This was a well written and well researched book. It was also a bit sad and depressing. I can’t imagine enduring what Izzy and Bill did. It was intense and I had to keep reading just to know if they survived. Historical fiction fans will enjoy this. Thanks to Berkley and Netgalley for the early copy

Tell people what we see. Make sure this never happens again.

It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say — Primo Levi

The war has been going on for 5 years already, so POW camps are situated in many of the countries that the Nazis have annexed. This included Czechoslovakia where the farms, frequently left to the women and children, needed workers. The German officers were happy to lend those POWs to do the work. And so Bill, a British POW, meets Izabela, a young Czech, who wishes she had been able to go with her father and brother to fight with the resistance. What starts as friendship and the opportunity to learn English soon develops into a romance - one which is destined to become the most unbelievable story.

The detail of what was experienced by the POWs is almost impossible to accept. I found it difficult to believe that their treatment was not much different than that of those who were sent to concentration camps. Perhaps the only difference was that the POWs received parcels from the Red Cross and the others did not! Shuddering to think what a march across the country in winter must have been like, I began to understand why some just wanted to give up.

This book is written from a true story that occurred during the war. I absolutely love the fact that these men worked together to keep this incredible secret until they were liberated. What a fabulous feat!

This digital copy was received through NetGalley, Berkeley, Penguin Random House and Avington Books Ltd. The impressions, comments and rating are my own and were in no way solicited.

Falling in love in time of WWII and then becoming a wife of a British soldier that is a POW ...wow what a story!

The story captured me from the start in how Bill and Izzy started their relationship. The hardship they they endured as well as others in the story is heartbreaking. But the friendships and the good in people makes the story so uplifting.

My only complainta about this book is the end. I wanted more closure with some of the other characters.

Izabela and Bill were destined to meet, but did Izabela realize what she was getting herself and Bill into when she rushed the marriage and escaped the farm she had known for her entire life?

Izabela immediately fell in love with Bill when she saw him in a group of British prisoners who came to help on the farm during WWII.

Her plans were to marry Bill, find her father and brother, and join the resistance, but the Germans had other plans for them.

We follow Izzy and Bill as they escape the farm, travel in the night, sleep in the day, become captured, and endure the prison camp.

They were sent to Lamsdorf Prison where Izzy had to hide that she was a woman. Surprisingly the men in their hut actually helped to hide her.

THE PRISONER'S WIFE which is based on true events was very tense, very well written, and very well researched.

You will feel the terror and pain the prisoners endured in the camps and on the historical Long Walk from Poland to Germany.. 



The characters were resilient, loyal, unbelievably strong, and easy to like.



Historical fiction fans will be completely absorbed in this book that gives yet another look at what suffering went on during WWII.

THE PRISONER'S WIFE is a beautiful but heartbreaking book.

A MUST READ!! 5/5


This book was given to me by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

What an incredible story! A must read WWII story of survival. A young married couple are captured by Nazis and imprisoned. To avoid being separated, Izzy hides her identity, pretending to be a man. Luckily, there are others who support her and help to hide her as they try to survive within camps. It is a gripping tale, one readers won't be able to put down.

Knowing that this book was based on a real couple made the story even more heart rending than other WWII books. Bill is a British POW who meets Czech farm girl Izzy. When they fall in love and marry in secret, they attempt to escape in hopes of finding and joining the resistance. For Izzy's safety she impersonates a boy who is shell shocked and can't speak. Because of that, when they are captured, they are kept together in a prison camp. The fear of discovery combined with the camaraderie of the small group of prisoners that Bill and Izzy trust with their secret reveals an emotional roller coaster of a plot. Be prepared to stay up late.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this arc in exchange for an honest review.

An amazing story, looking at a different aspect of WW2, through the eyes of a British POW and his Czech wife.

Bill, a British POW, is assigned to a work crew in occupied Czechoslovakia, helping on the farms of locals to harvest the crops for the Nazi forces. Izzy is the daughter of one of these farmers, who falls in love with Bill. They decide to marry in secret, and Izzy decides to remain with Bill even though it means acting as a prisoner. She's disguised as a young boy and lives as a POW with him, in the hopes one day they will be free.

