for the victims because the end result was considered good for Germans and Germany.
I simply cannot feel sorry for their suffering, therefore, which I feel was truly deserved because of their own belligerent, reprehensible behavior. Their actions were the harbinger of their own disaster. Where did they think the empty apartments came from? Where did they think that the clothing that was dispersed came from? Where did they think the people were resettled to? How did they not notice the cattle cars, the smell of burning flesh, the people who suddenly disappeared? Where did they think the disabled and mentally deficient people disappeared to? Why did they even think the Jews needed to be removed? What did they think would happen to their possessions that were left behind? Did they not notice the slave laborers who looked like zombies, the emaciated people marching through town? Who did they think were filling the jobs at the factories?
This is a story about Germans before the war, and in its aftermath, and it is an attempt to explain the way they became the people they were, but it is also the story of all of us, as cruelty still abounds and a lack of personal responsibility flourishes even today. Far fewer fought Hitler than complied with his ultimate plan. Perhaps it was greed at first, and fear of Hitler, later on, that made so many go along with his diabolical ideas, but that only explains the motivation behind their behavior, it cannot and does not justify the things that the Nazi sympathizers did or ignored. They did everything they could in order to benefit and preserve their own families, even as they tolerated the injustices done to the families of “others”. They did not recognize their own complicity in the contemptible policies of Hitler. If we look around today, we will see evidence of the same kind of blindness, the same pattern of blaming others for one’s own failures, the same inability to judge one’s own behavior honestly.
I can out Germany’s tragic history behind me, and surely history will, but I wonder, should they be forgiven? Would forgiveness open the door to the idea of forgetting and perhaps to another Holocaust? Perhaps the answer is to accept the fact that it happened and to work to prevent it from ever happening again, to anyone, and to understand that we are all valuable. None are less or more than any other. Will the strong continue to prey upon the weak, the wicked to do evil if we don’t continue to remember?

At a party at Burg Lingenfels, a castle frequented by the elite of German society, Marianne becomes aware of how horrible Hitler and the Nazi regime really are and a plot to halt the movement. She makes a promise to her husband and best friend, Connie, that she will look after the wives and the children on the men who are planning the attack, if anything should happen to them. Marianne is a very principled woman and, when the plot to assassinate Hitler goes awry and the men are executed, she works tirelessly to find all of the wives and children of the heroes of the resistance. She invites Benita and Ania, wives of two of the resistance fighters, and their children to live with her in the castle.

This story was a very interesting and hopeful one but the characters were not the most complex. Marianne is rigid and judgmental. She believes that her kindness towards the women entitles her to meddle in their personal affairs. I found that this book is not only about the war and the resistance but also offers lessons in forgiveness, both towards others and ourselves, and in allowing others to be who they want to be, regardless of what we feel is best for them. The most complex and evolving character was Ania who is a bit of a mystery to the other women in the castle. I am not suggesting that I didn't like the characters but I did feel that they were sometimes bland and stereotypical.

The story shows a much more dynamic account of the Holocaust and World War II than is usually presented. Many of the German characters who were thought to be villains were really coerced or tricked into participating in awful acts and there were many dissenters who did not go along with the plot. There were many more who quietly disagreed with the plans but neither participated nor dissented. We have come to think about World War II and the Holocaust a lot like Marianne thinks about everything; all things are right or wrong and there is no in between. If this book provides any lesson it is that better perspective in hindsight should not enable us to look down our noses at those that were not gifted with the foresight that we have. The fact of the matter is, we don't know what we would have done in a situation like that. One would hope that we would have behaved in a way that we could have been proud of today but we can't guarantee that we would not be a victim to the same propaganda and manipulation that many were at the time.

The writing does not read as fast as I would have liked it to but the story really kept me moving along. It was such an interesting and important story and I really enjoyed it, despite the horrific subject matter. Readers of historical fiction, especially those interested in stories of World War II, would enjoy this book.

The book fell flat and lacked depth and there was a lack of true dimension and connection to these characters you truly wanted to connect with. The book jumps way too much between time frames and characters. It never truly delves into the true issues of the war or the women. It glosses over everything much like the women do so you never get an understanding or depth to the time periods, scenes or characters. And then the book abruptly ends as well with a nod to all characters but no satisfaction or proper development or ending for anyone but Benita who dies. Would truly love a book that dives into this topic and bears its ugly truths but this was a glossed over version of the story that touches badly on horrific issues and portrays these women in a Disney like representation where there is no depth and they are even living in castles.

The Women of the Castle
By: Jessica Shattuck

I received an e-ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I cannot stop thinking about this book. I finished reading it several nights ago and have been trying to organize my thoughts. I'm just having problems coming up with the right words. All I can say is that this book has consumed my mind and thoughts.

Basic Plot:
The story is about the widows of three members of a plot to assassinate Hitler. What led them to this time? What happened to the women directly after the war? How do these decisions affect the people around them and their future lives? I know there are many books about WWII because this time period is so intense. In other war stories people are either their best or worse selves. We see heroes and villains. This book is different in that, under the guise of telling a story about brave Resistance heroes, it explores the realm of the average German and their culpability.

Setting and Structure:
This book starts out in Germany post-WWII. The story is divided into four sections which each focuses on a period of time (with occasional chapters meandering back and forth). The chapters alternate between the three main protagonists (Marianne von Lingenfels, Benita Fledermann, and Ania Grabarek). We see the three women immediately post WWII, in the 1950's, pre-WWII, and 1991.

Characters:
Marianne is the moral core of the story and our first narrator. She is a high-born German countess and was tasked with looking after the other Resistance wives and families. She takes her role seriously. We learn immediately that Marianne can always be relied upon to do the right thing. To be honest, I found her character self-righteous. If you make each woman a type, Marianne is the one who does everything right (through the scope of history). She hates everything about the Nazi party and is rigid in her determination. Interestingly, most Germans (even after the Allied victory) view her and her family as traitors. At the conclusion of the war, she is one of the few people who does not need to feel any guilt about her personal behavior during the war. However, her strict moral code has several painful consequences. She alienates friends and in the end causes a very grave and irredeemable reaction from a friend which results in real guilt for Marianne. Is this life changing for her? No, she is still her same maddening self. It does, however, make her more self aware. In the 1991 section, we see that Marianne's moral rectitude has actually morphed into an entire institute. At the end of the book, the old castle (yes, the one from the title) has become an institute dedicated to studying morality.

Benita is perhaps the weakest character and the one which shows the least development. We often hear Germans from that generation explain that they didn't know what was really happening during the war. Benita is that character. She is so self involved that she has empathy only for herself. Post war, she only wants to move forward and be happy again. Is this possible without first addressing the past?

I loved the moral complexity of Ania. When I read The NY Times article about Ms. Shattuck's grandmother (after completing the book) I realized many of Anita's thoughts and actions were taken from this real life person. She had run a youth camp and had assimilated Hiterl's grand ideals for Germany while not seeing (or choosing to not see) the ugliness of his plans. The author does not make excuses for Ania. In fact, she is harsh. Is this sort of behavior forgivable or even understandable in someone we truly love? There is no easy forgiveness for the characters in this book only a stark retelling of their experiences and a chance for them to move forward.

Grumps and Conclusion:
My only complaint is that the ending (1991 section) is too clean. All past sins/ poor behavior/ lies/ misunderstandings are, if not completely forgiven, at least out in the open and being discussed like adults. What I did appreciate at the end was the palpable love between all the characters. I myself felt such a bond with these strong but human ladies that I can't remove them from my head. I also wish there was more character development amidst the next generation. I was especially drawn to Ania's daughter. Their relationship, the bit we see, is so strong and the dynamics seemed real. Together they were heartbreaking and beautiful all at the same time. I guess that actually sums up the book for me - heartbreaking and beautiful.

My References:
NY Times (Online edition)
I Loved My Grandmother. But She Was a Nazi.
By JESSICA SHATTUCKMARCH 24, 2017
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The Plot to Kill Hitler
By: Patricia McCormick
This is a true story of the Hitler plot and is gripping. The author perhaps errs on the side of "heroes and villains" style of writing but as Ms. Shattuck's says at the end of her novel, "the world needs heroes".

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The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club (Bccb Blue Ribbon Nonfiction Book Award (Awards))
By: Phillip Hoose
My daughter and I just read this story together. She and I were both intrigued by this true story of young people and how they could fight against evil.

3.5 Stars. The Women in the Castle opens with a prologue in which Germany's academic elite have gathered in celebration, and we are introduced to Marianne von Lingenfels and the von Lingenfels castle, a charming relic that has been used only for annual parties but that will soon become a refuge and a lifeline for the wives of the men sequestered in Albrecht von Lingenfels's study plotting the downfall of Adolph Hitler. Seven years and one failed assassination attempt later, World War II has just ended, and Marianne, now a traitor's widow, makes it her mission to find the wives and children of her husband's co-conspirators, heroes in her eyes, and bring them to safety.

Though she is only able to find two, Ania, a woman she'd never met, and Benita, the young wife of Marianne's childhood best friend, she gathers them and their children and brings them to the castle, where she hopes to keep them safe in the dangerous post-war climate, and where she hopes they will all be able to rebuild their lives together. None of these women have been untouched by the war, although Marianne, as a wealthy member of the aristocracy, has not had to suffer the physical depravities or face the daily fight for survival that the others have, and she soon realizes that coaxing these women into forming a new family with her will not be as easy as she'd hoped. Through food shortages, illness, the Russian and US occupations, and the bands of discharged soldiers and former prisoners roaming the countryside, Marianne desperately attempts to hold them all together, but she is eventually forced to admit that she can't force her fellow survivors to follow her path, that she must let them each come to terms with the war and their roles in it in their own way, and that they must each determine their own future.

"Their lives had become entwined during such a strange time--without context, severed from the past, before the future. A time dictated by basic needs. What did they really know of each other?"

There is so much buzz surrounding this book that I couldn't wait to read it, and I did absolutely love the first half of it. As these three women came together and their experiences before and during the war were slowly revealed, I could not put the book down. But then the story fast forwarded five years and lost the tension that came with the uncertainty of the war's immediate aftermath. The characters started doing things I didn't like, some true natures were revealed, and I found myself not caring about them as much. By the end, when the story fast forwarded again to 1991 and the focus shifted to their children, I was pretty much skimming to get to the end.

But I am in the minority on this one, and despite my issues with the second half, this book has a couple of things going for it that really set it apart from other WWII fiction I've read, namely that it's about Germans rather than Brits or Americans. In most of the other books, the war ends and the story is over. But in Germany, the story is far from over. Beaten, occupied, and punished, not only do the German people have to claw themselves back to some semblance of normalcy, they also have to face the atrocities that, even if they were not active participants, were committed with their knowledge. And there are as many ways of doing that as there are shades of humanity, from denial or defiance to atonement to crippling guilt and everything in between.

"She saw the histories of the people passing by like x-rays stamped on their faces--ugly, mutinous tracings of dark and light: a woman who had ratted out a neighbor, a man who had shot children, a soldier who had held his dying friend in his arms. Yet here they were, carrying groceries, holding children's hands, turning their collars up against the wind. As if their moments of truth--the decisions by which they would be judged and would judge themselves--hadn't already come and passed."

Even though I didn't love it as much as I'd hoped, this is well worth the read for insight into the German perspective on the end of the war and for some poignant observations and descriptions, both beautiful and ugly, on coming to terms with the reign of the Nazis and the genocide of the Jews and how a country moved on. For the view of the war, the Holocaust, and its aftermath from such a different and necessary lens, I consider The Women in the Castle a must-read for fans of World War II fiction.

I keep saying that I'm going to take a break with the World War II novels, and I keep finding myself back there. I will say that, these days, the WWI tends to be more of an emotional minefield for me than it has been in the past, which I think makes the experience of reading a book set in this time period both more fraught and more fulfilling.

This book, however, separates itself in two ways. First of all, a good chunk of the book--at least half--is set after World War II, mainly in 1950's Germany and later. I know that there are other books set in this period, but I haven't read them. We also get glimpses into what the characters suffered during the war and what their lives were before the war. I think these different views give a much more complete view of lives of Germans in the first part of the 20th century than we usually see in World War II based novels.

The other difference is that these characters have a very specific place in history. They are the widows of men who were executed after a failed plot to assassinate Hitler. While the women's involvement in the resistance varies from character to character, it was a fascinating aspect of history about which I knew little.

However, what I enjoyed most about this book were the relationships between the women. This is not a gal-pal book and the webs between the three main characters are twisted and knotted. But it is also a very realistic view of how people, in this case women, relate to one another in times of stress and upheaval. There is nothing "neat" about this, and that is what makes it so fascinating.

All three characters were well-rounded and multi-dimensional. I found myself enjoying and relating to Marianne the most, although I'm not entirely sure that was Shattuck's intention. She's a very complicated character--as the one who brings Benita and Ania under her care, she's the glue that holds the characters and the narrative together. Yet, she is still a flawed and thoroughly-human character. While I didn't always agree with her decisions, I did understand them. That is a very small target for an author to hit, and Shattuck did so with ease.

Among the World War II-era books that I've read, I would say that this ranks near the top, if not at the top. I appreciated the unique view that Shattuck brought and found her portrayal of female relationships (friendships and otherwise) to be among the best. This is a book that I would readily recommend to anyone.

This story centers on the postwar lives of three women: Marianne, Benita, and Ania. We do get a few chapters told from the perspective of Benita's son, Martin, but overall this book is told from the perspective of these three women. The content and plot of this particular story was very unique and refreshing to me. Most of the books I've read that centered in Germany during WWII were told from the POV of Jews, those in concentration camps, or those running from Nazis; in this book, the story is told from German women who were not especially in danger of Nazis. Instead, this book seems to focus more on their own guilt and emotions as they come to terms with the horrors that occurred during the war and what role they did or didn't play.

This is not a linear book. Each chapter begins with a location and a date, and though it does move in a linear fashion some of the time, there is also a jumping around between dates and locations. Honestly, I'm not usually a fan of this style in books, but Shattuck is so careful with her storytelling that it actually fits in rather well and makes for an interesting read.

I was particularly impressed with the development of each woman and how distinct each was. Shattuck could have easily gotten stuck in having three widows who were too similar in personality, but she somehow moved away from that and managed to keep each character unique to who they are. I enjoyed learning about each woman as more and more of their story was revealed and the reader is able to see more aspects of them.

Shattuck's prose is both descriptive and simple at the same time. It is not overdone, but it is also not overtly simple, either. The Women in the Castle is not what I would call a 'page-turner,' but there is a compelling quality in Shattuck's writing that made me want to keep reading. Her words are almost haunting as they capture the darkest and most personal sentiments of these three women as they come to terms with their experiences during and after the war.

The Women in the Castle is a thoughtful book. There is not a lot of action of suspenseful moments; instead, things are told in a thoughtful, deliberate manner in a specific order. If you enjoy World War II novels or enjoy reading books with strong character development and that are more character-focused than plot-based, then this is absolutely the book for you.

Overall, The Women in the Castle receives four stars from me!

*I received a free copy of this book from the publisher through Goodreads. This is an honest review.*

The Women in the Castle follows the experiences of three women before, during, and after World War II. Told in separate points of view, this book shows what it was like to be German during this point in history.

I enjoyed that we got to see three completely separate experiences of World War II, and they were shared with great compassion and understanding for what the world was at that time and what the people were going through. Marianne was steadfastly against Hitler and his ideas from the beginning; Benita didn’t mind either way because it didn’t affect her personally, and she had other concerns; Ania was so ready to believe in the best of Hitler’s ideals and disillusioned to find what his words truly meant.

Through this, we’re able to get a more complete picture of the German experience during Hitler’s regime and what they dealt with during the war, which was interesting. Shattuck approaches it not through facts but through characters and people, showing the very human side of a war we have all learned so much about. That, more than anything, I appreciated so much. It put a much more understandable, relatable face to events.

This is a tough read because it takes on so much, and it didn’t go by quickly for me, but I was completely immersed in this story and in these character’s lives. I was moved by these characters’ stories and the struggle they have to build lives for themselves after the war. It’s the sort of book that even when I put down to go about my day, never really left me, and sort of hovered in the background, continuously in my mind, waiting for me to return to it. It’s been a while since I’ve read a book like that, and I love when stories are able to hang in my mind like that.

The Women in the Castle is the sort of book that makes me reflect on my own life and that of my ancestors’, thinking of what they’ve gone through that I’m completely unaware of, and how much I take for granted today. It explores the relationship between friends and family and how duty, gratitude, affection, and even regret binds us together in ways that shape our whole futures.

This would be an amazing book for a book club; it lends itself well to discussion and reflection. I also think it’s a story that tackles important issues that everyone should be thinking about, especially in modern times. I highly recommend.

Before,​ during​,​ and after the war Marianne was there to support everyone even though she had lost everything except her ​castle and her children.

Marianne previously lived in a castle with her husband, Albrecht and her children before the Germans took it over. Her ​husband was a member of the resistance but was killed by the Germans along with other members. His request was for Marianne to take care of the families of other members if he and his fellow members were killed.

Marianne complied with her husband's wishes and found two women including Benita who had married a man Marianne actually had loved at one time and who was a family friend.

These women and their children lived together and endured the hardships after the war as well as sharing their lives before and during the war.

Marianne was an organizer, Benita was a follower, and Ania was a great help to Marianne. All three women had endured a lot and were there for each other in their own way as they recovered after the war.

THE WOMEN IN THE CASTLE gives us insight into how families lived in Europe before, during, and after Hitler's regime. ​The book ends with the year 1991.​

THE WOMEN IN THE CASTLE is well written, well researched, and with authentic characters and descriptions that draw you in...descriptions that allow you to share the experiences every character is dealing with whether good or bad.​ Some of the experiences are quite grizzly.​

It took me a few chapters to get connected and to warm up to the characters, but once I did, I became fully involved with their lives as well as becoming familiar with yet another piece of WWII's history.

