When Juliet’s grandparents are savagely murdered she is forced to consider the possibility her grandfather may have been a war criminal.

Juliet, a successful fiction writer, is left shaken and disturbed by the sudden, brutal murder of her beloved grandparents – the people who raised her. Her father died when she was young, her mother abandoned the family shortly afterwards and then her older sister ran away. Feeling totally alone, Juliet manages to track down her estranged sister, Lily, who is convinced the people who murdered their grandparents have been following her. They want Karl’s engraved signet ring, believing it has links to a Nazi leader.

Flashback to Germany, 1943. We meet Juliet’s grandparents, Karl and Grete, as they hurry to find shelter during an air raid. Told from Karl’s point-of view, we follow his journey as he escapes post-war Germany and befriends a man who encourages him to emigrate to Australia. Karl agrees, intending for Grete to join him when she is able to leave Germany. Things start to get really interesting once Karl is aboard the Fairsea –are all the passengers who they claim to be?

The dual narratives work successfully as Juliet pieces together what happened in Karl’s past that made him the target of someone very dangerous. Karl’s story moves more slowly, giving the reader time to absorb the historical details and imagine the hardships of post-war life – losing your loved ones and leaving everything behind for an unknown future in a strange land. Juliet’s storyline is fast-paced; she and Lily find themselves on the run, wearing disguises to evade the bad guys, desperate to find out the truth. The story culminates in an action-packed, nail-biting finale.

Sonya Bates, a published children’s book author, has written an impressive debut adult novel. Part historical fiction and part thriller, it’s full of unexpected twists and turns. Juliet is believable as the unlikely heroine who finds herself caught up in the dangerous past her grandfather tried so desperately to escape. Family ties, loyalty, greed, and the heart-breaking impact of war on future generations are thoughtfully explored in this solid page-turner that will have you eager for more.

After the horrific death of her Oma and Opa, Juliet Dunne must trace her family history and uncover secrets that were supposed to stay buried forever. She discovers that her grandfather, Karl, somehow had a connection to the Nazi party before immigrating to Australia at the end of the 1940s, and this connection could possibly be the cause of his murder, and the murder of his beloved wife Grete.

Inheritance of Secrets is a dual timeline story set between Germany, Adelaide, and the ocean in between, and is an absolute thrill ride. The pacing is brilliant, with the author slowly revealing clues to Karl and Grete’s homicide at perfect intervals throughout the story; just enough to keep you turning the pages, while also immersing yourself in the story of Karl’s escape to Australia.

I found the chapters set in the 1940s to be more enjoyable than the ones set in the present, as I felt I had more of an emotional connection to Karl and Grete as young adults rather than Juliet and her life in Adelaide. I didn’t much care for her relationships with the other characters, aside from the troubled relationship she had with her older sister Lily. I found their chemistry to be excellent, and Bates did a great job at portraying tense interactions between estranged siblings.

It takes an impressive thriller to garner a five-star rating from me, and Inheritance of Secrets is up on my list of favourite reads of 2020 so far! If you’re a fan of historical fiction with a thriller/mystery twist, I would highly recommend this book.

Loved this! Inheritance of Secrets by Sonya Bates is an absolutely gripping page-turner, combining murder and mystery in modern times that is interwoven with history.

The story opens where Juliet arrives at the morgue to identify the brutally murdered bodies of her beloved grandparents Karl and Grete. The story is set in the beautiful city of Adelaide in Australia and it was mesmerising to be visiting all the familiar places mentioned in the story.

Juliet is a successful author who was raised by her grandparents after her father died and her mother disappeared. The story is centred around Juliet trying to discover why her grandparents were killed and if her estranged sister Lily was involved with their deaths.

The historical thread of the story is about Karl, Juliet’s grandfather and his journey fleeing from Germany on the ship Fairsea post-war to start a new life in Australia.

Was it a wartime secret that Karl was hiding from his family that may have led to his and his wife’s murder and endanger the rest of his family or something else?

