The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck

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 resistor 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 naïve Benita, has fallen into the hands of occupying Red Army soldiers. Then she locates Ania, another resistor’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. 

The Women in the Castle was an engrossing and thought provoking novel, and was unlike any World War II book I've ever read. Told in the point of view of three German Women, this book focuses on them during and after the war. It did give me insight into how something so horrible as the holocaust could be allowed to happen in an educated society. 

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves historical fiction. It's very well written and researched, I felt at times as if I was back in the 1940's and 50's. The only drawback is that this book is kind of tedious to read, but well worth it in the end. 

Also, don't read this book if you like books to end in happily ever after. It's a war novel after all, so it is kind of depressing at times. After reading this book I needed something light to cleanse my mental palate. Thankfully I have plenty of cheap romances for that. haha.