Historical fiction fans and women's fiction fans will love THE WOMEN IN THE CASTLE. Be prepared for a heart wrenching, but very thought-provoking read.

The historical aspect and the friendships between the three women draw the reader in and keep the pages turning while you also don't want the book to end. 4/5

This book was given to me free of charge and without compensation by the publisher in return for an honest review.​

This is a very powerful book. It covers a difficult time in history even though it doesn’t delve too deeply into WWII the impacts of Hitler and his policies are felt throughout. The book opens in the time just as Hitler is coming to power and some people see his danger and others don’t. A group of friends come together for what will be one of the last parties together before their worlds implode. As the men fight to defeat Hitler the women do what needs doing to survive.

After the war Marianne comes back to the castle that had been in her husband’s family for generations to regroup and to try and find some of the other widows of the men who tried to kill Hitler. She finds her best friend’s widow Benita and their young son Martin. They join Marianne and her sons in creating the best life they can although Benita is not as introspective as Marianne and she just wants to move forward and forget. Marianne never wants to forget so it doesn’t happen again. She keeps searching and searching and soon a third woman joins the family. They don’t all agree or even get along but they do survive – sometimes through the shear force of Marianne’s will.

The characters in this book are all very well defined and very well drawn. When your story depends so much on personalities and how they interact it’s important for the fictional characters to come across as real to the reader and they all do in this book – from the most significant to the face in the crowd. There are a number of different subplots that help to define each character and a couple of them truly surprised me. The only story that disappointed was that of Benita but I always do have problems with people who live a clueless life. I found myself thinking about this book for days after I finished it.

4.5
I received a free copy for my honest review

I'm not usually a big fan of WWII-era historical fiction, mainly because it always leaves me feeling depressed. But this one was well worth the aftermath. It did a phenomenal job of establishing the environment in which Hitler rose to power and was able to implement such horrific acts. It's easy, from the perspective of the past, to assume everyone who believed in his rhetoric was racist, or ignorant, or just generally a bad person. But, of course, that's a gross oversimplification of a situation was *must* understand, lest we repeat it.

And you guys, reading some of the character musings on Hitler's programs, how he normalized horrible things...it hit pretty damned close to home. That wasn't even the focus of the book, it was just so powerful and well done that I fixated on it. This situation in which both ignorant peasants and educated elite agree with wonderful ideals that become darker and less idealistic over time. (Hitler's early toutings for landjahr, for instance, revolved around physical fitness, learning sustainable practices like farming, community, and music...that eventually clearly evolved into a more militaristic Hitler Youth situation, and his fixation on making children physically brutal)

So this is all reflected in the book, in the background. The primary story revolves around three widows, and their children, and a handful of years at the end and after WWII as they struggle to make their own community, survive, and essentially re-learn how to trust. The chief element is their humanity- all have regrets, impossible hopes, unrealistic standards, guilt and shame, etc. They are each incredibly relatable and real. And the story has enough bittersweet in it that for a time I wondered if it was partly based in the real life of someone the author knows.

If you can't tell from my rambling, I was impressed by the book and I recommend it to fans of fiction in general. Especially if you like historic fiction and/or bittersweet tales.

(Thank you Netgalley for an early reader copy which in no way affected my review)

The Women in the Castle is a wonderful story of 3 women who deal with their lives before, during and after WWII in very different ways. They are drawn together after the war, and live in the castle that belonged to Marianne von Lingenfel's family. Marianne's husband was murdered for his part in a plot against Hitler, and Marianne feels a responsibility to the wives and families of other resisters.

Benita is the wife of Connie, Marianne's childhood friend. Marianne first finds their son, and then Benita and brings them both to the safety of the castle. Ania is the wife of another resistor (or so Marianne believes); she and her two sons join Marianne and Benita at the castle. the three women bring their secrets, lies and differing points of view, and learn to live with each other and support each other.

It's hard to describe this book. It is not a holocaust novel, but the story of how different women deal with amazing adversity, and the impact on their lives. The book alternates telling the stories of Benita, Marianne and Ania before the start of the war, during, and after. It's hard to put down; I kept wanting to learn more about each of them. This is a great book, one that will spark many discussions (great for book clubs too).

With historical fiction it's so hard to find an angle that doesn't feel somewhat overdone, especially when it comes to WWII. While I would continue enjoying historical fiction regardless of how many novels I read with similar storylines, it's great to find something fresh and different. The Women in the Castle is unlike any other historical fiction novel I've read before, giving me a new perspective (or three!) from which to view this heartbreaking time in history.

Most WWII fiction I've read has been from the point of view of the Allies. This is the first novel that I can think of that I've read from the point of view of German women and resisters from varying backgrounds. Marianne is the rich, strong-willed wife of a murdered resistance fighter who keeps true to everything they always believed in no matter what she has to face. Benita, a girl from humble beginnings who dreamed of and succeeded in marrying a rich, charming man and living a life of luxury, ends up sacrificing so much of herself, not only to survive but in her attempts to try and forget the past and grasp on to any shred of happiness she can find. Ania, the most pragmatic of the women, will do anything to protect her sons and give them the chance at a better life than they were born into, even if that means keeping secrets and lying to those she cares about. Through the heads, hearts, and eyes of each of these women we get the chance to see a wider range of German people - from resisters to collaborators, those with power and influence to those who have nothing - and it was heartbreaking to see these women stuck in the middle of a brutal and unforgiving world that they had no part in building.

I was also impressed with how well the author brought this horrible world to life. The descriptions of the bombed out villages and smoldering remains, the starving and/or bitter people trying to survive, even the happy, more prosperous moments that perfectly contrasted with the rest all did their part to drive home this singular time in history and the good and the bad that came out of it.

On top of all this the author included a great author's note and P.S. section that explains the origins of the story as well as an additional chapter not included in the hardcover version that better fills in a part of Ania's backstory, centered around the bombing of Dresden. These extra goodies are always the icing on the cake, especially with a story such as this that is so easy to get emotionally invested in.

The Women in the Castle has already made it onto my "best of" list for 2018! It's historical fiction at it's finest, shining light on a new (for me) angle of history that not only entertains but teaches us something as well. It's about the guilt of a nation and of individuals and the complicated battle between what can be deemed as forgivable, understandable, and forever contemptible. If you enjoy historical fiction make sure to put this one on your TBR pile!

This book is very well written with wonderful character development and a great arc to the storyline. It is World War II historical fiction, but is slightly different than a lot of the other books in that genre in that it features three female protagonists who are all German. Two are the wives of resistors and one is the wife of a Nazi soldier. The resistors were considered traitors when the Nazi party was in power, and were executed. They were later known as heroes after World War II when the true horrors of Hitler and the Nazi party were revealed.

The only reason I didn’t give this book more stars is that it is depressing. And I realize that all World War II novels can be dark due to the subject matter, but there wasn’t as much levity and lightness in this book as some of the others in its genre. The three women are very interesting characters, and the book examines how to balance survival with maintaining your moral compass. The women in the castle are essentially known as the keeper of women and children and were definitely survivors. But at what cost? Fascinating to look at the choices that people had to make up that time and how they learned to live with them.

The Women in the Castle is an interesting book, with a new angle on the postwar period, centered on three War widows who aren’t Nazi wives, but the wives of patriotic martyrs who tried to save Germany and kill Hitler. But since I listened to the Audiobook, I had to fight to discern the quality of the book since the narrator, Cassandra Campbell, undermines the story with her terrible reading. The three main characters, very different German women who have lived through a devastating war, are all voiced identically. Each one has the same breathy, high pitched voice, almost whispery, with questioning uptalk at the end of each sentence. I have many Germans in my family and none of them speak like an insipid cartoon Cinderella. Marianne, the main character, is strong and decisive but you wouldn’t know it from her soft babyish dialogue.

The narrator also has a peculiar vocal affectation, somewhat like the “Long Island lockjaw” that East Hampton society types use. She drawls bread so it sounds like “brad” and eggs are “aaags” etc. It’s distracting.

How bewildering that this terrible narration was ever marketed! I would have turned off the book, but was on a long car ride with no other audiobooks. I did have to pause the book often and just listen to the radio to regain sanity. The German women aren’t childish cartoon characters and they don’t deserve the insult of such trite enacting. The American voices in the book drop the babyish act, so clearly the narrator can do a normal female voice. Cassandra Campbell’s choices in narration are ridiculous. I’ll make sure to avoid her in the future.

I’ve read a fair amount of literature about World War II, but I’ve never read any from the German point of view, so I was intrigued by the plot line for The Women in the Castle.
I’ve always wondered how Germans viewed their involvement in the war, their complicity in the mass murder undertaken by the Nazi’s, in the evil that ruled the country for so many years. Did they claim ignorance of what Hitler’s army was doing before and during the war? Did they simply point their fingers at other citizens and lay responsibility elsewhere? Did they try to leave the past in the past and forget their involvement? Did they understand that their silence was complicity? Did they accept the shame and guilt and spend the remainder of their lives trying to find some semblance of absolution? As the granddaughter of Nazis, Jessica Shattuck tackles these questions with an earnest desire and clear moral compass to lay the blame squarely at the feet of the Germans while exposing the possibility that there are levels of blame and guilt. During the war, not all Germans were Nazis. Resistance fighters, rebel conspirators, informants, Nazi sympathizers, Nazi party members—all Germans. Some opposed the war, the Nuremberg laws, the anti-semitism. Others were enthusiastic Nazis who supported Hitler’s agenda. More than any other art form, writing allows us to climb inside a character’s soul, to reveal her inner life to us, her thoughts and motives, desires and justifications. As we turn the pages, we find ourselves feeling empathy for a character we know has done bad things. Suddenly judgement becomes sympathy. Focusing on three women with different backgrounds and varying ties to the Nazi party, Shattuck unveils how their lives converge during the war with survival as the only shared goal, sisterhood taking on life or death significance. But in the post war years, as their pasts catch up with them, the wartime survivors discover they cannot escape what they’ve done, discovering time and silence will not heal the results of morally blind decisions. Time and distance can provide clarity and perspective but never forgiveness. Forgiveness must be offered and accepted, and some histories don’t allow for either—the women of the castle discover this truth firsthand.

I know I'll be adding this one to my WWII favorites list. This story is told from a slightly different angle than normally found with WWII. This follows three women who are tested and pushed to the limit as war widows immediately after the war. Marianne von Lingenfels is the widow of a Nazi Resistor whose family was upper class. Much of the story takes place in the castles of her husband's ancestors. She's a bit of a do-gooder, rescuing family and friends, volunteering at the camps for displaced people, and remains very politically focused even after the war. Benita is the wife of Marianne's childhood friend, also the widow of a Nazi Resistor, but Benita comes from a humble farming area and has always relied on her beauty and charm to get ahead in life. Then there is Ania, whose background is a bit of a mystery throughout the book. She turns up in one of camps where Marianne is volunteering. Ania's husband was also a resistor, but we find there's much more to Ania's story than meets the eye. The story doesn't stop after the war is over, but we get a glimpse of the intervening years after the war, as Germany struggles to rebuild and define itself again. The women grow old, their children are grown, yet they still have the memories of the horrors of the war and their struggles to survive connecting them.

My first attempt to read this book was unsuccessful as I felt it was heavy reading. We were in the midst of moving out of state, and I needed something much lighter to read each evening. Sometimes too exhausted to read anything. But I finally read this book and it's well written fiction of a painful time in history. Real facts mixed with fiction so keep that in mind when you're reading the "story". It involves three fictional women who lived through and survived an ugly, dreadful, and killing period in history. I often wonder how history would of played out if "Operation Valkyrie" did succeed that day on July 20, 1944 in killing Hitler. Would he of been a hero in some people's eye's if he was murdered rather than his later suicide? The true reality of the German population was that many didn't even know anything about the camps. Many were left in the dark as to what was really going on while Hitler was trying to obtain power over the world. However, many top ranking Nazi's did know and said nothing. So I admire Valkyrie for his attempt to eliminate the monster Hitler became.And it cost him and his supporters their lives. The women that protected the children so they could survive the war should be honored for their bravery and love for keeping them safe and allowing them to have a future. This book really ran all the emotions while reading. Sometimes I had to just put it down for awhile. We have cousins that live in Germany. In 2005, we went there for a family reunion. We also visited Bergen Belsam (not sure I spelled correctly) which was a concentration camp (Anne Frank is buried there). It was dreadful visually and emotionally to look at. Our cousin, a retired doctor in Germany, asked my husband if this particular mass grave said 500 bodies or 5,000. My husband answered back 5,000. Our cousin started crying and just bawled, and once he could speak he said "and our people did this"?! We cannot even imagined what our ancestors went through. My husband's cousin and her family were constantly moving so the Nazi's couldn't capture them. They were Mennonite but persecuted like the Jews. Whenever they were able to stay in one place for awhile, my mother-in-law would mail them a care package of food and toys for the children. And as grown women now, the female cousins remember the dolls they received so many years ago. We were fortunate enough to live without that fear in the USA, but some of our parents and grandparents still in the old country weren't. So I just wanted to share "true" history with you. Today we are blessed, however, terrorists being the huge issue now seems overwhelming for our generation. And how much do we know about them? Hummm? Get the picture? Even the general population in Germany at that time knew very little. And it's a shame for all the different races and families touched by the Nazi's in history and the terrorists of today. We all need to band together, rise up , and fight any evil to keep our children safe so they may have a future as well.

Wow! As a World War II buff and an avid fiction reader this book came under my critical scrutiny and emerged as a winner! American born Jessica Shattuck has dealt with guilt dealing with her Nazi relatives in the Reich. In this novel she focuses her considerable novelistic focus on three amazing women in a time little explored by Americans.
The story deals with the widows of three conspirators in the failed plot of July 20, 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler. All of the husbands have been brutally executed in a wave of Nazi revenge. The women have survived the war. One of them the redoubtable Marianne von Lingenfels is living in her ancient family castle in Bavaria. She eventually takes in two more widows of the failed assassins. Benita is a beautiful woman whose husband Connie (nickname) was a brave conspirator vs. Hitler but also a womanizer. She has a intelligent son named Martin who later emigrates to the USA and is the most outstanding of the children of the women. The other woman Ania will become a farmer's wife. She has a secret about her past. She cared for children who were later sent to extermination camps. All of the women deal with issues of guilt and love. The novel is somber and reflective. Is guilt ever forgiven? The novel explores the generation of people who grew up under Nazi rule and somehow survived the war with their bodies intact but their emotional lives in shatters.
The novel is beautifully written and would make a fine motion picture with the right cast and director. Her descriptions of nature and understanding of this period of time is superb. Shattuck researched and wrote the book over a long seven year period. One of the best novels of the year!

The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck is an outstanding tale. One that brings me back to the past during the start of WWII. The lives that were lost, held captive, and tortured during this time brings back an unforgettable sadness. Families torn apart and gone...with only their memories living on...

I am a huge historical buff especially for WWII. Hitler is by far one of the worst devils ever presented to this world. How it went on for so long...still bugs me. The lives of the characters is amazing. The Holocaust and the German support of Hitler are explored on these pages.

Three women who are strong, determined, and battling their future head on...I instantly was taken with each of them. Their stories were so real. It was like I was living through each one of them. Brilliant story telling on Jessica Shattuck's part. Her book carries a lot of history as well as entertainment. Themes of survival, hope, and love are found in this novel. I highly recommend it to all readers. 

I received this copy from the publisher. This is my voluntary review.

I've read many books about Germany during World War II and usually these books focus on the Jewish population and the Holocaust. The Women in the Castle looks at German women during the war. The lives of the three characters are intertwined with Marianne the often dominant leader.

These three women were survivors and did a lot to survive. The reader is in the position to judge them. What would you have done? You see that all of the German people were not in favor of Hitler, but you also see how a person like Hitler can come to power. There is a lot of references to German guilt after the war.

At first I thought that there was a lot of skipping around in terms of time periods, but it works. You meet a character and then the author tellls you about their background.

The three women in fact live in a castle, but I think that the author is also playing on words. Marianne in fact lived in a castle in terms of her status in the German society before the war. That status effects the rest of her life. She never left that castle in terms of controlling the lives of the other two women. Although she tries to redeem herself at the end of the book, she did many things that changed the lives of the other two. The reader has to be the judge of these women.

I enjoy historical fiction, particularly when it is well done and this one certainly qualifies. This is set in Germany before, during, and after WWII. It tells the story of three German women, one is from an aristocratic family, thus the castle they are living in during the war. The women are from very different circumstances but their lives intertwine through shared experiences. The characters were engaging and as the book went on my feelings for it got stronger.

WWII novels are very popular now but I thought this one a little bit different. It does not downplay the atrocities of war but also did not go into detail that is often too painful to read. It touches on the question of how the Germans could go along with the horrors around them and does not attempt to justify but to explain. I think in any country terrible things go but for many it does not impact their lives and thus a lot of it is kept at arm's distance. This book gives one plenty to think about.

Ever since I read Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale, I've wanted to read more novels set during this time period. I find stories about women during World War II to be especially intriguing since it helps to paint a broader picture of what was going on in Europe. When I searched for similar books, this one showed up as a recommendation and I decided to borrow it from my local library.

The Women in the Castle is the story of three women who come to stay at the castle of Burg Lingenfels in Germany after the failed assassination attempt on Hitler. These women are the wives of the resistance and their husbands have either been killed or are alive and still fighting. Marianne, Benita, Ania and their families stay at the castle towards the end of the war where Marianne von Lingenfels takes care of them and protects them from the Nazis. Throughout their years together, they learn to help each other out while also managing to keep deep, dark secrets from each other.