Perfectly executed, this was a brilliant and totally engaging read! Sonya Bates is an author to look out for!

**4.5 stars**
This book was an unexpected surprise, one which I enjoyed immensely.
Raised by her grandparents since she was nine, Juliet was coming to grips of having just identified their bodies. They were murdered in their own home and it was becoming apparent that it was not a random attack. What secrets were they hiding?
Added to that distressing news, she also had the seemingly unattainable task of finding her mother and sister.
I initially decided to read this book as it was set locally. I enjoy dual timelines but I was a little hesitant as I thought the earlier era was set in the Second World War and in this Covid 19 world it wasn’t the mind frame I wanted to be in. Luckily I was drawn into the present day as soon as I started and as I kept reading I was reeled in further. The earlier era was in fact concentrated on her grandfather Karl’s journey from post war Germany to Australia a few years after the war.
It was very easy to read and follow the timelines. I found I was picking up and putting the book down often but that says more about my current mindset than the book as I was immediately immersed when reading.
Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for a copy to read.

Review

This book took me into unchartered and uncomfortable waters of ‘them against us’. Having grown up in the USSR and having many members of my family killed, suffering siege in Leningrad, suffering Nazi occupation during WWII it is still very strange to read and understand the stories from ‘the other side of the front’….

However, thanks to amazing talent of Sonya Bates, her voice, the dynamic of narrative and the characters in this book, Inheritance of Secrets was not abandoned but read through and through.

I literally only just now closed the book file on Kindle and am writing this review. There is so much I want to say about this book that I am worried I will forget it all.

Juliet – the main character and the ‘voice’ of the modern days part of the story. A loving granddaughter, a talented writer, a caring sister and a very good, understanding and accommodating girlfriend.

The murder of her grandparents shocks her into realisation of so many things: importance of friendship, loyalty of blood relations, her role in the relationship with her boyfriend. Juliet is trying to get to the bottom of the crime, lies, secrets, her situation and… succeeds.

What helps her along is her strength, her unconditional love for her grandparents and her sister. And, yes, the pain of the losses she survives. Juliet is the one who made me read on. She made me look at her grandparents through her eyes.

Karl and Grete were not German for Juliet. They were her grandparents, her rock and salvation, the only constant during her growing up. They were two shining examples of love, devotion, dedication and commitment.

Karl Weiss – the grandfather, the starting point of Weiss/Dunne family in Australia. I was cautious about him till the very end of the story. And he has proven me… right. Yes, he was not a Nazi in a complete sense of the concept. Yes, he turned his life around and started afresh in Australia. But…

The crime – the senseless and cruel murder of Karl and his wife Grete in their home. It turns out that the murder is just the tip of the iceberg of secrets and cover ups. And it is up to Juliet to find the truth and to find the way out of a complicated and dangerous situation.

Lily – a wayward rebellious sister, Ellis – the best friend, Police detectives – all have their roles to play in uncovering the murder and villains. But it is up to Juliet to take the brunt of it all. It is up to her to uncover not only the culprit of the murder but so many other things in her life and lives of her loved ones.

Is there a happy end? A reader would have to judge for themselves. I am still of two minds about it.

All in all, I am happy I have read this book. I persevered and finished it in a short time. I gave it 5 stars for the voice, the characters, the story, the plots and sub-plots and the aftertaste it left behind.

Inheritance of Secrets is a layered family drama of mysteries and long held loyalties, the origins of which were born from the necessities of survival during a time of war.

Feeling as alone as she has ever been, Juliet is desperate to make contact with her troubled sister Lily. Lily always found it difficult to grow up in the household of their German grandparents and rebelled against the firm but loving control that Karl and Greta found necessary to exert over the two girls. Juliet needs to tell her errant older sister some terrible news.