I already greatly enjoy WW2 stories, but there is something special about those that look at lesser known aspects of the war. The British camp changes the setting as the soldiers are supposed to be treated by the laws of the Geneva Convention. The author has done her research regarding how the Nazis really treated POWs and the story is tangentially based on a true one.

5 stars

This is a Historical Fiction, War Story and Romance that was inspired by a real life couple. Knowing this, I knew my heart would hurt in many ways. I went into this book knowing this and I do not regret it. This book was a complete 5 out of 5 star rating.

I connected and was completely invested in Izzy’s and Bills relationship. So forbidden but also gave you the feelings that they belonged to each other and there was no reason why they shouldn’t be together. During this time in War it was horrible for the soldiers who wanted to drive these horrid people from power. And Izzy and Bill were like a beacon of hope, even when they themselves felt hopeless. And through all of this their love was solid and true. This book had me laughing, had me cringing, had me swooning and hoping things would work out. But mostly it had me in tears, I hope like the author, that this book reaches them or anyone that might have known them so we can learn of what become of them. This book was amazing! I highly recommend it!

NetGalley ARC | If you are looking for a WW2 story that takes place in an area other than Germany or France, you'll want to pick up The Prisoner's Wife. Based very loosely on a true story, follow a young Czech girl who falls in love with a British POW.

Although one of my most anticipated WW2 books this year, I found the middle dragging in both pace and detail and wasn't enamored with the character development. Still, though, I think this book is worth a read.

You can find my complete review on The Uncorked Librarian: https://theuncorkedlibrarian.com/may-2020-book-releases/

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a free advanced copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.

A heartbreaking story of how far a woman will go to be with the man she loves during one of the darkest and most vile times in human history, World War II as the Nazis mow down and capture warriors and innocents alike, sending them to the hell of POW camps.

Fiction based on a true story of one young woman’s deception and those around her who helped keep her alive as she poses as a man to be with her soldier husband. THE PRISONER’S WIFE by Maggie Brookes is a testament to the power of love and determination, aided by sheer luck and possible the hands of Fate.

Feel as if you are there, feel the brutal cold, the seemingly impossible conditions that thousands endured and realize what a monument to the resiliency of humanity against the odds as the love between an English soldier and a farm girl from Czechoslovakia propel her to risk discovery and death. Ask yourselves, could YOU do this?

The action is not-fast-paced, this isn’t an adventure story, it is a story of survival against the odds. Often brutal, that it is based on reality is a chilling prospect as we cannot help but cheer this couple on.

Fabulous reading! Highly recommended, a humanized version of history we can only hope never to repeat.

Although the main character was based on a true person, I felt her original winey, immature, idealistic personality, could never be transformed to a quiet, self assured clever girl at the end.

Though I've read a great deal of history, there are some periods about which I tend to shy away from fiction, among them World Wars I and II. The marketing material accompanying this novel emphasized how it was based on a true story, so I assayed it.

I'm not sorry. Once we got past the early portion, in which teenage Izzy, living on a Czech farm during occupation, falls in lust, er, love, with English POW Bill and marries him out of hand, the novel becomes really absorbing. The two take off, are captured, and the rest of the book focuses on their surviving--Izzy disguised as a man--in prisoner of war camps, before they join the infamous Long March to Freedom.

The author makes clear in the afterword that her novel is based on a story told in reminiscence by an old vet, who insisted that someone in one of his POW camps had a wife living there as a man. He couldn't remember their names. The rest was research on the part of Brookes. Diligent research--except for tiny glitches like the German omitting caps of nouns, the background matches facts and attitudes I've been reading for decades.

The complex main characters are drawn with verisimilitude, and though there are a couple of scenes that feel a bit novelistic, they do contribute to the high tension and keep those pages turning. Brookes vividly developed the physical stresses of the characters' experience, and the emotional fallout. It kept me reading until quite late.

Based on a true story as related by a soldier in WWII, the author has filled in the details that are missing in this story about a Czech girl who runs off with a British POW, disguising herself as a boy/man in order to stay with her man all through his ordeals as a German prisoner of war.