I was really excited to read this novel. It started out interesting and intriguing but towards the middle, I lost interest because I had a hard time connecting with the characters. They were well-developed but it seemed like they were dull. Perhaps this was because of the time period which was obviously not a happy time but I've also read books set during this time where the characters were really brought to life and I felt like they jumped out of the pages. The ending was more interesting as it is set is more modern times so we get to see what happens to the characters after the war. I enjoyed reading about the German women since many books I've read are written from other points of view so this was another side I got to see.

Overall, I just thought this book was okay. It wasn't as interesting as I had hoped and I felt like I was just skimming over the middle part of the story. There were still some good parts of the story and I'm glad I gave it a chance. I've read some other historical fiction novels set during WWII in Germany that I enjoyed more and you may find this one interesting to read. I personally wasn't thrilled with it but others may still enjoy it.

I found The Women in the Castle to be a very captivating book to read. The blurb gives away quite a lot of the storyline in the book, or so one would think. Actually, it just skimmed the surface, gives the reader some fact, which when you start to read the book, when more of the women's past are revealed not to mention decision they make for the future really shows how little you know about them.

I liked getting a story about the women left after a failed assassin attempt on Adolf Hitler. How they coped with their life after their husbands were executed. Living in a place where people (servants, villagers, etc.) were actually happy with the failed attempt and trying to build up a new life after the war ended. I liked how the author managed to surprise me as the story progressed with twists to the story that I had not anticipated.

The Women in the Castle storyline stretches all the way to modern time and I was engrossed in following the lives of these three very different women that had to cope with losing so much during the war. It's a book I recommend warmly!

This is not the story of WWII nor is it the story of the holocaust, although those events are responsible for this story. This is the story of survival and friendship in the aftermath of a terrible time in history. Jessica Shattuck tells the story of three German women whose husbands were resistors and were killed for planning the assassination of Hitler.

When we meet Marianne von Lingenfels it is at her husband's aunt's annual party at the Castle, on the night that will become known as Kristallnacht. She happens upon a meeting of her husband and several other resistors plotting against Hitler. "Connie" Martin Constantine Fledermann, her childhood friend jokingly appoints her Commander of wives and children. She is annoyed, but this title and promise is what brings these three women together. After the war ends, Marianne finds Martin, Connie's son and Benita his wife, both in unsavory locations/situations and takes them with her to live in The Castle. Shortly after, she receives a call from an American Officer that they have located another wife and children of one of the names she gave them. She moves Ania and her two boys to The Castle from a Displaced Person's Camp. The story tells about the trials and tribulations these women and children had to deal with during this period. The dangers from roving Russian soldiers, the lack of food and water as well as other creature comforts, yet they were better off than many others. As the story unfolds we learn about their past and how it brought them to where they were and what will become of them in this "New Germany".

This story is one that needed to be told. I had not heard about what the citizens went through after the war. The scars that they had and the animosity between the resistors and the Nazis. Marianne was a strong woman who took a stand and helped others to the best of her ability. She was not perfect, but she was human. The plot had some slow spots but overall, kept me engaged and I enjoyed this story. A good one for historical fiction lovers. The publisher generously provided me with a copy of this book via Netgalley.

I really wanted to like this book. Set mostly in the defeated countryside of post-WWII Germany, it follows three very different German women who are united by fate, strong will, luck, and the ability to survive, along with an immense and finely-tuned ability to compartmentalize, rationalize and NOT see what they choose not to see. It has brilliant moments, such as a church service shortly after the war, when young Martin reflects on its calm beauty, thinking, "For this brief time, they were not hiding from one another, wearing their masks of cold and practical detachment . . . [providing] evidence that music, and art in general, are basic requirements of the human soul. Not a luxury but a compulsion." Many moments like this give the book a wide field of observations for book clubs to discuss.

But the moral complexity of the three women's lives, their decisions and indecisions, makes them difficult characters to like. Understand, yes, perhaps even empathize with at times, but like? Not so much. And, at least for me, it is difficult to truly enjoy a novel without characters to like. I think I would have liked Clotilde, Mary, Anselm, Martin and the others, but this is not really their story, although it is, because they are survivors, too. Perhaps the children deserve their own book? But the women's moral ambiguity, their cold and unforgiving spirit punctuated by moments of incredible kindness, left me more exhausted than uplifted. And after all they went through, they were still too often curiously detached and flatly unchanging. Pragmatism wins out over all?

I also did not love the book's structure of hop-scotching back and forth through time, commingling all three narratives. Just as the reader is getting in the rhythm of one character's life and circumstances, you are suddenly thrust foward or backwards into another story line. Perhaps the author wanted us to feel the uncertainty and overlapping nature of their lives and their secrets, but I felt it just created more distance between the reader and the three women. And I thought the photograph around which hinged a major plot development, was telegraphed a mile away and felt overly contrived.

Overall, this was an interesting book, but not one that I liked very well. It might be a good book club choice.

I received this book from a Goodreads giveaway. 4 star rating
The Women in the Castle captivated my interest from its 1938 Prologue description of the castle’s annual elegant Harvest Party given by the countess. Her nephew, the husband of the main character, and his elite German staff officer counterparts began to explore a plot to resist the destructive path and ugly aspirations of Germany’s leader by the assassination of Hitler. So begins the emotional, tragic story based on family and others’ recollections.
The story takes us through the lives of three characters through the war and post war up through 1991. The author alternates chapters detailing the extreme challenges/circumstances of each character and the intertwining of relationships during war and after. Shattuck’s often devastating descriptions of the horrors of war perhaps balance the misery of wartime and its rehabilitation with poignancy and grace.
A taste of the book I appreciated ~ excerpts Chapter 13 of Part I, December 1945 gives a taste of the rehabilitation: For a Christmas Day vespers service at the bombed out Catholic Church of the town near the Castle, the whole town seemed to attend. It featured the town’s “orchestra performing for the first time in years…. Then the service began….full of chanting in Latin, the smell of incense and unintelligible prayers. The stone floor and the walls magnified the cold, and Martin’s breath froze as he opened his mouth….When the priest finished a palpable sense of relief swept through the crowd. His words had brought no one peace --- penance, forgiveness, justice, sin --- these were still papery abstractions that could not begin to address the everyday realities of their lives.
Then the orchestra musicians took their places on chairs brought from their own homes and began tuning their instruments. Where had they managed to hide these over the past year? It seemed a miracle that the war would have spared anything so delicate as a harp or violin. When all were ready, the church fell silent. The bundled forms onstage sat poised with bows raised, breaths held. And the conductor, a small man wearing a battered felt hat, raised his baton. The stillness intensified, and the silence had a particular starving quality. This was why the people were here. To hear music. It had been so long.
At once, the conductor jerked his baton upward and the orchestra gathered itself and dove in. The music, Beethoven’s Ninth, opened with a blast: violins, trumpet, an explosion loud enough to knock thought and worry from the mind. It was reminiscent of war---thundering footsteps, the rumble of tanks, the screech and crack of airplanes overhead, an exploding bomb. The audience sat at attention, gripping their seats. Something small and gentle might have lost them. Something tender and they might have begun to cry and never stopped. They were there, but they were not strong. They would do anything to protect themselves from sadness.
Martin was swept up in the sound—no longer blood and bone, frozen feet and hungry belly, but an empty vessel filling with notes, carried by something older and bigger and more permanent than himself. This music had been played and heard before and would be again, not only her in this church, but in places all over the world, by people living in different circumstance…. These musicians and this audience were allowed for a fleeting instant, to climb on its back.

I knew absolutely nothing about The Women in the Castle before I started listening to it. I honestly thought it was a ghost story or a thriller. I was pleased to discover that it is historical fiction regarding three widows who live together in a Bavarian castle following World War II. Marianne von Lingenfels is the wife of a resister. Her husband and her closest friend were executed for their roles in an assassination attempt on Hitler. After the war, Marianne sets to find a rescue her friend's wife and son and the wives of the other men involved in the failed plot. Marianne, Benita and Ania and their children make their home in Marianne's castle while Germany tries to recover from the war.

The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck is so emotional and so amazing. As it discusses morality, guilt, love and redemption, it is a powerful novel that I will not soon forget. The audio version was fabulous. Cassandra Campbell delivered a wonderful performance that gave the book the right atmosphere.

Burg Lingenfels castle is the setting for a yearly gathering of German aristocrats. The countess of the castle has always encouraged intellectual sparring on liberal, bohemian or risque topics. Niece-in-law Marianne von Lingenfels hosts the festivities. Marianne's husband Albrecht, a university professor, and family friend Connie Fledermann, along with several other male guests are engaged in serious discussions in the study. Focusing on the world at large, Albrecht and Connie determine that they cannot sit back and allow Hitler to continue his policies. An assassination plot will be planned. Marianne, upon hearing the discussion, promises the full support of the wives. Connie asks her to be "commander of wives and children" if the plan goes awry. She readily agrees.

1944. The attempt on Hitler's life has failed. Albrecht, Connie and other conspirators are executed. Albrecht von Lingenfels was a descendant from a long line of revered generals. Perhaps this protected wife Marianne from scrutiny. Marianne began her search for war widows and children of conspirators. She located Connie's son Martin in a Children's Home where instructors taught the doctrine of racial purity. Benita, Connie's wife and Martin's mother, had been repeatedly raped but was now mistress of a Red Army Captain, hoping he would make inquiries about Martin. Marianne was able to reunite mother and son and bring them to the Bavarian castle.

A second widow, Ania Gruber with children in tow, was rescued from a displaced persons camp. Now three widows with their children lived in the castle. Widow co-dependence was based upon need. Each one had secrets and a cross to bear.

Marianne was a product of a strict Prussian upbringing. She was organized and efficient. Benita Fledermann was a country bumpkin and the love of Connie's life. Having a delicate nature, she was traumatized by her captivity and separation from Martin. Her health was compromised and she needed to regain her strength. Ania was a mystery. Having fled the Red Army, Ania and sons embarked upon a journey, hiding in the forest or walking toward the next piece of bread or place to rest. Ania and her children never smiled, seldom spoke. Three widows with children trying to deal with the stark realities of the present, haunted by secrets of the past.

"The Women in the Castle" by Jessica Shattuck showcases three women who find difficulty coming to terms with their individual guilt and shame during World War II. The secrets they keep prevent healing from personal trauma and overall crimes against humanity.

I am so impressed by this book and give it my highest recommendation. It is expertly written – beautiful lyrical prose that delves deep into the psyche of the varied characters. It is a story that gives up its many secrets slowly and keeps you turning the pages for answers, even as you worry the answers may be ones you cannot bear to know.

When I think about the Holocaust, about the cold facts of it I learned in school, my mind always goes to questions of “how?” How could Hitler have risen so easily to power? How could so many people have gone along with the mass murder, or have simply looked the other way? How could any of the survivors have continued on to lead seemingly average lives after the crimes they witnessed, endured, committed? Jessica Shattuck answers these questions with an insight that is impressive on so many levels. She writes from many points-of-view in the immediate and long-term aftermath of the war: the child of a German “traitor,” a formerly-devoted wife of a Nazi, a naïve bride of a German resistor, a former soldier haunted by his sins, a member of the resistance who survived only because she was a woman of aristocracy. In each, the author shines a light on humanity – on its many flaws and its many gifts.

Shattuck shows how easy it can be to feign ignorance, buckle to fear or turn a blind eye. She shows how simple it can seem to condemn others, pass judgment on their choices and claim the high moral ground, despite one’s own “blindness” and faults. This is a story about a heartbreaking time in human history, and the author took me through the roller coaster of emotions that rightfully go along with it – confusion, disgust, grief, anger, sorrow. In the end, though, I was uplifted by all the great things we are capable of as human beings – resilience, self-reflection, forgiveness, redemption, love. This is a book that will remain on my shelf to be shared and reread.

Three women in the castle, to be exact. Marianne is the principle player, a niece-in-law of an aging countess. The prologue opens at a grand party at the castle, where she and several men begin to discuss the assassination of Hitler. This, as with many of the story-threads, is based on a true story. Part 1 opens after the failed attempt and the hanging of the conspirators. Marianne alone has escaped noticed. Benita, widow now of Marianne’s best friend, arrives with her infant son Martin, to live at the castle. Although Marianne hopes to find the rest of the widows, only one is found: Ania, whose late husband Marianne is not sure she recalls. The post-war hardships are many, but the women and their nine children subsist on the bounty of their garden and help from a neighbor. Their lives are temporarily threatened by the soldiers of a Russian encampment outside the castle. Shattuck follows the characters forward into the 1950s and 1990s, but in flashbacks to their lives during the war, we learn that Benita and Ania have dark secrets. Shattuck structures her novel like a symphony, with the Prologue serving as the overture. With life returning to normal after the war, the final chapters feel like a coda, with each of the women having a musical signature that merges with the others at the end. I would place this high on my list of war novels that explore the human drama. It is especially fascinating to discover that the lives of the non-Jewish Germans were hanging by a thread as Hitler descended into madness.

I've always been drawn to books set during WWII and after awhile you think you've read it all -- and then The Women in the Castle comes along. Shattuck is a talented storyteller who has woven her plot around the perspective of three widows during the war. These women are very different, not always likable to the reader, but they firmly agree that Hitler's view of Germany is not their own. Their stories are compelling as they try to keep their families safe and fed during the war and later as they struggle with their guilt, grief and forgiveness.

The story is told via multiple characters and time frames but the plot and writing flows easily. Readers will quickly become invested in these three women as they struggle to pick up the pieces after the assassination attempt on Hitler fails. Times are hard, people are starving, everyone is suspicious of everyone else and yet its during this tumultuous time that an unlikely bond is formed between Marianne, Ania and Benita. Temperaments clash, emotions run high making their new friendships tenuous and when secrets are revealed the women deal with the stress, abuse, deprivations and even collusion in different ways and with varying results.

The strength of this book is in its storytelling, it's rich characterizations and Shattuck's focus on the rise of Nazism through the eyes of German citizens. Many people wonder how the German people could allow Hitler to take control and commit such atrocities and I think Shattuck opens the door to that discussion. I found the post-war scenes most illuminating as regular citizens struggled with guilt over their complicity, not acknowledging the horrors around them at the time or not resisting enough. War isn't always black and white. It's scary, confusing and murky at best and while the atrocities committed in the name of Nazism are not condoned, Shattuck shows her readers how regular people could get caught up in the constant rhetoric, deprivation and all-encompassing fear that pervaded Germany at the time.

This is a well-written story shows the strength and resiliency of women during extreme times. I applaud the author's unique and fresh perspective on a very popular genre and era. This book would be an excellent book club selection.

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to Bonnier Zaffre (UK) for providing me with a complimentary e-book copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

SUMMARY
November 9, 1938, the Countess Von Lingerfel and her niece-in-law Marianne were hosting the bohemian annual harvest party at the old family castle in Bavaria. It was perhaps a final night to enjoy some reasonable company. Germany was on the verge of disaster. During the party, Marianne's workaholic husband, Albrecht, and a small group of friends, critical of the Nazi's had gathered in the castle library. They had just heard the news of Goebbels' order to insight rioting and destroy Jewish property. Decisions were made in the library that night to actively collude against the Hitler regime. Something had to be done. Marianne was asked to take charge of caring for the wives and children of these men should something happen to them.

The resistors' July 20, 1944, plot to assassinate Hitler failed. All the resistors who had been in the library that night were exterminated. It was Marianne's time to act. First, she was able to rescue the once beautiful and naïve Benita from Russian soldiers in Berlin, and she then found Benita's son, Martin, in an children's home in Thuringa. Sometime later, Marianne located Ania, and her two boys, Anselm and Wolfgang, who had been languishing in the Tollingen Displaced Persons Camp. Marianne, Benita and Ania and their six children, made their home within the kitchen of the ancient, crumbling castle, Burg Lingenfels. They formed a unique family, each full of deep pains and dark secrets. All three women desperately tried to grasp onto that which would help them recover from the choices and actions of the past several years.

REVIEW
The Women in the Castle is a must read for historical fiction fans. It's focus is the recovery of the most tumultuous period in the 20th century. It's a dramatic story of loss, survival, recovery and strength of three very different women with very different experiences. The relationships of the women are complex and poignant.

Shattuck's writing is clear and wonderfully descriptive. Her elaborate descriptions of the castle the night of the harvest party and then in the postwar refugee period were impossible to forget. The stories of Marianne, Benita and Ania are hauntingly powerful.

Women in the Castle's perspective of the resistance and postwar recovery period is refreshingly interesting and unique. It will perhaps broaden the way you look at World War II and may even make you think more critically about current events.

This book perspective is very personal for author, Jessica Shadduck. She dedicated this book to her mother and grandmother. Shattuck shared in an editorial on March 24, 2017, that her grandparents had joined the Nazi party in 197, to become youth leaders in an agricultural education program. Shadduck was more than likely able to use her grandmother's experience to create this breathtaking book, which was most certainly written from her heart.

Other books by Jessica Shaddick included The Hazards of Good Breeding, 2004, and Perfect Life, 2010.