Murdered in their Adelaide family home, Karl and Greta Weiss were not strangers to conflict, having emigrated to Australia after World War II. Juliet knew that Karl and Greta were both avid letter writers, and that their love survived a ten years separation with Greta needing to stay on in Germany after the fall in order to care for a dying parent.

When Lily finally is reached, her insistence that someone is after them both seems at first to Juliet like the paranoid rants of an addict, which Lily once was. The police are of the opinion that Lily knows more about the murders than she is saying, having approached both her grandparents for yet another monetary bailout before they were killed. Searching her grandparents homes for clues, Juliet realizes that Karl’s signet ring, gifted to him during the war, is missing.

Inheritance of Secrets features dual timelines, that of Juliet in the present and Karl in the past as he makes the arduous voyage across the globe on a ship full of traumatised war migrants. The historical narrative skates somewhat around crimes of war and the possibility that many offenders escaped punishment by migrating off the continent when all the conflict was officially over.

The lifting of one aspect of the true costs of war serves this novel well, with the focal point not being the atrocities of engagement but of how much of an upheaval such separations from country and family would become part of the migrant experience. The ‘new’ Australians of the late 1940’s needed to reinvent themselves in a culture that didn’t always appreciate incomers, and less so those that spoke with a German accent.

The modern crime element of the novel is never quite fully realized and there are a few unresolved threads (a parent is in the wind for the entire novel for example) which would have added another dimension to the read if more fully explored. There is the need to invest in Juliet as she evolves into something quite avenging and heroic, championing the character of the people that raised her as so many questions arise about her grandparent’s past and identities.

Reading this novel serves as a good reminder for what ordinary people are capable of when needs must. Inheritance of Secrets is the debut novel for Adelaide based Canadian writer Sonya Bates, and is published by Harper Collins Australia.

Inheritance of Secrets by Sonya Bates is a captivating story set in two time zones. The first is in Europe during and after World War II through the eyes of Karl who migrates to live in Adelaide, Australia where in present times we meet Juliet, Karl’s granddaughter.

While I do enjoy historical fiction I have a tendency to steer away from World War II stories as I find it at times too depressing. This story, however, while it did include historical aspects is mainly a story about an honest and gentle man who is eager to move on with his life, do the right thing and live happily with his childhood sweetheart Greta, who eventually joins him in Australia.

There are many family dramas in this story but the main mystery is the inexplicable murder of Karl and his wife Greta. Juliet seeks to find the truth. The path is neither simple nor without dangers!
This is a spellbinding story that compels you to keep reading with many twists and turns that make for a very exciting mystery.
Highly recommended read.

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins Publishers Australia for a copy to read and review.

I'm not sure why but I shy away from historical fiction. Though that's probably an understatement. If I start reading a blurb and see reference to World Wars I or II or indeed anything pre-20th century I leap away as if it's coronavirus-laden. I do, however, seem to make an exception for books unfolding in multiple timeframes. (ie. the 'then' and the now).

Very weirdly, with Inheritance of Secrets by Sonya Bates I had read THREE books about World War II (including concentration camps and refugees), all within a week or two of each other. Obviously I didn't plan it that way; it was just a weird coincidence that three Australian books were coming out at once, partially set at the same time.

Thankfully all of the recently-read books have had a different focus. Natasha Lester's The Paris Secret was more about romance and lost love; Suzanne Leal's The Deceptions reflected on 'the things we do to survive'; and The Inheritance of Secrets is more about past lives coming to haunt us. Even if they're not our own.

There's an underlying theme of secrets, family relationships and their legacies in all three however.

Here, our narrators are Karl and Juliet. I really liked Juliet. Bates underplays her success a little but we learn she's a relatively successful author and her life is going along smoothly until the murder of her grandparents.

It seems obvious to Juliet that her older delinquent-like sister Lily is involved as she'd been asking for money just before their deaths.

I enjoyed Juliet's reflection on her childhood and her relationship with her sister, mother and grandparents. In many ways she's forced to re-enact that transition to adulthood in which you start to separate your relationship with your family members (and theirs with you) from them. You realise they have their own lives and they're impacted by things that have nothing to do with you.