The true story focuses on the details of the Czech girl's deception and how she could pull it off in spite of all the odds, living in camps populated by male war prisoners. It also includes the Long March, of Allied and British prisoners, from Poland to Germany, which I was interested to learn about.

As part of WWII literature, and based however roughly on facts, the book is of importance to a fuller story of WWII.

Even though historical fiction is one of my newfound favorite genres, I don't think I have read very much in the WWII era, why I can't say because it is fascinating to me.

This book was a true gem. Based on a true story it is evident that the author did some research, and was easily able to merge the fact with the fiction to create a tale that was hard to put down.

Highly recommend.

A Czech farm girl, Isabel, meets a British Prisoner of War, Billy and it’s love sparked from the first look and touch. Billy is a prisoner and they have to keep their love secret or the German guards would exact a horrible retribution on both of the lovers. Isabel’s father and brother were taken away by the Germans and she is the only one to help her mother on the farm. Billy begins to help her in so many ways but they know their relationship must change and it can’t be in their present conditions. However, they eventually escape and trek their way from the countryside until they are finally caught by the Nazis. Isabel cuts her hair and dresses like a boy. She acts as a mute would and they tell the soldiers that she was suffering from the results of a horrific battle at Tobruk.

This novel is more than just a litany of horrendous prisoner of war conditions which are almost beyond belief. Starvation, sickness, lice, and cruelty by captors are more than enough to break and even destroy the prisoners. What truly stands out in this account, however, are the tremendous traits of compassion, loyalty and kindness by which men are bound and which they exert to protect Isabel’s female status. Indeed, one of the men will die to protect Isabel’s life. Billy sings and shares his musical harmonica talent to lift up the spirits of the suffering men.

As the end of the war approaches, conditions begin to change as the Nazi soldiers fear retaliation if they are exposed to the Allies. Billy and Isabel, however, are united in honoring and respecting men who treasured and shared books, meager portions of food and medical care, minimum as it was. They all dream of returning to home and a decent meal. One mourns as his fiancé married his brother but he still finds courage to go on for this loving prisoner couple.

War often shows the world the worst in human beings but in Maggie Brookes’ novel it also shows the best human and superhuman qualities operating in the worst of wartime stress and difficulties. Remarkable historical fiction that is a phenomenal read and highly recommended. You won’t forget this novel for a very long time!

This a story of love and survival during WW2. Izzy and her family own a farm in Czechoslovakia. Bill is a POW and is brought to Izzy's farm to work. Izzy and Bill fall in love and are captured and sent to a POW camp. Izzy pretends to be a man so she can stay with Bill. This is a story of love and survival in the absolute worst conditions. I loved the main characters in this book. They are so well written with so many emotions the reader feels everything they do. I received an advanced readers copy and all opinions are my own.

Izzy, a Czech farm girl , is fleeing Nazi tyranny with her new husband, Bill. She is dressed as a man, and when the two are captured by the Nazis, they believe that they have captured two men, not a man and a woman, and the couple is sent to a work camp. Conditions are horrific, and Izzy lives in fear every day that her ruse will be discovered. But in that terrible place, the couple are befriended by a group of other POWs, and their new friends will do anything to protect Izzy’s secret. This story highlights how the darkest of times can sometimes bring out the absolute best in some. A powerful message for our own dark times

A young couple take the biggest risk imaginable for love and end up in a series of Nazi POW camps. With a terrible secret that could subject them to the worst of Nazi oppression, the two find a group of friends to help them survive. Author Maggie Brookes puts her documentary expertise to work at the slow-to-start but ultimately gripping novel The Prisoner’s Wife.

In Czechoslovakia in 1944, Izabela is restless on her family’s farm. The previous year, during their work for the resistance, her father and older brother went missing. Everyone suspects Nazi involvement, but no one can prove it. All Izabela knows is that she wishes she could have joined the resistance with them. The Nazis have torn their country apart, and she wants to do more than hoe vegetables and tend to pigs.