Thanks to Netgalley and Bonnier Zaffre for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

When you compare how many books are written about the perpetrators of the Holocaust vs books on the brave people who tried to stop the face of evil. Well, the scales are rather imbalanced. Regardless of whether it would have changed the outcome of history or not, at least they tried. Against all odds, they tried.
Marianne thinks she needs to keep her promise to protect the women and children of her husband’s co-conspirators. That in itself is a noble thing to do, and she does in fact save Benita, Ania and their children in her own way, however Marianne can be very judgemental at the same time.
The pain, horror and difficulties of those considered to be the guilty party tend to be swept under the rug. After everything the people of Germany did, and their collaborators of course, why would anyone feel any pity towards them? The author gives the reader a flavour of some of those post-war difficulties. This doesn’t mean she excuses or shifts the blame, she just tries to remind us that in war there is a lot of collateral damage, and the lines between guilt and innocence are often very blurry.
Towards the end of the book there are conversations between Ania and her daughter Mary. They are reminiscent of conversations, questions and clarifications Jessica Shattuck had with her own grandmother about her past.( I loved my grandmother, but she was a Nazi) Shattuck has tried to align the image she has of her grandmother with that of her past as a member of the Nazi party.

Many scholars and historians have spoken of a collective criminality, responsibility and guilt when it comes to the Nazi era. Men and women, who under normal circumstances would never have committed crimes, are guilty of participating in and allowing the worst of atrocities.
No matter how hard Shattuck looks for an explanation there will never be a satisfactory answer. The majority of these men and women weren’t sociopaths, psychopaths or sadists. The majority of them were normal people in the midst of a mass movement of propaganda, patriotism and not so subtle brainwashing, who did condone and commit sadistic crimes. They looked the other way and chose to believe the truth of the concentration camps was merely Allied propaganda. It’s easier to ignore than to accept that you are part of the problem.
The one thing Shattuck can and should take away from all of her literary attempts to alleviate some genetic sense of guilt, is that the descendants are not to blame for the sins, mistakes or crimes of their ancestors.
The Women in the Castle is a well balanced read. It considers both sides of the coin, and most importantly the collaboration of both sides to attempt to rebuild lives after the war. Marianne, Ania and Benita are mothers and friends, there aren’t just women influenced and driven by the choices of their past.
It is tale of friendship, hardship and ultimately one of loyalty. Shattuck delivers the harsh reality of war in a direct and no nonsense way. There is no need for violins or overly dramatic scenes. The truth is sufficient. Definitely an author I will be revisiting again.
*I received a free copy of this book courtesy of the publisher via Edelweiss.*

This book is quite remarkable in many ways. It is about post WWII Germany and depicts a number of fictional characters who were German citizens who hated the Nazis and Hitler. Most of this group were German aristocrats, and actually it was real German aritocrats who plotted an assination attempt on HItler in July of 1944. The real historical plot was a failure, and it was also a failure in this book, and a lot of the members of the German Resistance who participated in it were either hung as traitors or sent to concentration camps. So Ms. Shattuck has explored what could have happened to the wives and children left behind after the arrests of these resistors. In this book, three women and their children make their way back from bomb damaged Berlin to a decrepit Bavarian castle owned by one of the women's families. They attempt to make a life for themselves and their children in a Germany that is trying to recover from all the physical damage inflicted on their country at the end of the war. It is a Germany that will never be the same. This book is breathtaking in scope. The timeline for the book is from 1944 to 1991. The majority of the book is centered in Germany at the von Lingenfels castle where Marianne has assembled her small group of refugees. Marianne von Lingenfels' husband was involved in the July 1944 assination plot and he was hung by the Nazis. She and her three children, along with the wife of her best friend and their son are the first to arrive. Not long afterwards, another woman finds her way there with her two sons. These strong, remarkable women endure hardship and privation, but still manage to make lives for themselves and their children in the old castle. This is an important book because Shattuck's beautiful prose and the clear direction of her plot illuminate this not very well known timeframe and setting. The story of these brave women is one that should be read. It makes us fully understand the strength and determination of the human race and what can be accomplished with hard work and conviction.

I was very impressed by this book. The story starts during a party on Burg Lingenfels in the late 1930-ties. The husband of Marianne von Lingenfelt, her childhood friend Connie and some others decide after long deliberations to overthrow Hitler because they see him as evil. That is the only moment I have doubts about the book as the guys join the Von Stauffenberg putch but that takes place in 1944 so why wait that long?

Marianne, flat chested and bony, is married to her old university professor. She seems to have a happy marriage but it seems more a good partnership than a passionate love affair. During the party at the beginning of the book Connie kisses her and I believe this man is the love of her life. Someone she was in love with as a teenager but who never noticed her as more than a friend she thought. And then he kisses her like that and introduces her to his pregnant fiancee Benita a beautiful young girl and she wonders what to think of it all. Reading the book we learn that he always called Marianne The judge and said to Benita Marianne could be so cruel. What has Marianne wondening why.

Then the story jumps to 1945. The husbands are all executed and Marianne sets out to find Benita and Connie's son. They are joined by Ania another widow who hides a secret. The women try to survive in the ruined castle dealing with famine, former Nazies and raiding Russians.

The book ends in 1991 and a very old Marianne is asked to speech at a book presentation in Burg Langenfels that is now a New Age, human rights center. Marianne realises that she is unworthy of all the praise. That she was indeed a harsch judge all those years ago who put herself on a moral high horse and time has come to forgive and be forgiven. Meanwhile the daughter of a Nazi and the son of the man executed by the Nazies make love.

To prevent spoilers I cannot delve too much into the story but I was very impressed by this book. The story deals with all the muddy details of the war and the time after the war. Like one of the children was in a Nazi-home but thinks back kindly to the lady who ran it It reminded me of my elderly neighbour who worked in Germany as forced labourer but called the farmer Mutti (mother) and even years after the war when he was married would go to visit the old German woman. Landowners getting shot by advancing Russians, the rapes, the bombed out houses, the refugee trails, the movies showing concentration camps, the youth camps of the Nazies when they were still fun, the moments that people realise mass killings take place, the condemnation of people who did not do wrongs, the ways people try to pay for their sins or not.

It is a book you cannot stop reading and then you will think about it for days afterwards.

Marianne von Lingenfels is a strong controlling German woman who instinctively knows how to navigate around obstacles to gets things done. After WWII she finds 2 of the widows and children of resistance fighters and shelters them at her family’s disintegrating castle. Very clear on right and wrong; she is furious at her fellow Germans’ denial of their complicity in the murder of millions of innocents, and emphatically expresses her disdain and indignation to them.

But while Marianne sees the larger picture of life, she misses key details about those she is sheltering and others. She doesn’t realize that Ania and her sons, and Benita feel they cannot confide in her.

Later she learns how her repressed feelings of attraction toward her childhood friend, Connie and her jealousy of Benita for marrying him, little grief or mourning for Albrecht, her husband, her cruel interference in Benita’s life caused irreparable harm. And her judgmental behavior toward Ania on seeing Brandt at the castle was responsible for an unnecessary many years rift between Ania and herself. She is remorseful and tries to make amends but realizes that she needs to start over in another country.

Very readable yet filled with lots of well-described personalities, thoughts and action.

Leaves me with a number of questions about traditional gender identities, social responsibility, can a whole nation demonstrate remorse, and why were former nazis NOT PROSECUTED and allowed to return to their regular lives?

Three women in the castle, to be exact. Marianne is the principle player, a niece-in-law of an aging countess. The prologue opens at a grand party at the castle, where she and several men begin to discuss the assassination of Hitler. This, as with many of the story-threads, is based on a true story. Part 1 opens after the failed attempt and the hanging of the conspirators. Marianne alone has escaped noticed. Benita, widow now of Marianne’s best friend, arrives with her infant son Martin, to live at the castle. Although Marianne hopes to find the rest of the widows, only one is found: Ania, whose late husband Marianne is not sure she recalls. The post-war hardships are many, but the women and their nine children subsist on the bounty of their garden and help from a neighbor. Their lives are temporarily threatened by the soldiers of a Russian encampment outside the castle. Shattuck follows the characters forward into the 1950s and 1990s, but in flashbacks to their lives during the war, we learn that Benita and Ania have dark secrets. Shattuck structures her novel like a symphony, with the Prologue serving as the overture. With life returning to normal after the war, the final chapters feel like a coda, with each of the women having a musical signature that merges with the others at the end. I would place this high on my list of war novels that explore the human drama. It is especially fascinating to discover that the lives of the non-Jewish Germans were hanging by a thread as Hitler descended into madness.

I've always been drawn to books set during WWII and after awhile you think you've read it all -- and then The Women in the Castle comes along. Shattuck is a talented storyteller who has woven her plot around the perspective of three widows during the war. These women are very different, not always likable to the reader, but they firmly agree that Hitler's view of Germany is not their own. Their stories are compelling as they try to keep their families safe and fed during the war and later as they struggle with their guilt, grief and forgiveness.

The story is told via multiple characters and time frames but the plot and writing flows easily. Readers will quickly become invested in these three women as they struggle to pick up the pieces after the assassination attempt on Hitler fails. Times are hard, people are starving, everyone is suspicious of everyone else and yet its during this tumultuous time that an unlikely bond is formed between Marianne, Ania and Benita. Temperaments clash, emotions run high making their new friendships tenuous and when secrets are revealed the women deal with the stress, abuse, deprivations and even collusion in different ways and with varying results.

The strength of this book is in its storytelling, it's rich characterizations and Shattuck's focus on the rise of Nazism through the eyes of German citizens. Many people wonder how the German people could allow Hitler to take control and commit such atrocities and I think Shattuck opens the door to that discussion. I found the post-war scenes most illuminating as regular citizens struggled with guilt over their complicity, not acknowledging the horrors around them at the time or not resisting enough. War isn't always black and white. It's scary, confusing and murky at best and while the atrocities committed in the name of Nazism are not condoned, Shattuck shows her readers how regular people could get caught up in the constant rhetoric, deprivation and all-encompassing fear that pervaded Germany at the time.

This is a well-written story shows the strength and resiliency of women during extreme times. I applaud the author's unique and fresh perspective on a very popular genre and era. This book would be an excellent book club selection.

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to Bonnier Zaffre (UK) for providing me with a complimentary e-book copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

SUMMARY
November 9, 1938, the Countess Von Lingerfel and her niece-in-law Marianne were hosting the bohemian annual harvest party at the old family castle in Bavaria. It was perhaps a final night to enjoy some reasonable company. Germany was on the verge of disaster. During the party, Marianne's workaholic husband, Albrecht, and a small group of friends, critical of the Nazi's had gathered in the castle library. They had just heard the news of Goebbels' order to insight rioting and destroy Jewish property. Decisions were made in the library that night to actively collude against the Hitler regime. Something had to be done. Marianne was asked to take charge of caring for the wives and children of these men should something happen to them.

The resistors' July 20, 1944, plot to assassinate Hitler failed. All the resistors who had been in the library that night were exterminated. It was Marianne's time to act. First, she was able to rescue the once beautiful and naïve Benita from Russian soldiers in Berlin, and she then found Benita's son, Martin, in an children's home in Thuringa. Sometime later, Marianne located Ania, and her two boys, Anselm and Wolfgang, who had been languishing in the Tollingen Displaced Persons Camp. Marianne, Benita and Ania and their six children, made their home within the kitchen of the ancient, crumbling castle, Burg Lingenfels. They formed a unique family, each full of deep pains and dark secrets. All three women desperately tried to grasp onto that which would help them recover from the choices and actions of the past several years.

REVIEW
The Women in the Castle is a must read for historical fiction fans. It's focus is the recovery of the most tumultuous period in the 20th century. It's a dramatic story of loss, survival, recovery and strength of three very different women with very different experiences. The relationships of the women are complex and poignant.

Shattuck's writing is clear and wonderfully descriptive. Her elaborate descriptions of the castle the night of the harvest party and then in the postwar refugee period were impossible to forget. The stories of Marianne, Benita and Ania are hauntingly powerful.

Women in the Castle's perspective of the resistance and postwar recovery period is refreshingly interesting and unique. It will perhaps broaden the way you look at World War II and may even make you think more critically about current events.

This book perspective is very personal for author, Jessica Shadduck. She dedicated this book to her mother and grandmother. Shattuck shared in an editorial on March 24, 2017, that her grandparents had joined the Nazi party in 197, to become youth leaders in an agricultural education program. Shadduck was more than likely able to use her grandmother's experience to create this breathtaking book, which was most certainly written from her heart.

Other books by Jessica Shaddick included The Hazards of Good Breeding, 2004, and Perfect Life, 2010.

Thanks to Netgalley and Bonnier Zaffre for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

When you compare how many books are written about the perpetrators of the Holocaust vs books on the brave people who tried to stop the face of evil. Well, the scales are rather imbalanced. Regardless of whether it would have changed the outcome of history or not, at least they tried. Against all odds, they tried.
Marianne thinks she needs to keep her promise to protect the women and children of her husband’s co-conspirators. That in itself is a noble thing to do, and she does in fact save Benita, Ania and their children in her own way, however Marianne can be very judgemental at the same time.
The pain, horror and difficulties of those considered to be the guilty party tend to be swept under the rug. After everything the people of Germany did, and their collaborators of course, why would anyone feel any pity towards them? The author gives the reader a flavour of some of those post-war difficulties. This doesn’t mean she excuses or shifts the blame, she just tries to remind us that in war there is a lot of collateral damage, and the lines between guilt and innocence are often very blurry.
Towards the end of the book there are conversations between Ania and her daughter Mary. They are reminiscent of conversations, questions and clarifications Jessica Shattuck had with her own grandmother about her past.( I loved my grandmother, but she was a Nazi) Shattuck has tried to align the image she has of her grandmother with that of her past as a member of the Nazi party.

Many scholars and historians have spoken of a collective criminality, responsibility and guilt when it comes to the Nazi era. Men and women, who under normal circumstances would never have committed crimes, are guilty of participating in and allowing the worst of atrocities.
No matter how hard Shattuck looks for an explanation there will never be a satisfactory answer. The majority of these men and women weren’t sociopaths, psychopaths or sadists. The majority of them were normal people in the midst of a mass movement of propaganda, patriotism and not so subtle brainwashing, who did condone and commit sadistic crimes. They looked the other way and chose to believe the truth of the concentration camps was merely Allied propaganda. It’s easier to ignore than to accept that you are part of the problem.
The one thing Shattuck can and should take away from all of her literary attempts to alleviate some genetic sense of guilt, is that the descendants are not to blame for the sins, mistakes or crimes of their ancestors.
The Women in the Castle is a well balanced read. It considers both sides of the coin, and most importantly the collaboration of both sides to attempt to rebuild lives after the war. Marianne, Ania and Benita are mothers and friends, there aren’t just women influenced and driven by the choices of their past.
It is tale of friendship, hardship and ultimately one of loyalty. Shattuck delivers the harsh reality of war in a direct and no nonsense way. There is no need for violins or overly dramatic scenes. The truth is sufficient. Definitely an author I will be revisiting again.
*I received a free copy of this book courtesy of the publisher via Edelweiss.*

This book is quite remarkable in many ways. It is about post WWII Germany and depicts a number of fictional characters who were German citizens who hated the Nazis and Hitler. Most of this group were German aristocrats, and actually it was real German aritocrats who plotted an assination attempt on HItler in July of 1944. The real historical plot was a failure, and it was also a failure in this book, and a lot of the members of the German Resistance who participated in it were either hung as traitors or sent to concentration camps. So Ms. Shattuck has explored what could have happened to the wives and children left behind after the arrests of these resistors. In this book, three women and their children make their way back from bomb damaged Berlin to a decrepit Bavarian castle owned by one of the women's families. They attempt to make a life for themselves and their children in a Germany that is trying to recover from all the physical damage inflicted on their country at the end of the war. It is a Germany that will never be the same. This book is breathtaking in scope. The timeline for the book is from 1944 to 1991. The majority of the book is centered in Germany at the von Lingenfels castle where Marianne has assembled her small group of refugees. Marianne von Lingenfels' husband was involved in the July 1944 assination plot and he was hung by the Nazis. She and her three children, along with the wife of her best friend and their son are the first to arrive. Not long afterwards, another woman finds her way there with her two sons. These strong, remarkable women endure hardship and privation, but still manage to make lives for themselves and their children in the old castle. This is an important book because Shattuck's beautiful prose and the clear direction of her plot illuminate this not very well known timeframe and setting. The story of these brave women is one that should be read. It makes us fully understand the strength and determination of the human race and what can be accomplished with hard work and conviction.

I was very impressed by this book. The story starts during a party on Burg Lingenfels in the late 1930-ties. The husband of Marianne von Lingenfelt, her childhood friend Connie and some others decide after long deliberations to overthrow Hitler because they see him as evil. That is the only moment I have doubts about the book as the guys join the Von Stauffenberg putch but that takes place in 1944 so why wait that long?

Marianne, flat chested and bony, is married to her old university professor. She seems to have a happy marriage but it seems more a good partnership than a passionate love affair. During the party at the beginning of the book Connie kisses her and I believe this man is the love of her life. Someone she was in love with as a teenager but who never noticed her as more than a friend she thought. And then he kisses her like that and introduces her to his pregnant fiancee Benita a beautiful young girl and she wonders what to think of it all. Reading the book we learn that he always called Marianne The judge and said to Benita Marianne could be so cruel. What has Marianne wondening why.

Then the story jumps to 1945. The husbands are all executed and Marianne sets out to find Benita and Connie's son. They are joined by Ania another widow who hides a secret. The women try to survive in the ruined castle dealing with famine, former Nazies and raiding Russians.

The book ends in 1991 and a very old Marianne is asked to speech at a book presentation in Burg Langenfels that is now a New Age, human rights center. Marianne realises that she is unworthy of all the praise. That she was indeed a harsch judge all those years ago who put herself on a moral high horse and time has come to forgive and be forgiven. Meanwhile the daughter of a Nazi and the son of the man executed by the Nazies make love.

