demerson19

Make it 3.5 stars. This is a actually two novellas placed together, both dealing with occupied France. The first, and best, of the two looks at a variety of characters running from Paris as the Nazis take over. You get the rich and poor, young and old, and get a feel for what it must have been like at that time.The author was already established as a writer in France when she was sent to a concentration camp by the Nazis, where she died. These two uncompleted works were only recently discovered and it is good to have them available.The second work actually holds more promise, but perhaps the author would have liked more time with it. Here we find a young French woman, whose unlovable husband is a prisoner of war, falling in love with a German soldier placed in her house during the occupation. The interplay between the occupiers and the occupied is interested, but it skims too much on the surface to have the impact it could have. The two main characters especially need some more development so their actions make more sense.But still a good read. I handed it off to my daughter because of her ongoing interest in WWII -- this sheds new light on one aspect of that war.