What an amazing story! Stayed up very late to finish!
I received a free copy from the the publisher and Netgalley.

I love everything historical fiction - especially WWII!! There are so many things that I just didn’t even think about, or things that had to take place in order to hide and relocate Jewish individuals! Eve is a forger, she makes false documentations for those trying to flee! She’s an amazing artist, and she is asked to do this as she can replicate the seals that are found in various documents! It is here she meets Remy, also a forger. How can they continue to create new identities, but try to keep the ones they appear to be erasing? Thus The Book of Lost Names is born! This was so wonderfully written, showed strong character development, and tugged at my heart in so many ways!

The Book of Lost Names By Kristin Harmel

Rating: 4 / 5 Stars

Publication Date: 7/21/2020

** Thank you to Netgalley, Gallery Books, and of course, Kristin Harmel, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

In all the historical fiction that I have read, Kristin Harmel tends to stick out in the stories she tells and the characters she creates. Considering the World War II Historical Fiction genre has been overdone in the past 6 years or so, Harmel still finds a way to make the stories unique and shine from the bookshelf filled with people walking away (ha. ha). The Book of Lost Names is one of those books.

Our main character is Eva, a semi-retired librarian in Florida who stumbles upon a photograph in the newspaper containing something she hasn’t seen in over sixty years - The Book of Lost Names. As the Nazis looted libraries during World War II this special book was taken from France and is considered one of the most fascinating cases. As a religious text from the 18th century, it is now housed in Berlin. The most fascinating thing about it? It contains some form of a code that only Eva knows the answer to. And so we
begin the journey to figure out - can Eva summon the strength to revisit her past?

The Novel alternates between Eva in the past and present, and we learn of her experiences during the war which shapes her into the woman in the present. We see her heroic actions and falls - based around her ability to save Jewish Children. Her bravery and resilience in such a dark time of European history take center stage in this beautiful novel.

As I said before, In a genre that has become oversaturated over the years, Harmel provides an excellent eye-opening, informative, and World War II story filled with light and hope. If you loved The Nightingale, This is by far a book for you. IT does not disappoint and I am so glad I was captivated once again by Harmel’s writing.

This book takes a unique perspective--a mother and daughter who move from Paris to the countryside to hide from Nazis but the fear of being found is eclipsed by the clandestine work the daughter is doing. The characters are well written with motivations behind their flaws and good reason for their virtues and appeal. The author clearly researched what life was like in France during the war, both in Paris and the country--food shortages, black market and all. And the few switches from the present to the main part of the story during WWII work well.

( received complimentary e-copy in exchange of the review )

Felt very comfortable with the writing style and tone of this book. The story held my attention thru from beginning to end. Was able to be immersed in history. Time well spent.

I received a copy of The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

A beautifully written story that was inspired by horrific events in history. Eva Traube Abrams has lived a quite remarkable life. She is straightening books at the library when she seems an object from her past in a magazine picture. She immediately recognizes it as the Book of Lost Names. She’s not told anyone about its existence or her personal involvement with the code found inside the book. In Eva’s earlier life, she was forced to leave Paris when Nazis came to collect the Jews in her neighborhood. She escapes with her mother to a remote area in the mountains. There she meets a mysterious man that shows her how to forge identity documents in order to help smuggle Jewish children into Switzerland. She agrees to help if they can keep a record of the children’s actual names and forged names so that some day the children could possibly be reunited with their families.

This book grabbed me from the very beginning. The character development was seamless. You felt for all of the characters and wished you could sit down with Eva over a cup of tea. A truly remarkable book that should not be missed.

Absolutely amazing! My favorite read of 2020
Historical fiction that is written In such a way that the pages turn themselves. Eva’s story is so beautiful and heart wrenching too. The ending was everything.

This book stands out among other books set in the World War II years as it tells a story that hasn't been told before - that of the children who were affected by the persecution of Jews. I found it very moving and loved all the characters. Very well done! I will recommend to my library patrons.

I loved this book! It's one of those books that you can't stop reading and cry though parts of it! I read a lot of historical fiction and, while I can't choose a favorite, "The Book of Lost Names" is definitely high on the list for several reasons. First, the story is amazing and held my attention almost to the point where I could do nothing but read! Second, the characters were realistic. I could see them in my mind's eye. Last, it had a realistic (to me) ending. The roller coaster of emotions I felt while reading this book were real. I honestly felt like I was reading a diary.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for this opportunity to read and provide an honest review of this book. It's one of the best historical novels I've read in a long time!

this book was a delightful and evocative read. It will make you cry and fill you with hope and awe. A very easy read to recommend to loved ones.