To prevent spoilers I cannot delve too much into the story but I was very impressed by this book. The story deals with all the muddy details of the war and the time after the war. Like one of the children was in a Nazi-home but thinks back kindly to the lady who ran it It reminded me of my elderly neighbour who worked in Germany as forced labourer but called the farmer Mutti (mother) and even years after the war when he was married would go to visit the old German woman. Landowners getting shot by advancing Russians, the rapes, the bombed out houses, the refugee trails, the movies showing concentration camps, the youth camps of the Nazies when they were still fun, the moments that people realise mass killings take place, the condemnation of people who did not do wrongs, the ways people try to pay for their sins or not.

It is a book you cannot stop reading and then you will think about it for days afterwards.

Marianne von Lingenfels is a strong controlling German woman who instinctively knows how to navigate around obstacles to gets things done. After WWII she finds 2 of the widows and children of resistance fighters and shelters them at her family’s disintegrating castle. Very clear on right and wrong; she is furious at her fellow Germans’ denial of their complicity in the murder of millions of innocents, and emphatically expresses her disdain and indignation to them.

But while Marianne sees the larger picture of life, she misses key details about those she is sheltering and others. She doesn’t realize that Ania and her sons, and Benita feel they cannot confide in her.

Later she learns how her repressed feelings of attraction toward her childhood friend, Connie and her jealousy of Benita for marrying him, little grief or mourning for Albrecht, her husband, her cruel interference in Benita’s life caused irreparable harm. And her judgmental behavior toward Ania on seeing Brandt at the castle was responsible for an unnecessary many years rift between Ania and herself. She is remorseful and tries to make amends but realizes that she needs to start over in another country.

Very readable yet filled with lots of well-described personalities, thoughts and action.

Leaves me with a number of questions about traditional gender identities, social responsibility, can a whole nation demonstrate remorse, and why were former nazis NOT PROSECUTED and allowed to return to their regular lives?

I don't read WWII Holocaust books--they are just too disturbing and depress me for weeks on end. However, I decided to read this one as it mainly takes place after the war with only snippets going back in time to the actual war without too much detail. The story is told from the perspective of the wife of a German resister, who was put to death in an early attempt to assassinate Hitler, and her attempts to help the widows and children of the husbands who died with her husband.

I could help but think of what is happening today as the main character talks about a Hitler's rise to power--from his early speeches about hard work, having fun, and making Germany great again which drew the German people in, then to his subtle move to who was to blame for Germany's problems, and finally to the solutions to the those problems. One statement in the book was especially thought provoking: "what does it take for a person to be able to recognize evil as it unfolds?"

Another thought provoking moment occurs towards the end of the book when the main characters, who are women in the 80s now, are thinking about their children and grandchildren in America and thinking about how carefree their grandchildren are and the comment is made that "Americans can face the world with open arms, because the world hasn't yet come to knock it down."

Shattuck has taken a page from Scott Fitzgerald by way of making every word count. Her sentences are short and concise. Granted, as each chapter has a point, she does often take the long road in getting there, but once the destination has been reached, it blossoms.
Obviously the complainers with their one stars reviews, are easily dismissed, as it stands clear that they have no concept of history and the way it boils down to the individuals who survived...or didn't.
I have been critical of a number of women writers (i.e. Ruth Ware) for being both predictable and needlessly profane. But Jessica Shuttuck writes with intelligence, and "The Women in the Castle" was a master work. The reader of this audio version, Cassandra Campbell, helped bring the piece to life. A book worth reading, lest we forget the monster Hitler was, and the shame that clouded the people who endured it.

Reading this, like reading almost anything set in Nazi Germany, was like getting repeatedly punched in the gut. But, it was excellently written and very thought-provoking. The characters are all distinct, multi-dimensional, and very human. How did millions of Germans become Nazi's? The book explores the war from before, during, and after. Hitler didn't start out his political career as the Hitler we think of today, and many Germans thought Fascism promised something very different than what it became. What does it take to have the courage to stand up to evil, and--just as important--recognize what is evil in the first place? What makes us lie to ourselves and turn a blind eye? What does it take to wake us up? What will we risk to stand for good and against evil, and what do those risks cost?

Content wise, this is not an easy read. Rape, war crimes, murder of children, and some sex scenes are all present.

I appreciated the parts set after the war--how does a country and a people recover from committing and suffering through such atrocities? Does moving forward mean changing, forgetting, both? What responsibility do we have for evil committed in our past?

All in all a difficult but thought-provoking read. Excellent character development, beautiful prose, and important questions.

I was really surprised by this one and the direction it took. It is not common among WWII books to be about Germans and Nazi's and painting them in a compassionate light. I think the author did this well and with great care (which I found out more about in the Author's Note at the end).

I really liked that this book continually made me put myself in the shoes of each of the characters; I was at once a young girl trying to escape her peasant past and dreaming of a better life with a strong man. I was then a self-righteous yet burdened wife of a resister coming to terms with my role in the war. And lastly, I was a young German blinded by the atrocities around me as well as those I was committing.

Jessica Shattuck did a wonderful job of putting me in each of these roles and helping me to understand the characters choices, their lives and the way they live with themselves after the war is over. It was a new and fresh perspective for me and I enjoyed that it stretched me and made me really think about the choices we make and under what circumstances.

4.5 stars
She was aggressive, a doer, a responsible person who felt committed to the task that she accepted years ago, her name was Marianne. I felt that she would have done more but the year was 1938 and as the party was in full swing, the husbands plotting secretly against the government behind closed doors, Marianne finds them and she anxiously wants to do her part. She waits, finally a part is given to her, Marianne has a responsibility, someplace where she can help.

It’s now time for Marianne to fulfill her promise, she must find the women and children of these men, the resistors, who were plotting against the government and care for them. It is not an easy task and I was surprised that Marianne doesn’t find very many of these individuals. Locating Benita and Anita, she brings them back to the castle. These women bring with them such diverse and captivating stories that by the time the novel is finished, I am glad that Marianne only found these two women as I enjoyed what relationship these three shared.

I had to laugh at Anita many times as I thought that she had her head in the clouds or perhaps she just didn’t want to face reality. Then there was Benita, this girl had my emotions all over the place. I loved her one minute and then I was screaming at her a couple chapters later. Sometimes she was fun and loving and other times, she got so serious. Marianne took her responsibilities seriously and she was a strong character. I thought of her like a shepherd keeping everyone and everything together. I loved the setting of this novel, the uninhabitable castle. The large cold rooms giving way to the large kitchen, where finally some heat was felt. As the heat made its way to the room above, the women all gathered upstairs in that one room to rest. From outside, you could see how isolated this landmark was, but again, it also was a special place to be in. I enjoyed reading about these women and their lives, it wasn’t just about the war, it was much more.

I received a copy of this novel from a Goodreads First Reads Giveaway. Thank you Goodreads and William Morrow.

The story opens with an eccentric German family holding a summer soiree at the family castle. It is Krystal Nacht and the march of the Third Reich is now seemingly unstoppable. Some brave souls have already realised that the serpents head must be cut off to kill the beast – but that is for another day.

This is the story of three women who are thrown together by circumstance and despite a striking lack of commonality they all manage to find enough in their disposition to be able to care for one another. Benita, Maria and Ania are all women with a past and the story flits from that past to the present and one by one we get all the back stories of each of them.

The way it is written we are almost invited to judge each of them based on initial impressions but then as more of their true selves are revealed the masks fall away revealing lives that have been full of struggle, love and often bad decisions. We also see how a mistake made without really understanding what it is can haunt you for all your remaining days.

The ignorance of the German people towards the Nazi regime is fully explored as is the aftermath of the War and the retributions wrought on the country. It is a book that is compelling, engaging, intimate and beautifully written. It took eight years to write and as such this truly proves that good things are worth waiting for – an excellent book that is very easy to recommend.

This superb novel starts in 1938, in a grand old crumbling German castle owned by a Countess who is not on the side of the Nazis. In fact, she is politically incorrect for her time and place. Her nephew, Albrecht Lingenfels, was part of a resistance group that attempted and failed to assassinate Hitler, and was executed for his "crime," along with many others. His widow, Marianne, is a cultured, pragmatic and plain looking wife, mother, and activist, and has promised to take care of her fellow widows of resistors after the war. For Marianne, there is right and wrong, and she never had a problem choosing her politics, even if it wasn't popular during the war to be a German woman that was outraged by Hitler and his policies. Her best friend and almost-once lover, Connie Flederman, was also executed for his part in the resistance, and left behind a very young widow, Benita, and five-year-old son, Martin.

During the post-War period, when most of the action takes place, Marianne finds Martin and Benita, separated from each other, and brings them to the now ruined castle. With help from the American military, she locates a woman she didn't know before, Ania Grabanek, who has suffered severe deprivation and mistreatment. Marianne brings her and her children to the castle, also. All three women are attempting to build a future and amend the past. The story, while not filled with dazzling plot points or pulse-pounding pacing, takes its time to develop the characters, so that the truly searing (and often quotidian) events affect us organically.

The women have their own crosses to bear, and this is when it departs from typical Holocaust literature. As often as I've read WW II literature about the enemies of Germany, I've not read much about the ambivalence of native Germans or those that adopted Germany as their home. Hindsight is 20/20, but at the time of the war, most Germans were ripe for the propaganda machine. Many who were struggling wanted nothing more than to see the country united and flush. Sound familiar? There is definitely a kindred spark that relates to America in 2016. What will we say in 50 years when we look back at our current leader? Many everyday Germans had no idea that Hitler was the embodiment of evil, or that his cruelties, including genocide, were happening around them. They just wanted to be safe and secure again.

As the timeline alternates, we become installed in the lives of these women, and how their pasts led them to their present circumstances. The narrative is gritty, realistic, and vivid. Nobody is all virtuous; in fact, there's enough moral ambiguity to go around. Mistakes are made that cause irreparable tragedies, and each woman has blind spots that burden their lives. It wasn't a flashy page-turner, but I was fully installed in the story. Shattuck has evolved since her splendid The Hazards of Good Breeding, which was a story restricted to an elite, privileged family in Boston. In The Women in the Castle, Shattuck raises the bar by writing about European women of varied classes and backgrounds, with a nuanced portrayal of each character.

The novel spans about 50 years, but the chapters that are set in the 1990s seemed more like an epilogue to me. If you are expecting "feminine literature," you may be surprised. The author writes with an assured and confident style that transcends the niche of gender writing. This rich tapestry of historically relevant events takes a fresh perspective and should be required reading for all literature lovers, and anyone who is interested in the lesser known history--and its shadows--of modern times.

Jessica Shattuck offers the reader a riveting prospective on how three women from different walks of life and their children deal with the years before and after World War ll. Germany is the primary setting where each unique story is revealed. Marianne Von Lingenfels is a well born, confident woman. Her husband worked in the Foreign Office. He along with like minded individuals plotted to assassinate Hitler. When it failed, they paid with their lives. Connie Fledermann was her close friend and one of the conspirators. He married Benita, a dreamer who wanted to escape her rural existence. She desired a life of beauty and luxury, but that was taken away. Marianne had promised Connie to protect his wife and child. She rescued her and brought her to the castle. The third woman is Ania. She is a stoic who joined the Nazi Party. She and her husband ran a youth lager. She believed in Hitler's rhetoric until the party's inhumanity was inescapable. She takes her boys and flees. Marianne takes her in. At the Castle their lives intertwine. They support each other as they move forward and build a new future out of destruction. The characters are multilayered and compelling. The story pulled me in and held my attention. The author took her time revealing each of their stories. It increased the emotional impact. The Women in the Castle is beautifully told and allowed me to see how our position in society influences how we act and what we believe in.
I won a copy of this book which I voluntarily read. My comments are my honest opinions.

The Women in the Castle is the story of three women. There was Marianne, hard-lined, judgmental, righteous, and highly principled. Benita, the softer and more beautiful of the women, was married to the man Marianne secretly loved. Ania was the woman who was most sensible, sensitive, and realistic. These women were to take care of each other and their children. Sadly, it takes Marianne a lifetime to realize how blind, overbearing, and intrusive she was regarding her friends.

An assassination attempt on Hitler is part of the story, but it’s a storyline that lacks depth. The Resistance is also there, albeit very unconvincingly.

The story takes place before, during, shortly after and long after World War II. It became choppy and confusing the way time jumped around. This writing style was very ineffective. It was as though the author couldn’t get her thoughts organized. Also unclear was who was being written about; the subject matter skipped all over the place.

It sounds like a good premise, but shallow is the one-word description that best fits. I almost didn’t finish the book. When I was about 80 pages in, I realized I was skimming many of the pages. It was a very shallow beginning, with a lot of fluff but very little meat. I continued reading (with no more skimming), and it did get better, but I was on a roller coaster as to whether I would, would not, would, would not, would finish the book. Okay-but-not-great is my conclusion. The characters remained flat to me and failed to come to life.

I never became immersed in this book. It’s a depressing story; there was no happy ending for any of the characters. Disappointing.

I enjoyed everything about this book. The writing was a delight, the story held my interest until the last page. The setting is Germany after WW2 has ended. The shocked and conflicted German people, and the hardships are a vital part of the story. Marianne von Lingenfels feels obligated to fulfill a promise she made to find and care for families after the war ended. She was a capable and able person and soon had gathered an assortment of needy people . She reopened her deceased husband's family castle in which she housed the group. The character development is excellent and the reader will soon know all of these people. There are flashbacks to the brutality of the Nazi regime. The past Nazi acts are hard to read, however we should read about this time in history. Today there is not enough about the holocaust and the evil of that period. It is not easy to read but it happened and does not need to be forgotten. Shattuck captured the unease and misunderstandings of the people as they tried to move beyond. Surprisingly, many of the German people were in denial. We had the opportunity to see the Hitler plan as young men were trained to hate and kill. There were many layers to the story, and the reader was not left wondering about the future of the people in the castle. The author brought them up to date and properly ended the story.

The Women in the Castle is a fascinating glimpse into what it might have been like to live in Germany during WWII. Told from the perspective of 3 women who one way or another find themselves living at Castle Lingenfels. Each of them have a unique story of how the war has changed their lives. How well can a person know another person? The story ends with a look at a few of the children and grandchildren. A new generation looks back on the times of the resistance. Our lives are a "collection of choices and circumstances". What mark do we make on the world?
"For so long Marianne and Albrecht and many of their friends had known Hitler was a lunatic, a leader whose lowbrow appeal to people's selfish, self-pitying emotions and ignorance was an embarrassment for their country." A timely statement!

The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck is an interesting look at three woman in the midst of World War II Germany. As you might imagine given the time period this book is set in, it is not meant to be a feel good, historical fiction romance. Instead, the author tries to portray some of the grey areas associated with this fraught period of time.

The main character seems to have been born with an infallible moral compass, which helps her navigate the war from a place of certainty which with modern day readers will relate. Marianne is the wife of a German aristocrat who defies Hitler, and despite her husbands unsuccessful effort to subvert the Nazi party, she manages to retain her freedom and her wealth.

As the book progresses, stories of the other women are woven in to show how some people got swept up in the Nazi movement. The book seems reluctant to tell the reader how to judge the characters. Unlike some historical fiction pieces from this time, the clarity of who the protagonist is does not get drummed into the reader on every page. It is a thought provoking piece of literature that does a good job describing the harrowing choices many were forced to make in that period of history.

Readers who enjoyed Kristin Hannah's The Nightengale will also like this book. While Women in the Castle goes deeper into understanding the German perspective during that time, they both describe the horrors and difficulties of World War II through the eyes of women living on the front lines.

Looking for a World War II novel to fill your historical fiction needs? The Women in the Castle is a great book for World War II historical fiction novel fans that enjoy such books as The Nightingale, All the Light We Cannot See, etc.

The Women in the Castle is a unique story told from the German point of view that focuses on three German women who find themselves living in an old run down family castle at the end of the war. I’ll admit that at first I was annoyed. I thought great – a book told from the German point of view only to find out the three women were all wives of resisters who planned an attempt to assassinate Hitler. I thought – that is not the typical German woman during WWII! But as a good novel is want to do, the story shifted and one of the main characters was a typical German woman who went along with everything until she discovered the true depths of horror that the German people had stepped into. The handling of that part of the story was gripping, horrifying and wonderful all at the same time.

The story is set in four different time periods with flashbacks; Burg Lingenfels (the rundown castle) at a party right before the start of the war in 1938, Burg Lingenfels right after the war in August 1945, Bug Lingenfels in 1950, and Cambridge Massachusetts in July 1991. I really loved these times periods as they were able to give you a sense of the world before the war and the horror directly after. The lingering effects of the horror can be seen through the characters through the years.

The characters are multilayered and fascinating. Marianne von Lingenfels is an aristocrat married to a man who was center at the plot to assassinate Hitler. After the war and losing her family’s estate, she travels to the old run down castle without modern plumbing and electricity that she feels she can be safe at with her three children. She searches for the son of her good friend Connie, another conspirator, and his wife Benita who she also brings to the site. She is on the look-out for any other widows of the heroes against Hitler and finds Ania and her two sons. Ania is practical and is able to make a feast out of not much and keep the group together. Benita knows the true horror of war and years to be able to move on in the future with love. Marianne wants to do what is best for everyone, or what she thinks is best. Will these three women and their children be able to move on from the horrors of war?

I really liked the unique prospective. I was particularly drawn by Ania’s back story, which really made one understand how the common person could have been drawn into the horrors of War in Germany. I also loved Benita’s yearning for moving on with love in her life, but her plot line with Franz made you realize how some people couldn’t move on from the horrors of war. Even though time passed on, the trauma of what had passed during Germany in WWII was too much for some people to move on to a “normal” life afterwards. I really liked Ania’s story when juxtaposed with Benita’s. Discuss further in the comments if you’ve read the book!