Bates intersperses Juliet's story with that of her grandfather's. We meet Karl intermittently. Just before he goes to war, as he's farewelling his beloved Grete. It's 1943 and she's cynical about Hitler's messages of success but on his 18th birthday Karl is eager to get away and do his bit.

We next meet him in 1948. He's been a prisoner of war and newly released, trying to find his parents and Grete. It's then he meets an old friend Hans and is convinced to migrate to Australia for a better life.

I enjoyed the scenes on board the ship travelling to Australia. There was less emphasis in other recently-read books about the process of immigration and resettlement. I was reminded of Suitcase of Dreams by Tania Blanchard which spends some time with newly arrived immigrants in resettlement 'camps'. Part of me actually wanted to learn a little more about Karl's early years here and how he morphed into a successful owner of a chain of bakeries. But I realise, of course, this is the story of his murder and that of his wife.

In fact I kept (and continue to keep) forgetting this is actually a murder mystery. It is—of course—and the book is centred around Juliet trying to discover who killed her grandparents, and why. But in many ways (tragically) their murder and their lives, are really just a small part of a much bigger story.

I really enjoyed this book, particularly the descriptions of post-WWII Australia as I haven;t come across much on this before. Equally a good mystery and a good historical novel so it will appeal to a wide range of readers. Well written and engaging.

Karl Weiss boarded Fairsea with Hans to immigrate to Australia.
When Karl and his wife, Grete, murdered in their own home, Juliet, their granddaughter tried to break the mystery of the murder, revealed the past.
Ellis, Juliet's childhood friend, who is also a journalist, now a grown man with a history which Juliet unsure if she should trust him.
The story is told from two different timelines, however it unfold beautifully and hooked me from the first chapter.

Inheritance of Secrets weaves the history of post WW2 Europe in the 1950s with a current day mystery in Adelaide, Australia.
Karl has fled his home country for a new start, and he arrives in Adelaide with a small bag and a very big secret. Years later it's up to his granddaughter, Juliet, to discover more to his story in her bid to uncover this secret.
Beautifully written, Bates tells the story by alternating between the past and the present. Juliet is determined to figure out the truth to her grandfather's past so she can figure out how it all ended so badly. And her story is shadowed by casting the reader back into the past and uncovering some of the clues she's slowly discovering in the present.
I adored the historical sections of this novel, getting a glimpse of war torn Germany at the end of the war, and following young Karl on his journey to Australia. I enjoyed the way Juliet got to know her grandfather by peeling back the layers of time, and in a way, isn't that how it often is, that we learn more about the people we love after they've gone.
Loved it.

A present day mystery with family secrets and a connection way back to WWII? Yes, please, I’m in! As soon as I read the description of INHERITANCE OF SECRETS I knew that I had to read it.

The story starts with the murder of two elderly people in their Adelaide home. Juliet is heartbroken and unable to understand why anyone would want to harm her grandparents, a couple loved by everyone for their warm personalities and generosity. It’s not long though until she realises that her grandparents had not been victims of a random attack, but had been specifically targeted by ruthless killers, and the reason may lay in her grandfather’s past ....

After hooking me immediately with her opening scenes, Bates slowly unravelled her story with the help of dual timelines – one in the present, as Juliet is trying to come to terms with her grandparents’ death and avoid becoming a target herself; and her grandfather’s experiences during WWII that ultimately brought him into the path of the killer. Dual timelines can sometimes be problematic, but Bates strikes a perfect balance here, with the past and present day storylines being equally as compelling as each other. I immediately felt for Juliet, who is not only trying to come to terms with her beloved grandparents’ brutal death, but also finds out that her sister may be somehow involved, her mother is not contactable and her lover is more concerned with his work than supporting her through her grief.