3 stars

I love WWII fiction and The Book of Lost Names had such an intriguing premise, something so different than other historical fiction books I have read. While this book held my interest, it fell short for me. At times I found it predictable and slow moving.

It is told in a past / present format, but the majority of the book is told in the past. There are only small snippets of the present day story. I thought Eva was a well-developed character, but her mother drove me absolutely mental. She was extremely annoying and I dreaded any time she was part of the dialogue.

I think that most WWII historical fiction fans will like this book, there are a lot more people who seemed to enjoy this more than I did.

Thank you to Gallery Books for my copy of this book via NetGalley

I’m so in love with this book. It touched me in so many ways. I’m now a huge Kristen Harmel fan. I don’t love all historical fiction but this one I couldn’t get enough of. I felt so many emotions and tears for all the loss that happened not only in the book, but also knowing this stuff really happened. I’m amazed at Harmel’s research to write this. I have to have the actual book because it’s so much like the book in this story.

Another beautifully written novel by Kristin Harmel. I’ve read a lot of historical fiction centering around WWII lately, and it never ceases to amaze me that there is another POV that I’ve missed. This time it’s the view of the French Resistance and the forgery ring they created to help smuggle out escaped Jews, especially children. The inner conflict felt by Eva was palpable as she tries to rectify her Jewish heritage with the need to save others and fight. Such a great story!

The most interesting part of this not-terribly-original WWII story was the actual book of lost names and how they created the code. Beyond that - so much was unrealistic/unbelievable, from character motivations and reactions to dialogue and plot points that were far too convenient for the author. I didn't feel like I was in fully confident hands as a reader. It was entertaining, but not compelling.

SUCH A FANTASTIC BOOK! I really enjoyed this book. I think it gives a great look at the less known heroes of WWII. I think older high school would learn a lot from this book. Its a little suspenseful and you definitely root for the main character which makes for a great story.

Kristin Harmel’s fifth novel, The Book of Lost Names (400 pages; Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster), is a tour de force––a stirring testament to stoicism and courage in the face of “nightmares of monsters dressed as men.” Harmel’s story takes readers back to Nazi-occupied France, where the protagonist, a young, willful Jewish woman named Eva Traube, forges documents for the hundreds of Jewish children to be smuggled from France to Switzerland. If caught, she’ll hang. The heartrending story grapples with the contortion of morality, of faith and hope under duress, and the inimitable power of love. The book jumps between Eva’s years as a forger in 1943––as she fights to remember and record the thousands of identities erased by the Nazis––and a graying Eva in 2005, as she fights to remember her own. The story begins when the 85-year-old Eva reads a New York Times article: an important book from her past has been rediscovered by a collector in Germany. The collector has found a curious code in its pages.

One night in 1943, there is a knock at the door of the apartment of Eva’s family, Poles who emigrated to Paris years ago. In what forebodes the fierce persecution of Jews in Vichy France, Eva’s dignified father is dragged away as she watches, paralyzed, from a nearby apartment. From here, the reader is propelled into the story, which is paced like a spy thriller but characterized by a tenderness such novels often omit.

Fleeing on false documents convincingly forged by Eva, she and her Mamusia (Polish for “mother”) land in the provincial town of Aurignon, in a part of France considered a Free Zone. While Eva learns to accept her father’s loss, Mamusia’s spirit is splintered––an agony Harmel describes with a searing touch. When she asks her daughter where her husband has been sent to, Eva tells her to the East, “to a work camp called Auschwitz. In Poland.”

Her mother turned away and moved to the window. “Which way is East?” Mamusia asked in a whisper, and Eva followed her gaze outside. They were facing away from the disappearing sun, and the sky ahead of them had already turned to thick molasses.

Harmel deftly captures the despair of their circumstances, the impenetrable distance to Auschwitz. Mamusia’s anguish soon results in Eva becoming the receptacle of her mother’s grievances: “You failed him,” she tells her, referring to Eva’s father. Their relationship, which Harmel shows with brilliance and sympathy, cracks under this weight. So, when Eva decides to fight along the resistance––forging documents for Jewish children escaping the roundups—Mamusia is aghast that Eva would put both their lives in even more danger.