My favorite quotes:

“Cats were rare these days – starved, or worse. Rumor had it that people in the bombed-out cities ate them.”

“It wasn’t until that evening that Marianne remembered the cat and went looking again. But like half of the living creatures on the continent, it could not be found.”

“Your husband, Marianne’s husband they died for something they knew was right – and the rest of us followed along, did as we were told, and looked away.”

“But it was so hard to say both what was true and also what was required!”

“Our love is not a part of world events and politics. Our love has always been its own country.”

Overall, The Women in the Castle was an intriguing and unique look into three different women’s lives in Germany before and after WWII. It was a great historical fiction novel and I highly recommend it.

What is your favorite WWII novel or movie?

Book Source: Review Copy from William Morrow. Thank-you!

There's something about learning history through the eyes of fictional characters that engages our senses and crystallizes the impact world affairs have had in humanity in ways no history class ever could.

Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in our obsession with WWII novels. The scale of that tragedy is so unfathomable that there's always hope that one more story could help us make sense of it all. In The Women In The Castle author Jessica Shattuck offers a nuanced perspective of Post-war Germany told through the lives of three unique female characters.

The story begins on November 9th, 1938 in Burg Lingenfels, a beautiful isolated Bavarian castle. Marianne von Lingenfels is hosting the annual harvest party thrown by her husband's Albrecht aunt, an elderly countess known for her rebellious spirit and anti-German views.

Albrecht Lingenfels and Connie Fledermann, Marianne’s childhood friend, are part of a group of German men involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler. As they conspire, they make Marianne promise that if the plot fails, she must do everything she can to help the wives left behind, including Benita, Connie's soon to be young wife.

The Women in the Castle is at its core a complex moral story but is also a tale of resilience and survival. It narrates how three widows, from very different backgrounds, become the most unlikely of friends trying to navigate the tumultuous, confusing aftermath of WWII.

Thus, mostly forced by their extraordinary circumstances, an unlikely alliance is forged and the castle becomes a temporary refuge for these women and their children, as they painfully and slowly attempt to put their lives back together.

I think the author gets many things right, especially that sense that for many ordinary Germans, the rise of Hitler and Nazism had a slow-boiling kind of feeling and so, by the time many people realize what was happening it was already too late. This is not to absolve those that were directly or indirectly involved, but this novel certainly provides a more nuanced perspective on how the Germans allowed for the Holocaust to occur.

Recommended for anyone looking for an engaging, thought-provoking work of historical fiction.

This reads very smoothly--not a page-tuner exactly, but also not a struggle. The story unfolds fairly evenly, although the individual stories within the overarching narrative are more interesting than the larger frame. I wouldn't say that the characters are complex, but they are well-drawn for what they represent: many of the facets of experience of Germans during and immediately after the Nazis. I think the main link, Marianne von Lingenfels is probably close to being on the autism spectrum, which limits her depiction. The others are more complex.
I learned a lot and enjoyed reading this, but I don't wonder much about the characters after I'm done. It was obviously thoroughly researched and aligns with my fairly extensive experience of Germans and Germany.

One of the first things that I notice about a really, really, good book is that the author creates characters that are alive and believable. Jessica Shattuck has done a marvelous job of breathing life into these women and the characters that touch and affect their lives. What makes "The Women in the Castle" even more exceptional is the difficult subject matter (Nazi Germany) and the realization that sometimes the differences between good and evil during a stressful and eventful time can be difficult to detect when you are living it, especially as a child. This story will have an impact on the reader that will be lasting and perhaps make us all a little more aware of what is happening in the world we live in and what we can and must do to ensure the evil times of the past are not being repeated in our present. Kudos to the goodreads giveaway program for awarding me a free advance reader's edition of "The Women in the Castle."

I tried to like this book. After all I loved Lilac Girls and The Nightingale so I stuck with it page after boring page. It had a few good moments here and there but for the most part, I kept thinking this has got to get better soon. I finally got tired of reading over and over again about rape ;and when cruelty to animals set in, I had had enough. Rarely do I give up on a book, but I put it down for good at page 135. I am so sorry that I wasted my time and money on this book. Please don't read this unless you love hearing about cruelty to animals and incessant talk of rape.

This is the story of 3 women before, during and after WWII in Europe. They come from different walks of life but wind up in the same place after the war.
It's a very interesting story, well written, but very sad. I guess living with what they went through it would be. One woman is a Countess who owns the Castle, one is the wife of one of the men in the plot to kill Hitler and the other is someone I never really understand. She survived through lies, actions and bitterness.
My love for reading wants to take me away from reality to enjoy a story and become involved with it. Becoming involved with this book left me so sad that I have a hard time even looking at it now.
Very well written, though.

This book is an exercise in empathy. I think in a lot of WWII Germany fiction, there's a tendency to offer two perspectives: you can be a raging nazi or you can be a peerlessly brave resister. This book asks you to move out of that comfortable framework and focus on the women who were too weak, too ignorant, too absent to fight as resisters and yet can hardly be condemned. It's not interested in beating them upside the head for their complicity, but in asking us to see the humanity in those who were, because in all honestly you probably would be too. We can't all be Mariannes - the peerlessly brave protagonist, who risks everything in the name of what's right. The whole book, I wanted more Marianne because it's comforting to project onto her and her moral fortitude, but we've heard that story a hundred times. And in the other characters - Ania and Benita - I think I've found a story that's entirely new to me. And entirely human.

She half knew - but there is no word for that. She knew it the way you know something is happening far away in a distant land, something you have no control over...

One of the things I really liked about this book is that it provided some insight into how Germans lived after WWI, and why some of them became Nazis. It also looks at the guilt experience after WWII. Through the three main characters, Marianne, Benita and Ania we are shown very different lives in this same harsh setting, and how people could make very different choices in the same situation. I though Marianne's was very well written, but Ania's story was the one that was most interesting. They are all beautifully flawed. A thought-provoking HF novel about the cost of survival. Highly recommended.

The Story: The Women in the Castle tells of the relationship between three women, each of whom suffers loss and tragedy during and after World War II. It’s a story of secrets that are held in for decades—secrets that affect relationships.

I was looking forward to reading this book as I had read so much favorable about it. However, it was not my cup of tea..... though one of my major interests, WW II devastation & deprivation. How anyone, but especially women, survived is amazing. It tells the story of 3 widows & how they protected their children. The story takes place at the once grand Von Lingenfels Castle & dates from 1923 to 1991. It is not in chronological order which was probably my logical brain’s problem. Marianne is the primary character her husband was one of several who tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler! I hope I haven’t discouraged anyone from reading this book, you’ll probably love it!

The Women in the Castle is a compelling story which follows the journeys of three women before, during, and after WWII. Following the war,
Marianne, whose family owns the now crumbling Bavarian castle, makes it her mission to reunite and care for German women whose husbands were resisters against the Nazi regime. Two women, Ania and Benita, and their children are taken in by Marianne; strangers who come to live together, to care for each other and their children. At times heartbreaking, the story is a riveting look at the choices people make during wartime, the sacrifices, and even the deception and lies they tell to hide their own guilt, and to survive a horrendous war any way they can. Exquisitely written, this is a book that gives readers an intimate look into the lives of everyday German women, at a time when nothing was ordinary.

“The Women in the Castle” follows the intertwined lives of three German women during and after World War II. Jessica Shattuck depicts three different social classes throughout the narrative. There is the aristocratic Marianne von Ligenfels, married to one of those who plotted Hitler’s assassination. “…had known…Hitler was a lunatic, a leader whose lowbrow appeal to people’s most selfish, self-pitying emotions and ignorance was an embarrassment for their country …” There is the peasant Benita, who marries into the upper class; her husband is one of those who conspired to kill Hitler. Finally, there is Ania, the working class woman who initially embraces Hitler’s politics and then comes to realize the horrors he perpetrates. “…it was like one of those hidden pictures …you can’t see it even when it’s right in front of you…And then suddenly …you do …” The narrative begins in 1938 Germany and concludes there in 1991, with some intervening story taking place in the United States in 1950.

Characters in the novel were not as fully developed, nor as engaging as one might have liked them to be. Marianne never became appealing; the naïve Benita is tragic, but not someone who engendered much sympathy. The revelations about the stoic Ania, possibly the most conflicted woman of the three, made her the most real individual of the three. The real strength of the story was its focus on those who first saw the horror of Hitler and attempted to act. Further, its insight into the conflicted emotions and values that survivors of the war faced on a daily basis, both early in Hitler’s dictatorship and throughout the conflict, serves to remind readers that we cannot know how we would react until faced with the same circumstances.

While “The Women in the Castle” sometimes became tedious, it was an interesting novel and a worthwhile read. The historical perspective and the focus on the lives of ordinary German citizens takes the book outside the emphasis on the Holocaust, as critical as understanding the horror perpetrated on humanity was, without ever allowing the reader to forget it impact on all of Germany.

This is the story of 3 women, Marianne, Bettina and Ania in Hitler's Germany. The book does an excellent job in portraying the hardships these women endured and how far they would go in order to survive. Marianne is clearly the strongest of the three women and I felt a strong affinity for her. I really did not like Ania or Bettina; Ania due to the secret she kept throughout her entire stay with Bettina and Marianne. Bettina commits an act later in the book which I found to be cowardly, given all that she had endured.

There was a plot to kill Hitler which I felt could have been further detailed and I would have liked more on the women's journeys after the end of the war. The book is well written but I thought "The Nightingale" was better.

Jessica Shattuck writes the often untold story of German women during World War II in her latest novel The Women in the Castle. We follow Marianne, the matriarch; Benita, the small-town girl who married Marianne's childhood friend; and Ania, the mysterious but dependable woman for Marianne to lean on. Their husbands were involved in a plot to kill Hitler, a plot which failed and resulted in the death of the co-conspirators. Their wives and children, however, had so much more in store.
We follow the story non-linearly, bouncing around the 20th century. Each chapter heading gives the location geographically and chronologically, as well as presenting a different character to focus on each time. Though the story seems to largely revolve, in the largest sense, around Marianne.
Throughout the novel, Shattuck pulls at the heart. She shows you these women dealing with their personal grief, the heartbreak they undergo separately and together – from hiding in broken-down buildings to starving with the masses. Yet these women cobble together their own family in a castle, Burg Lingenfels, and survive together.
Shattuck’s ability to draw the reader into this world at large, this very real world, leaves you turning the pages eagerly to know what happens to Marianne, Ania, and Benita; to their children who came of age in war-torn Germany; and to Burg Lingenfels itself, a source of comfort for both the characters and the reader. The women in the castle will stay with you long after their stories are told.

(I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review)
At first I feared "The Women in the Castle" was going to be another soapy WWII book of how the women made do on the home front while their men were at war—only instead of from the usual POV of the Allies, from the viewpoint of Germans. But after getting past the first section and learning the backstories of the three protagonists, I was drawn in. Jessica Shattuck does a masterful job of showing how "decent" people can become attracted to or sucked in by evil, even if only by insisting on indifference or apathy. The characters weren't necessarily likable, but they were vividly delineated. All in all, it's a quick read that grows more meaningful and absorbing as it goes on.

Marianne von Lingenfels, married into an aristocratic family of wealth, has inherited the task of locating other German resistance widows following the failed assassination of Hitler, bringing them back to the castle and ensuring their safety. They themselves are all flawed in their own ways. This is their story during pre- to post- Nazi times of upheaval, loneliness, betrayal, grief, and regret but mostly of survival. I felt the story-line shifts constantly between years causing some confusion and look-backs. It seemed choppy and disjointed at times keeping me plugging along. All in all it was a good book and one that gave me a lot to think about.

Another WWII novel, but the first I've read about German women. Shows three sides of the Nazi horror, one a resistor, one who unwittingly went along and one dragged along--the strong, the weak and the naive. A brilliantly interwoven plot encompassing the many elements of this complex war as told through intricately drawn characters, I learned about the German plot to assassinate Hitler and the lager camps to train future SS soldiers. One suggestion for kindle readers, it is important to note the chapter headings of place and date, as the narrative skips around. (I discovered this about 20% into the book and had to go back to fix this in my mind--not so easy with a kindle.) One thing that struck me reading this book is the fallibility of humans. The mistakes made by the three women, not to mention Hitler and his followers, were worthy of study by the Falkenburg Institute. That war brought out so much that is hard to understand. Well done. I recommend it highly.

I am giving this a 3.5. Interesting. Did not catch me emotionally as many books about WWII. The main characters were complex, flawed humans (as we all are) but I did not feel involved with them. The book does illuminate the huge issue of the Jewish survivors and German people of somewhere to go after the war. The number of refugees in camps for many years after the war is astounding.
The issues of trust and what to reveal to others is something we of this day cannot relate to.
The book does bring up many important issues we do not need to forget. Especially in this climate of hate mongering and dissension coming from the highest office in our fair land.

This was a profound telling of WWII Germany, its participants, survivors and their children. I was touched by the bonds formed by the several women friends and the depiction of their love, cruelty, suffering and sacrifice. Sometimes it was difficult to read; very dark. Then, at others, I was lifted by the self-awareness of the various characters as they were held accountable for their good and bad choices in Hitler's Germany, and the ways in which they both supported and judged each other. Here are excellent character studies of complicated women brought together by war. Frankly, I would call this a masterpiece.

Taking a step back in time and a step forward in concept, Jessica Shattuck breaks into an often forgotten yet vital perspective with her third novel The Women in the Castle. Whatever your experience with historical fiction may be, prepare for Shattuck to shake things up with her era-hopping, convention-defying record of a handful of women surviving in Germany before, during, and after World War II. If big picture speculation and detailed retellings of the war’s events are your cup of tea, you may want to steer clear. If you’re happy following along a nonlinear, sometimes confusing narrative and filling in a few holes as you go, then read on.
Shattuck does go to painstaking lengths to provide a powerful and moving account of German women in the aftermath of the war, her writing often gets in the way of her storytelling. Massive jumps in time from before the war to after the war to during, then after, then before again, and so on through the end of the book make it hard to latch onto the plot. Take-it-or-leave-it character developments contribute to a swirling miasma of nonspecific story moments left me feeling like a couple of characters didn’t get all the respect they deserved, and some people showed up and disappeared without changing the plot at all. Despite these flaws, there is a clear core of tenacious women carving out a living in one of the most difficult times in modern history. This is a perfect fireside read or book club study.

I really liked this novel. Gripping and so well written. Some passages are very realistic and even tough to read. You can tell that writing this book was somewhat cathartic for Jessica Shattuck who is of German descent herself. She was clearly trying to better understand a tragic and difficult time for the German people including members of her family. Other reviewers have said that they had no empathy for each of the three main female characters and it is true that each is not a particularly likeable character. But I think it made the novel more interesting. The lead character of Marianne is somewhat fanatic in her own self-righteousness. But you have to admire her determination. The character Benita is very self-centered and does not care much what goes on around her. But I ended up feeling sorry for her...Ania was the thoughest one to get into, but through her the author makes you understand (though not approve) why so many Germans became Hitler supporters. On the Con side the back and forth between periods of time in the book made me have to go back to re-read earlier passages and that was a bit tiresome.
Overall I found it an important and interesting book on the impact of Naziism and WWII and I have read many books on the period. I would even like to see a film adaptation...

As a reader of much historical fiction depicting the Holocaust and the demonic Nazi program to exterminate an innocent group of people, I rated this book as a Three Star based on the writing style, story line and overall experience from my reading. Unlike many other fictional accounts, the author was somewhat restrained in sharing details of the Jewish sufferings at the hands of the Nazis, even though her characters most certainly would have had plenty to share with the reader. Rather, Shattuck referenced several Nazi "campaigns or programs", unknown to me, and which I subsequently researched online (i.e. The firestorms of Hamburg, the Lublin camps,the beast of Belsen who personally gassed 80 selected Jews for the skeleton collection,etc) and I was horrified to read of these accounts. Had it not been for the three time periods tossed back and forth to tell the story line and the many sub-characters (even though there are only 3 main characters), I would have rated the book a Four Star. It was just too cumbersome to read I, like other reviewers, was frustrated at having to get my bearings at the beginning of each chapter. I recommend these other books highly: The Paris Architect and All the Light We Cannot See - brilliantly written and orchestrated.

As many have pointed out, the book deals with WW2 and its aftermath from a largely unfamiliar perspective, which drew me to it in the first place. I was not disappointed; it's a top-notch reading experience. But I noticed pretty quickly that it has real resonance for now and puts individual failings and moral ambiguities right in front of us where we can't turn away.

I would have given this 5 stars anyway, and certainly recommended it to my German-heritage spouse, but I particularly liked the author's closing description of the origin of the book and her family connections to the subject matter. And the inclusion of the optional additional chapter shows a real respect for readers.

Too many books covering WWII, but so many perspectives on that event. This story presents the story of three German women before, during, and after WWII. The reader meets Marianne, Benita, and Ania, and their children as Marianne attempts to hold this group together and survive the devastation during and after the war. This story reminds me of Motherland by Maria Hummel, which shows the hardships suffered by Germany after the war. Both expose that when the war ends, the suffering does not stop immediately. Jessica Shattuck creates Marianne, a woman enduring all to help everyone recover dignity.

The Women in the Castle was an interesting story. It is a different take on WW2, showing how 3 widows handle the aftermath of the war. There was some violence in the book, as expected in that time period, but they endured hardship to make a life for themselves. Each lady had a backstory that shaped how they saw life. The ending was a reckoning and completed the story. The copy I had included an omitted chapter that I felt added to my understanding of one of the characters. I recommend this story for people who enjoy historical fiction. It is not a quick, easy read, but was worth my time.