Part mystery, part historical fiction, part fast-paced thriller, INHERITANCE OF SECRETS had something for everyone. I found the history of post-war Australia and the immigrants’ plight to settle into a new life as interesting as the wartime events that ultimately lead to Karl’s arrival in Australia. Bates draws both her setting as well as her characters vividly, and I really enjoyed her writing style. As the granddaughter of a man who was a soldier in WWII on the Russian front, and a prisoner of war for many years later, I related to the theme of secrets that are never revealed because the memories are too painful – even to close family.

Even if you are not usually a fan of historical fiction, the thriller and suspense component in Bates’ novel will appeal to a wide range of readers across multiple genres. Despite some suspension of disbelief being required in parts, I really enjoyed this very readable novel spanning two different timeframes from WWII to the present, and look forward to reading more from this author in future.

I had no idea of how this book would unravel and what I found is that it was a thoroughly entertaining and captivating book to read. Sonya Bates created a book melding together a mysterious thriller impacted by several perspectives: the historical recounting World War 2 memories and connections, the breakdown of relationships, and the re-emergence of new ones. We meet Juliet in her saddest hours, and we join her as she reconnects with history- her grandparent's life during and after WW2, her history with Ellis, Lily, her mother, and her boyfriend - to find answers for the brutal murders she was faced with. I found a connection in the boat journey of her grandfather, reminding me of my grandparents coming to Australia after the war with nothing, and having to hold their own, on their own. A lot like Juliet, who seemed alone in finding and putting all the pieces together, and was without the help of the grandparents she could always rely on.
Sonya Bates has really found a way to tell a sad and suspenseful story with elements of hope and family, and the need to belong and reconnect people that matter. This is evident through the back and forth from present day to the 40s storylines. The passing on of the obligations of Juliet's grandparents highlighted the intricacies of secrets and responsibilities that carry on through generations.
Thoroughly enjoyed this.

This was an absolutely phenomenal story. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and it was a definite 5 star read for me.

The storyline and plot we followed in Inheritance of Secrets was so gripping and unexpected, that it had me hooked from the very beginning. There was also a lingering mystery throughout the story that I absolutely loved! There were twists and turns, as well as really good plot development.

I absolutely loved the different relationship dynamics we got to see throughout this book, and how the events that occurred impacted these relationships. I think all of the characters were very unique, and had very distinctive personalities that made the dialogue really interesting to read. I really loved that we got to see the story unfold by reading into two different timelines. I think that having chapters from the present intertwined with chapters from the past made the story flow so nicely together, and made it very easy to follow and understand.

Overall, I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good historical fiction. It was truly so phenomenal!

Juliet lives in Adelaide South Australia and has been brought up by her German grandparents. Her mother just walked out one day when Juliet was 9 years old. Lily is Juliet’s older sister and leads an itinerant life on the fringes of society. The story begins with the murders of her grandparents and the mystery of why begins.

Bates moves the narrative between the present and the past with ease as we come to learn of her grandparents love for each other and their migration to Australia after the Second World War. We also come to know Juliet’s sister Lily and the reason for her life choices. Secrets of the past haunt the present and generate mysteries in the present.

I found this to be an engaging story that kept me turning the pages late into the night. Bates writes well without being pretentious. Personally I would have liked to hear more about Juliet’s and Lily’s mother but accept that may have been deleterious to maintaining the tension in uncovering the mystery.

I had read the excerpt for this book on Netgalley and so wanted to keep reading it at the time so was delighted to receive an ARC from Harper Collins Australia . A fantastic , unique book that grabs you from the very beginning . Two elderly German immigrants are murdered in their Adelaide home and their granddaughter tries to uncover why . Loved the authors writing style and the use of duel timeline worked really well . Just loved this book !

I don’t read much historical fiction but this got me hooked! I loved how it went back and forth between time periods, and it became really suspenseful as time passed and I just needed answers! Loved it, the only questions I have left are about the Mum who we never ended up hearing from! Not that it was necessarily a bad thing it was just open ended! Thanks for the review copy!