It surprises her more than anyone, then, that it is the same Nazi army that changes her life forever. Through a work program set up by the Nazi government, prisoners are brought to the farm to help her family with the hard labor. On the day the prisoners arrive, Izabela notices Bill right away. A British soldier, Bill and his best friend Harry are now consigned to the ill treatment of the POW camp. Wherever the commanding officer points with his gun, they go.

A friendship and then love blossom between Bill and Izabela. He teacher her English; she teaches him how to work a farm. Before long they become inseparable, and Harry conspires with them to help them get married. Once she has Bill at her side, Izabela thinks, they can follow the resistance to the north. Maybe they’ll find her brother and father and join the cause.

The two get married and run away. Izabela dresses like a boy to avoid suspicion while they travel. They manage to spend 10 days on the road before they’re captured by the Nazis and sent to a POW camp. In those first terror-filled moments, Bill and Izabela are sure the Nazi guards will discover that Izabela is a woman. They manage to prevent that from happening and only share the secret with other prisoners once they’re in the all-male camp.

To their astonishment, the other prisoners help them hide the truth. Any small thing they can do to defy the Nazis feels like a victory, especially in a war that seems to have no end. As Izabela, Bill, and the others try to survive, they will find bonds and challenges unlike any they’ve ever known before. With the weight of their secret and the heavy responsibility just to survive, they draw on one another’s strength to carry them through it all.

British author Maggie Brookes, well-known for her documentaries, uses her attention to detail to craft a touching novel. In the author’s note, she shares the research she did to depict the times. Her research shines as every page and chapter of Izabela and Bill’s time in the camps ring true. Their horror, their uncertainty, the sheer will to survive for one another will leave readers in tears by the end.

If the novel can be faulted anywhere, it’s in the slow buildup. It takes almost a third of the book for Bill and Izabela to meet, fall in love, get married, and run away. Impatient readers might give up on the book by then, which is a shame because the best parts come when the young couple are captured and sent to the POW camp. Then Brookes shines as an author.

The early portions during the love story, by contrast, don’t grip the attention as much. They venture a little too much into romance novel territory, and readers wanting a historical fiction experience might be tempted to put the book down. A firmer hand on editing these portions would have tightened the narrative.

Also, while marketing materials tout this as based on a true story, Brookes shares in the end notes that it was a story told to her. No one knows the name of the young couple who endured this hardship or where they might have gone after the war ended, and she entreats anyone with information on them to come forward so she can connect with the real-life Izabela and Bill. Given the stories of courage and sheer force of will from World War II, it’s easy to imagine this to be a true story, but the fact that Brookes is uncertain of the identity of the couple who endured it takes away something.

Readers who enjoy World War II fiction and would like another lens through which to view the last year of the war will definitely want to read this book. I recommend they Bookmark The Prisoner’s Wife.

What a story. This is “inspired by a true story” although the author was never able to find proof it actually happened. I have to say — I hope it did. This is a story about a young British soldier in a POW camp that falls in love with a Czech farm girl, and they decide to risk everything by trying to run to safety and a better life. In their youthful exuberance, they really don’t think their plan through and wind up living a nightmare after being captured by the Nazis. The young girl, Izzy, pretends to be a man and thats when the story truly begins. The author gives a realistic glimpse into the hardships of Nazi POW camps; its unimaginable that anyone survived, let alone a woman hiding as a man. But what touched me the most about this story were Izzy & Bill’s fellow prisoners and the lengths they went to keep her secret. Its a hopeful book of love and friendship trapped amongst the horrors of war. I’ll remember this one. And again — I really hope its true. Disclaimer– I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher!!! Publication date: 5/20/2020 #NetGalley 4 1/2 stars 🤩🤩🤩🤩✨

The Prisoner's Wife is the unusual tale of love and survival within the Nazi prison camps. Imagine falling in love with a prisoner, running away together in an attempted escape, only to be recaptured. This time, recaptured along with a new wife, disguised as a young man.. The story is one of survival in the harshest of conditions, of the cruelty of man, along with its opposite - the compassion, camaraderie, and pulling together of those facing bleak realities. Based on a true story, this book is definitely a winner.