The Women in the Castle, author Jessica Shattuck’s third novel, tells the story of three German women – all mothers and widows – grappling with the aftermath of World War II. Marianne is the strongly principled leader of the group who gives everyone a home in her late husband family’s castle. She is on a mission to find and protect fellow widows, and their children, of a resistance effort that failed to assassinate Adolf Hitler. (This plot bears a striking resemblance to the real-life Operation Valkyrie.) She succeeds in rescuing the once young and beautiful Benita from the clutches of a Russian soldier and retrieving stoic and sturdy Ania from a displaced persons camp.

The story is told from four perspectives – the three women’s and Benita’s only child, Martin’s. Each character is richly developed, equally repulsive and sympathetic in their own ways. Their stories are mysterious, and Shattuck creates a puzzle of a novel by not only jumping among perspectives, but through time and place as well.

The mystery will keep the pages turning, but Shattuck’s magnifying-glass look at neglected history will also compel pause. Her characters are a vivid reminder that the neat timeline of history we read in textbooks is not the whole story. As Marianne reflects, “Sometimes it is easier to see clearly from a distance. And what is up close…is harder to make out,” (345).

The stories of Marianne, Benita, Ania, and Martin remove the indifferent distance of a bird’s-eye view.

I entered the contest to win this book, though its not the usual books I like to read, and I was lucky enough to have won a copy. Having grown up in Germany and being required to watch the movies in school about the concentrations camps, which left a horrifying impression on me, I typically avoided books of this nature, but somehow I was drawn to this book. It brought back many memories of stories my parents told me and I had a really hard time putting it down, I connected with the characters and could feel their struggles and burden. I know this book will stay with me for a long time and I feel it is also relevant for today, because we are heading into a new and scary future and I hope that history will not repeat itself.

“The Women in the Castle,” by Jessica Shattuck, examines World War II as experienced by three German women – before, during, and after. There’s Marianne, self-righteous opponent to Nazi ideals; Benita, widow of a rebel but purposefully ignorant of the regime’s crimes; and Ania, a refugee keeping several secrets. The latter two are taken in by Marianne, and all three hunker down in the eponymous castle to survive war, occupation, and the aftermath of an infamous dictatorship.

Through the lens of their lives, Shattuck presents us with the various perspectives of the German citizenry, both under the thrall of fascism and recovering from it (not that the three women aren’t complex characters themselves). Nazi Germany, as it is depicted, is not the mustache-twirling villain we’ve seen. Hitler is no madman, but a seducer. Talk of concentration camps is treated as rumors or enemy propaganda and are stubbornly (nervously) denied.

Is this book about sympathizing with Nazis? No, although you might sympathize regardless. It’s about examining how an entire nation becomes complicit in the violation of human rights. With its interest in examination, there isn’t a plot, exactly; but the insight into a society rarely examined, the care in the details, the dedication to humanization, more than makes up for it.

Despite that, there is something noticeably absent from a story about Nazi Germany: antisemitism. The tribulations of the Jewish are acknowledged, but the actual antisemitism that characterizes Nazi Germany feels non-existent. Would it interfere with Shattuck’s intention to humanize the German citizens? Probably. But sweeping Nazi Germany’s bigotry under the rug feels like a lie. “The Women in the Castle” is still worth reading, though – just don’t be surprised when the major feature of Nazi Germany barely shows up.

This is a very interesting story of the atrocities of WWll told from a far different perspective than we usually are presented with. It gives you the German side, the side of the resistance and the almost resistance. As a student of history you often forget not all Germans supported the Nazis. You forget the German struggles as well. This is a humanization of a people and place we do not often get.
The book is well written. It goes back and forth in time to fill in the gaps of the narrative. By the time we are finished the story is complete and I was a satisfied reader.

The story itself was intriguing but I don't think it was written well and it made the novel bland and lackluster. The timeline jumped around too much making it hard to figure out the point in time relating to the storyline. I found that the main character who supposed to be a strong woman was written very shallow-y. I wasn't attached to the character at all. The other women I enjoyed better but also were written without much passion or detail. More back story was needed to make me feel attached to them. The writing was mediocre at best, as I found several ill-written sentences throughout the book. I am no English snob but if I catch basic English errors, then the writing was not edited well. Again, the plot was intriguing but it was boring due to the writing. I wouldn't recommend this book.

Jessica Shattuck’s “The Woman in the Castle” seeks to fill a void in historical fiction. It chronicles the lives of three mothers (the idealistic ‘Commander of Mothers and Children’ Marianne, the childish Brita, and the quiet, regretful Ania) and their experiences before, during, and after World War Two. It aims to explore the notions of romance and resistance and give a voice to the women that are so often ignored in the genre.
Yet at some points, Shattuck may have overstretched herself. The story is given not only from the perspective of the three aforementioned women, but from a variety of characters across a variety of timelines, sending the plot lurching back and forth like a bad rollercoaster. While the reader is given a date to ground themselves at the beginning of each chapter, with all of the different voices and all of the different events taking place, it usually isn’t enough.
The one good thing that these shifting voices offer is a unique insight into the minds of the characters. Marianne is described by Benita as, “not a beauty with her strong, almost mannish features” while Ania thinks of Marianne with “a wide, confident stride and the sort of commanding tone Ania was not used to hearing from members of her own sex.” The differences are slight, but as each character puts their own spin on the plot, the reader gets a better sense of who they are.
Overall, “The Woman in the Castle” may be a confusing read (especially to novices of the genre), but if you’re the type that likes a little instability and a lot of well rendered, beautiful language, this might be worth a read.

This mesmerizing novel follows the lives of three widows in the aftermath of destruction in World War II Germany. A castle once used for lavish parties in circles of high society, ultimately shelters these brave women even in its decrepit state as they come to terms with the new normal and attempt to recover from lost love. Perseverance, resourcefulness, and forgiveness are portrayed vividly as the widows face unimaginable circumstances and unexpected friendships. Thoroughly researched and brilliantly penned, for me this was a perfect mix of the writing styles of The Nightingale and Belgravia. I absolutely recommend The Women in the Castle!

If you like historical fiction, especially ones set during and around WWII, you'll love this book. I couldn't put it down. It has given me new insight into Germany and German people of that era; and how a monster like Hitler was able to turn ordinary people into murderers. I also realize how lucky America has actually been. We've been involved in two great wars, and except for Pearl Harbor, our country has been left virtually untouched. This book offers much food for thought on many moral issues. And should alert anyone who reads it to the dangers of uncontrolled Nationalism, at the expense of people who are considered "different."

"Women in the Castle" is a book which gives us both at times a painfully dull and intriguingly enjoyable approach to World War 2. In one chapter, Jessica Shattuck will have crafted an intriguing and enjoyable situation for her characters and in the next we can only hope for it to end as quickly as possible.
"The Women in the Castle" follows the experiences of a social group of women (attention is given primarily to Benita and her interactions with them but the story overall follows the group's experiences) and their families as World War 2 unfolds around them. And to give this work it's credit, it does an excellent job of analyzing civilian sentiments and ideologies throughout the war, a narrative that is often overshadowed by the larger, more known narratives which came from that time period.
Yet that praise is but one half of the experience, for just as the characters become the strength, so too do they become the weakness of this book. None of the characters feel as though they are strong enough on their own to carry a scene, yet other times the narrative feels cluttered by too many interacting and fighting for the attention of the reader. Where the book shone for me was during the moments of small group character interaction.
For all it's faults, the book is not impossible to enjoy, while some sections may feel as though they have little to offer and can drag, there is always a moment of enjoyment a few pages later.

“The plot had failed. Weisslau was lost. Albrecht was dead.” Jessica Shattuck’s “The Women in the Castle” is a well thought out historical fiction set in Post-World War II, focused on the lives of three women and their families, trying to rebuild their life after their spouses failed to overthrow Hitler, known as “Operation Valkyrie”. Each woman goes through their own struggles, Marianne, Benita, and Ania, and in their attempt to rebuild a little community within the Castle walls, secrets begin to emerge that no one could see coming. Shattuck helps her readers travel in time throughout the novel, giving the readers a full view of what the resistance was, and how the women played a major role in that resistance. Shattuck also paints a picture to what Nazi Germany way like, and puts her readers in the middle of this resistance, allowing her three leading ladies to shine. Secrets begin to take over the novel, and with these three women the suspense and mystery is carried through until the very end. If you like historical fiction, and a bit of scandal, then this story is for you. Jessica Shattuck built a beautifully chaotic world for her readers to enjoy, and she most definitely does not disappoint. The drama between the women may sometimes give off a “gossip-girl” vibe, but overall each of them carry the strength necessary to make this book both interesting to the reader, and they are complex enough that their story does not seem redundant or overdone.

The story was just ok. I was annoyed with the author's compulsion to have everyone "duck their head", without even knowing what that meant. Also she has some strange ideas, such as that one has children in order to be "understood", and that "old people can get away with everything". She thinks 40 year olds are middle aged, and an 83 year old woman who has been athletic all her life can't even swim. She left me hanging about what actually happened when one of the characters took another's identity. I really didn't like any of the women. But it provided new perspective on some of the Germans" experience during the Holocaust.

Sorry. Book was highly recommended which I've come to find deceiving. Not a plot easy to follow or actually very interesting. Too much jumping from one time period or one woman's story to another. I'm generally not a fan of womens' fiction and this no exception. Found myself bored and skimming. Finally gave up. Wouldn't recommend!

Oh what a touching story. I felt so much for these women. This was such a touching story. One woman had an idea of what her of what her husband was doing but she she kept it in the back of her mind. She said "no way, this was not happening in my world". Another wife was so innocent and young, that she had no idea that she had no idea that this was even going on. The final wife was aware, shocked, and appalled and for that reason she took her two boys and left.

Such was the life that these three women were together after their husbands were gone, either through death or because they left them. Their stories are sorted and the lady of the castle (Marianne) took them in. Either through the knowing of their husband such as the case of Benita, the wife of her childhood friend, Martin. And Ania, the wife of another resistor who Marianne does not recall the name but still admits her to the castle.

These three ladies bond and become friends while the war goes on around them. Together they raise their children and become a family as such. The bond that they form lasts a lifetime for all of them and the book is the story of these three women. While they are together and their lives before they come together.

It is a very touching and moving story that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was entertaining, moving, mesmerizing, haunting, chilling and I really grew to like these characters immensely.

Huge thanks to Bonnier Zaffre for approving my request and to Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest unbiased review.

An intensely detail rich historical fiction book taking place during WWII with he vantage point of German characters. Three strong widowed women who don't let their husband's deaths hold them back from what they believe in. After reading this I now have a better appreciation of what people went through during this war, their struggles and suffering. Very unique book.
Pub Date 18 May 2017
Thank you to NetGalley and Bonnier Zaffre fo providing me with a review copy in exchange for my honest review.

I was looking forward to reading this book. I purchased it as soon as it hit the store. I'm glad I had a coupon! The book was a disappointment to me. It started out with a great storyline, but somehow it got lost. It got a lot better toward the middle, but then lost it's appeal again toward the end. I'll probably read it again one day, and I hope to get more out of it the second time, but for now I'm passing it on to another reader. Beautiful cover!

A great read about three women throughout World War II and how their lives intertwined and changed with the war. While it was nothing like The Nightingale, which I saw it compared to, it was a less action packed novel that instead let us into the personal worlds of the women during an era of turmoil.

"Women in the Castle" is a book which gives us both at times a painfully dull and intriguingly enjoyable approach to World War 2. In one chapter, Jessica Shattuck will have crafted an intriguing and enjoyable situation for her characters and in the next we can only hope for it to end as quickly as possible.
"The Women in the Castle" follows the experiences of a social group of women (attention is given primarily to Benita and her interactions with them but the story overall follows the group's experiences) and their families as World War 2 unfolds around them. And to give this work it's credit, it does an excellent job of analyzing civilian sentiments and ideologies throughout the war, a narrative that is often overshadowed by the larger, more known narratives which came from that time period.
Yet that praise is but one half of the experience, for just as the characters become the strength, so too do they become the weakness of this book. None of the characters feel as though they are strong enough on their own to carry a scene, yet other times the narrative feels cluttered by too many interacting and fighting for the attention of the reader. Where the book shone for me was during the moments of small group character interaction.
For all it's faults, the book is not impossible to enjoy, while some sections may feel as though they have little to offer and can drag, there is always a moment of enjoyment a few pages later.

“The plot had failed. Weisslau was lost. Albrecht was dead.” Jessica Shattuck’s “The Women in the Castle” is a well thought out historical fiction set in Post-World War II, focused on the lives of three women and their families, trying to rebuild their life after their spouses failed to overthrow Hitler, known as “Operation Valkyrie”. Each woman goes through their own struggles, Marianne, Benita, and Ania, and in their attempt to rebuild a little community within the Castle walls, secrets begin to emerge that no one could see coming. Shattuck helps her readers travel in time throughout the novel, giving the readers a full view of what the resistance was, and how the women played a major role in that resistance. Shattuck also paints a picture to what Nazi Germany way like, and puts her readers in the middle of this resistance, allowing her three leading ladies to shine. Secrets begin to take over the novel, and with these three women the suspense and mystery is carried through until the very end. If you like historical fiction, and a bit of scandal, then this story is for you. Jessica Shattuck built a beautifully chaotic world for her readers to enjoy, and she most definitely does not disappoint. The drama between the women may sometimes give off a “gossip-girl” vibe, but overall each of them carry the strength necessary to make this book both interesting to the reader, and they are complex enough that their story does not seem redundant or overdone.

The story was just ok. I was annoyed with the author's compulsion to have everyone "duck their head", without even knowing what that meant. Also she has some strange ideas, such as that one has children in order to be "understood", and that "old people can get away with everything". She thinks 40 year olds are middle aged, and an 83 year old woman who has been athletic all her life can't even swim. She left me hanging about what actually happened when one of the characters took another's identity. I really didn't like any of the women. But it provided new perspective on some of the Germans" experience during the Holocaust.

Sorry. Book was highly recommended which I've come to find deceiving. Not a plot easy to follow or actually very interesting. Too much jumping from one time period or one woman's story to another. I'm generally not a fan of womens' fiction and this no exception. Found myself bored and skimming. Finally gave up. Wouldn't recommend!

Oh what a touching story. I felt so much for these women. This was such a touching story. One woman had an idea of what her of what her husband was doing but she she kept it in the back of her mind. She said "no way, this was not happening in my world". Another wife was so innocent and young, that she had no idea that she had no idea that this was even going on. The final wife was aware, shocked, and appalled and for that reason she took her two boys and left.

Such was the life that these three women were together after their husbands were gone, either through death or because they left them. Their stories are sorted and the lady of the castle (Marianne) took them in. Either through the knowing of their husband such as the case of Benita, the wife of her childhood friend, Martin. And Ania, the wife of another resistor who Marianne does not recall the name but still admits her to the castle.

These three ladies bond and become friends while the war goes on around them. Together they raise their children and become a family as such. The bond that they form lasts a lifetime for all of them and the book is the story of these three women. While they are together and their lives before they come together.

It is a very touching and moving story that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was entertaining, moving, mesmerizing, haunting, chilling and I really grew to like these characters immensely.

Huge thanks to Bonnier Zaffre for approving my request and to Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest unbiased review.

An intensely detail rich historical fiction book taking place during WWII with he vantage point of German characters. Three strong widowed women who don't let their husband's deaths hold them back from what they believe in. After reading this I now have a better appreciation of what people went through during this war, their struggles and suffering. Very unique book.
Pub Date 18 May 2017
Thank you to NetGalley and Bonnier Zaffre fo providing me with a review copy in exchange for my honest review.

I was looking forward to reading this book. I purchased it as soon as it hit the store. I'm glad I had a coupon! The book was a disappointment to me. It started out with a great storyline, but somehow it got lost. It got a lot better toward the middle, but then lost it's appeal again toward the end. I'll probably read it again one day, and I hope to get more out of it the second time, but for now I'm passing it on to another reader. Beautiful cover!

A great read about three women throughout World War II and how their lives intertwined and changed with the war. While it was nothing like The Nightingale, which I saw it compared to, it was a less action packed novel that instead let us into the personal worlds of the women during an era of turmoil.

I really wanted to like this book, but it was difficult to finish. While parts of the novel were interesting, so much of it was simply boring. As I read it, I felt like this was the type of book that smart people read and raved about. I consider myself fairly smart, but I could not find enough pleasure from the book to justify how slow and dry it was. The writing is not to blame, but it felt like reading for work rather than reading for enjoyment. Audiobook review at JacksonBaer.com

This historical fiction, about three women and their children who survive Nazi Germany, was powerful. At times, I found it hard to read, because I don't want to think about the privations and abuses suffered by Hitler's victims and those left behind after the war was over. It really gave me a lot to think about in terms of degrees of innocence and accountability. Thank you to my public library for having this book for me to borrow.

Three women share their lives and living quarters in a castle in Germany during World War 2 and the period following it. One of them has a husband involved in a failed plot to kill Hitler. After the war another one seriously considers marriage to an ex Nazi. These are examples of personal complexities that these women face. All of them have children who further enhance the story. Toward the end of the book the major character Marianne relocates to the United States to refashion her life. The novel is well written and panoramic in scope. I feel that people who enjoy historical fiction will embrace this book.

I have not enjoyed reading a book this much in a long time. I found myself skipping out of my office at lunch to read at a coffee shop. The writing is beautiful and the story is fascinating, particularly for readers who fear they have read every good WWII novel there is and ever will be. It is not historical on many levels - facts, motivations, ideas of heroism, right and wrong, morality: it’s all jumbled up and smoothed over here to present a good story. I just wish the editor had trimmed the ending.

Well written! After a couple pages I was hooked. I have wondered what it was like to be in Germany during the time of Hitler. I am the granddaughter of a German immigrant. The family refused to speak German. In this story we learn about the different choices people made during the years hitler was in power, how it's affect was felt by many generations, the shame it brought and that some really supported the nightmare. One thing I appreciated was nothing was left unanswered. I would read this again and definitely recommend it.
In today's political climate it made me wonder if this could happen again.

This book portrayed an interesting perspective about Germany and World War II. It is told mostly from the female perspective of a woman that was included in many discussions with her husband and his friends that were trying to do what they felt was right. It was a good story, but at times dragged and I had a hard time getting through it.

I would like to thank Goodreads and William Morrow for a copy of this book. This did not have any bearing on my review.

The World War II novel about three women from different backgrounds and how they survived as widows of the men who planned to assassinate Hitler is a moving story.
There seem to be many many novels about the Nazi movement but author, Jessica Shattuck, handles a much different angle in her novel, The Women in the Castle. Well written, researched, and very engrossing. I highly recommend (Another side to the story).

I thoroughly enjoyed this book because of the way the author presented the lives of the three women portrayed in the book. They all had depth of character and you could understand their feelings.

Because of Shattuck's writing and research, I was able to look at the years from 1945 to about 1960 through the eyes of three German women during their country's recovery.

I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in post war German history.

The Woman In The Castle Honest Book Review

by Moriah Solomon

The woman in the castle is a good read because it is historical fiction and it takes place during world war II I think because it what the germans were thinking. Were they mad at people were their secrets to unfold, maybe. As I am sitting here I have chocolate muffins in the oven and they are tempting but they arent done. Anyways back to the book, the story I wanna teill you. It is based around the children and their woman and how they all have these secrets that are really bad. The story itself is about redemption, how things are screwed and we have nothing to do about it. These woman face challenges between what is good and what is bad. Also between the good that their husbands are doing but it is also bad.

My first Shattuck novel and a good read about a very difficult/bad time in human history. I was impressed with the different takes of this time on 3 different women brought together by a woman trying to do the right and moral thing. The characters are multilayered and compelling. The story pulled me in and held my attention. The author took her time revealing each of their stories. It increased the emotional impact. This book is different than many World War II novels in that it is from the point of view of three women.

The Women in the Castle tells the story of three very different women who, with their children, take refuge in a ruined castle towards the end of WW II. The back story of each woman lets us know what she did to survive, and the present story shows how her decisions and choices affected her life.

I must be getting tired of reading WW II novels. Although the individual stories were interesting, I was underwhelmed by the book as a whole.

I dislike historical fiction that gets history wrong. The real Count von Stauffenberg who led the 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler wanted to retain national socialism and military rule. See To the Bitter End by Hans Gisevius and the wiki article on Stauffenberg. The real resisters were all quickly arrested and jailed. Hence the Reinhold Neibuhr quote: First they came for the socialists etc.
I was also appalled at page 332: “Germany has become the agricultural wonder Hitler imagined.” What about the post war leaders who turned Germany into a prosperous democracy? What about all the US did to make our worst enemies, Japan and Germany, our best friends?
All in all a very frightening tale of how demogogues fool people into becoming monsters. All too relevant today where democracy is under attack even in the US.

The Women in the Castle was hugely disappointing to me. I am a tremendous fan of WWII historical fiction and so I approached this book with great enthusiasm. I found the premise to be somewhat interesting, but I was soon struck by the realization that I'd heard this story before in all the other books I've read in this genre. It held nothing new for me and although I was tempted to abandon it, I did finish. The story was very predictable, the characters flat. There are many books in this genre that are just so much better.

Review: The Women in the Castle

Jessica Shattuck, the talented author of the Perfect Life is back on the scene with her latest compelling book titled, The Women in the Castle. A story about World War II and the experiences of three women from Germany.

Marianne a widow whose husband was a resistor, rescues Benita from being held hostage by a Russian soldier. Marianne also frees Ania from a displacement camp. Marianne brings them back to the castle honoring her promise to their husbands. It is here where all of them find safety and refuge with each other. Soon a bond develops between them in the midst of their struggles to understand each other through their transition and lost.

Even though the castle is home now to the three women and Ania’s boys, the history of the castle brings forth nostalgia and a sense of noble pride. The von Lingenfels castle is a place for the privileged, consumed in prestige, but also sits in the midst of a landscape riddling with politics and war.
One of the beautiful elements in the book is Shattuck’s strong command of the pen with her unique writing style taking center stage. Her ingredients are full of the typical social elements of power and conquest but with a female twist as she creates just enough tension to have her characters make critical and sometimes unforgivable life choices. One area that Jessica falls flat is not giving enough of the Jewish perspective in the story at times it appears one sided.

In all, Shattuck surprises us with characters who have just enough heartache, guilt and just enough endurance. A perfect read for lovers of relationship drama and historical fiction.

When I began reading THE WOMEN IN THE CASTLE, the blindingly wonderful new novel from Jessica Shattuck, I realized that I’ve been on a bit of a World War II-themed book binge lately. I partly blame it on family history. My grandfather served in the Navy, my grandmother at an Air Force base during the war. My other grandfather was a collier in an English coal mine and was turned down by the RAF because his work was deemed more vital to the war effort; my English grandmother survived the London Blitz. The atrocities of that time were so great that I think people crave books about it to try and understand why and how, and, hopefully, as a warning, a method of prevention.

Part of what is so compelling about THE WOMEN IN THE CASTLE is that the majority of it takes place in Germany after the war has ended, as the Allies are beginning the “denazification” of remaining party members and replacing the scores of Displaced Peoples left in the wake of mass devastation. In an ancient castle in western Germany we meet Marianne von Lingenfels, a steady, determined woman who is the widow of Albrecht von Lingenfels, a resistor who was part of the failed assassination plot against Hitler in 1944. On the eve of war in 1938, Marianne promised to look after the women and children of the men involved in the plot; if things went badly and they were dispatched, she was to do what she could to help their families survive.

To this end, Marianne begins a search of prisons and DP camps in 1945 in hopes of finding the widows and children of her husband’s fellow resistors. She must, in particular, locate Benita Fledermann and her son Martin, the wife and child of Marianne’s dearest childhood friend Connie --- short for Constantine --- who made her promise to always look after them. She finds six-year-old Martin in a children’s home outside Berlin, where he was taken after his father was hanged and his mother was sent to prison for being married to a traitor. Marianne finds Benita in Berlin, a shell of the young woman she once had been and the “property” of a Russian captain. Still, resourceful Marianne takes her and Martin back to Burg von Lingenfels, the ancient castle of which she is now the proprietor, and nurses them back to health along with her own three children.

Some months later, Marianne receives word that one of the women from the list she gave to a helpful American captain has turned up in a nearby DP camp. Marianne rescues the woman, Ania Grabarek, and her two sons, though she can’t place ever meeting them. The three women and six children survive the aftermath of the war together in the crumbling castle. It helps that Marianne is a von Lingenfels, one of the ancient Bavarian families, and so they are afforded certain perks --- like boxes full of oranges and chocolate and other presents at Christmas --- that most other Germans are not. But there are secrets harbored inside the women, things they have done and seen during the years of the war, that they cannot share, even as they become one another’s family and their lives are irreversibly entwined.

THE WOMEN IN THE CASTLE is thoroughly enjoyable. The plot moves along and propels you to keep reading. The narrative allows the reader to see things from the perspective of each of the women and spans the years of their lives so one gains complete pictures of the characters. The writing is clean, the storytelling is solid, and Shattuck paints a vivid portrait of a reeling, recovering Germany and the humanity contained within it.

Reviewed by Sarah Jackman

This book could be at times depressing and hard to read because so little good happened to anyone. Yes, you are thinking it's a WWII book, so how could I expect any happiness or hope? True, but I did not end up liking very much the three women in the castle, nor the tragedies that kept befalling them. This book was well-written with interesting historical details, but personally I preferred The Chilbury Ladies Choir for WWII women's fiction.

I picked up this book at the airport and had nearly finished it by the end of my four hour flight. I have read extensively in the WW2 genre, and love to find something original. This book is definitely original. It moves around different times, and focuses on three different characters: Marianne, an aristocratic German who detests everything the Nazis stood for. Benita, a small-town girl who was married to the man Marianne secretly loved. Ania,a Polish woman who appears at Marianne's castle as the widow of a Polish man. All the husbands had participated in Operation Valkyrie, and none survived. The story of the women and their survival, as well as their discovery of one another, gets complicated. Secrets are unearthed. Crimes are committed. Love is thwarted. The chaos of late WW2 and post-war in Europe causes each of them to examine their own actions and thoughts. A gripping, devastating, yet redemptive novel. The one thing that did not work for me in the book was Ania's story. Without giving anything away, even the extra chapter does not satisfy me. But that aside, I am very glad I read this book.

A heartwarming remarkable story of three women & their children that lived in a dilapidated castle,just after the end of 2nd.WW.
The story goes back & forth between before & after the war.
The story has been well researched & is remarkably accurate.
The characters are everyday women & children who lived in a time of madness & did what they had too,to survive.

I don't make a habit of reading books set during World War II, especially the nitty gritty ones that breaks your heart, cause you to shed tears or those that put images in your mind that you can't even imagine. Once in a very long time do I attempt to read such a book, but lately, more and more have come my way, at least the ones about the aftermaths. The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck spans the period right before (prologue) and right after the war through to the early 1990s, and what a span it is. Fifty years, half a century and still the pain, the hurt, the horrors and the struggles are still so vivid in many's eyes.

The perspective from the Germans' side, particularly our three main characters, The Women in the Castle, readers will be dragged into the world of politics and the consequences of it. From how the world views the country where Hitler originated and reigned, to the views of the German people, and finally those that suffered under this regime to their offspring, readers will understand and sense the poignant life of those left. What words can convey the emotions set forth from this book? The characters were remarkable, each in their own way. Their development, even for the short-lived have left a mark in your mind as you continue the story, page after page. A promise that showed the resilience and tenacity of Marianne compelled me to keep going until the end. I'm shocked by its impact and can see how many compare The Women in the Castle with the same fervor as The Nightingale or Sarah's Keys. Though I have yet to read The Nightingale, Sarah's Keys have truly left the impact emotionally, and I believe The Women in the Castle will as well.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from the author/publisher. I was not required to write a positive review, and have not been compensated for this. This is my honest opinion.

wonderful historical fiction! Shattuck has successfully done the difficult job of creating and humanizing German women after WWII. Admittedly, she has worked with resisters, whose story is seldom told, but in doing so she opened up a new way of looking at post war issues, problems, and coping. I really enjoyed and admired this book, which was both heartfelt and educational in a way I didn't expect. This richly deserves the positive reviews it has received. thanks to edelweiss for the ARC.

I really wanted to love this book. Its my favorite genre and the description sounded promising. The story here wasn't great - it could have been good though. Unfortunately I found the characters unlikable. Had I cared what happened to them more perhaps I would have found the story more interesting. There is so much great World War II fiction out there, I would spend my time there and skip this one.

The topic of the book appealed to me very much, as I enjoy WW II historical fiction. I had never read a book from a German perspective, which also caught my attention. However, I don’t know if I was either too distracted or it took me too long to read this book, as by the time I ended, I did not have a good sense of where the book went to this entire time. I never felt like the story had a big enough arch. I might try and re-read it and see if I get more out of it...

I’ve read many books on this time in history from different viewpoints. It’s hard to find a story that has not been told. It’s hard to read any story and not get caught up mentally debating the rights and wrongs and could this have really happened, yet Jessica Shattuck gives us this story-which is not very pretty, but seems more realistic, especially in how these women sort things out to be able to survive, exist, and move on.

I absolutely loved this one! It was an amazing and moving story of three very different women with very different experiences during World War II that come together after the war. It's really a story of how they come to terms with everything they've lived through and the things that have had to do in order to survive. A story of learning to live again.

Incredible! This book takes us behind the scenes of the front line. The experiences of the women, the children, the elderly...and then the prisoners. I have many friends that are German and still have family in Germany. I understand them a little better after taking this journey through our not so distant past.

A very well-written and compelling story, set in WWII and told by three German women, so from a different perspective than many other books on this topic. It is mainly about the relationships between these women, married to men who plot to kill Hitler, and how they survive during the war and the aftermath. But it also delves into how many German people get sucked in to Hitler's rhetoric and plan for a "New Germany" willingly or not.

Three German women are brought together after WWII and they each carry secrets and burdens unbeknownst to one another. Marianne, the wife of a resistor, has promised to help the wives and children of her husband’s coconspirators. First, she rescues Benita, the widow of her childhood friend who was executed for his involvement in the failed assassination attempt of Hitler. A victim of Russian brutality, Benita is miraculously reunited with her son thanks to Marianne’s tireless effort. Next, Marianne finds serious and stoic Ania and her sons, but Ania has a disturbing history that is slowly revealed throughout the narrative. These widows of heroes are not entirely without guilt, and even seemingly selfless Marianne can be self-righteous and manipulative. Despite her best intentions, her own stubbornness has devastating consequences.

The novel addresses morality in the face of evil, and steadfastness to do what’s right in a nation that has committed so many wrongs. It is not so much about making reparations or moving on from the past, but the realization that everyone has something to feel ashamed about. This is a great piece of historical fiction that challenges perceptions of Germans who lived through the war and how future generations were affected.

A fresh perspective of WWII told from the female perspective. It follows the widows of resistance fighters within Germany itself as they fight for survival during the war and as they attempt to rebuild their lives after it. I asked myself often during the reading what I would have done given the circumstances. Highly recommended.

Too slow and sluggish. I had to give up on this book about 1/2 way through. I very seldom quit reading in the middle of a story--it was that bad. The jogging back and forth between time frames was not done smoothly and I found it to be very irritating. Usually the back and forth business does not bother me, but that was not the case here. The murder of an innocent and faithful animal was the last straw. Even though I know that situations like this happen in real life I cannot stand to read descriptions of the event. It was totally not necessary to the story line. No more reading of this book or this author!

This book details a perspective of the aftermath of WW2 in the lives of three women and their friends and families. There is wonderful dimension in the characters and well drawn and interesting plot. A very realistic read without too much sensationalistic violence. It's there, because war is violence, but more in a way of "just the facts, ma'am!"

I feel my understanding has been expanded by this excellent book.

From an interesting perspective. But, it took me half the book to get into it, and even then I kind of had to push my way through it. The characters all had potential but as others have said, fell flat. You didn't really get to know them well enough to feel like you were invested in them and rooting for them. I wanted to know more about their husbands and marriages too. I think that would have helped in the character development. And what exactly was the relationship between Marianne and Connie? Vague hints but nothing was ever really explained. It also felt choppy to me. In the end, I will say that I'm still glad I read it because of its unique perspective.

What a refreshing World War II story! Three women and their children after facing the horrors of the war are brought together to survive after World War II. What I found most interesting was the how each woman’s background led to their reactions as Jews were sent to death camps.

I can't say enough about this historical novel that grabbed me from the start and never let go. The writing, characters, and story were utterly real and compelling. The story is told from the perspective of three German women who support and, in some ways, destroy each other as they survive the war, bearing the scars of their Nazi and Resistance pasts.

Just good...not great. Maybe it was not for me but there was much for climax. Three women stumble upon each other and develop unique relationships with each other, I wouldn’t even call them friendships. They physically survived WWII but escaped mentally and emotionally damaged. All three bring different personalities and talents to the table and as Germany begins to heal they gradually separate. At the end those who remain alive into the 90’s return to the “castle” where they lived for a historical presentation (narrative) of their lives during the war. The writing is great. The story is blah. #TheWomenInTheCastle

There were small inconsistencies in the book that bothered me, which probably wouldn't have been noticed by non-German readers. The major thing that greatly demished my enjoyment of the story is one of the characters (Benita): frivolous, selfish and weak; however hard the author tried, I was impossible for me to feel sympathetic towards her, and I ended up resenting the author for trying so hard...

This is a beautifully written book that follows 3 different women during and after WW2. They come to live with each other and help each other and their children. It is a hard book to read at times as it is during a horrible time in our history. I recommend this for all who enjoy historical fiction. Thank you so much to NetGalley and Bonnier Zaffre for an ARC in return for an honest review.

3.75 stars

A compelling story of a side of WW2 that we rarely hear about -- the German side. If you have ever wondered: how did Germany allow the Holocaust and its atrocities to occur? And did they feel guilty? This book is for you.

I enjoyed this book. At times I found the narrative timeline confusing but all in all enjoyed it.

Let me preface by saying, this is not a time period I typically read or really enjoy. So I was not expecting to be captivated the way I was. This book was not only well written but engaging. I was pulled in and was immediately placed into a world that is hard to digest at times. We often think of the War as a whole, we know what happened in broad terms. But this brings you up close to how this affected people personally and sends the reader through a slew of emotions. It was better than I ever imagined this book could have been.

While I enjoyed the book, it is hard to rank it at the top of the list, perhaps because it was the third I have read in this sub-genre over the last two years (the others being "All the Light We Cannot See" and "The Nightingale." Some of the characters were well drawn, but others seemed like mere props. Still, if you have not read any of the three, you should like this one.

I've read several books about WWII Germany in the last few months and this is by far my favorite one. The author captures horrific reality with an almost poetic prose. She captures the personal lives and experiences during the war of 3 very different women and melds them together in a place and time as they struggle to survive. The book is a masterpiece.

Very well written. It was very interesting to read about the women's experience s after the war. The rebuilding of lives and having to overcome the horrific things that happened to them and their families. Very detailed emotions of the women made you feel like you really knew the characters and the motivation behind their actions. Highly recommend it.