“What happens when they come for us, too? When they take us east? Who will remember us? Who will care? Thanks to you, not even our names will remain.”

This shakes Eva—not even our names will remain—but she nonetheless begins forging documents, creating new names for children too young to remember their old ones. But in the hope that these children eventually will be reunited with their pasts, she encodes the real and fake names into an old religious text: The Book of Lost Names. From there, the novel launches the reader into a turbulent but heroic journey—one informed by Harmel’s fascinating research into forgers during World War II. Though fictional, the novel is heavily based on the lives of real forgers in France, giving added solemnity to the horrors and reverence to the characters’ courage.

“The world is before you,” James Baldwin said, “you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.” Harmel’s profound historical tale speaks to that admonishment. Eva’s acts of resistance are what are called for when confronting a system that devastatingly targets a group of people. It’s hard not to see in Eva’s fervor to remember forgotten names the same urgency in the call to remember the names of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and so many, many more.

Title: The Book of Lost Names



Author: Kristin Harrell



Ch: 32



Pg: 400



Genre: Historical Fiction



Rating: 5 stars



Publisher: Gallery Books



Librarian Eva Traube Abrams has a secret past one she never shared with her son nor her husband. When a book surfaces that she hasn’t seen in years; The book of lost names. She realizes it’s time to face her past.



I’ve been on a WW II fiction kick and I’ve been reading everything that I can get my hands on since I read Sarah Sundin’s Sunrise at Normandy series. As it’s a genre I haven’t really read before. What made The Book of Lost Names stands out because this wasn’t a book about the war but about everyday French people doing what they can to save Jewish children.



I finished this book in two days because I couldn’t put it down. I recommend having tissues handy when reading this one. After finishing this one I’ve added the authors back list to me to be read pile.





I received a copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are mine alone.

Kristin Hammel does it again! Her Historical Fiction books just draw me in. She makes me feel for her characters. Love this book.

Once again Kristin Harmel delivers a special historical fiction story. I found Harmel's last two books one of my favorite releases of their respective years published and The Book of Lost Names hits the mark once again.

The Book of Lost Names is based on a true story of Eva Traub who was a French-born Jew living in Paris. Eva's parents were Polish Jews who moved to Paris and the story starts with the arrest of Eva's dad. Eva and her mom then flee Paris when Eva finds herself in the position to help in the forgery of documents for Jews fleeing for her life.

This book hooked me from the very start. I found that I could not put this book down. I had to know what happened to Eva and those who were close to her. I thought I knew how the book would finish but wow was I surprised.

Harmel has quickly become an author that I will always buy her books without knowing the premise. She has risen high in the ranks of historical fiction writers.

The second that I’ve read from this author, and the second dealing with the Occupation of Paris and the Resistance fights against the Germans. Told in two perspectives: that of an eighty-odd year-old Eva and her twenty-year old self, the story begins with a librarian in Berlin seeking to return looted books to their original owners. The book mentioned and shown is Eva’s very own Book of Lost Names, one that held secrets and the histories of many Jewish children and refugees. Eva books a flight to ‘reclaim’ the book, and despite having never shared her story with her son or now deceased husband, she explains her story and her part in the many lives that she touched.

1942, the restrictions on Jews in Paris are ever-increasing, and rumors are circulating that foreign-born Jews are due to be rounded up and ‘deported’. As the daughter of Polish immigrants, despite their having lived in Paris for over a quarter-century, Eva’s father is arrested and taken as Eva and her mother are watching a neighbor’s children. Thus begins a path for Eva that was fueled by both her heart and her talent, as she starts by forging documents for herself and her mother, with plans to escape to Switzerland to wait for her father’s release.

But her skills are noticed, and she is recruited into the Resistance cell in the small town: a cell that is responsible for creating new identities for children and others fleeing persecution. With her first ‘forging’ partner being Remy, a committed patriot for France, determined to save everyone he can and her own struggles with her new “identity’ and the fact that many of the papers she is creating are for children under 6, who may not remember their own birth names and thus ending their chances of reuniting with their families, she was determined to make a record so their names – both real and new – are recorded. To keep them safe Remy explains the Fibonacci sequence to her – and they use the sequence and a series of dots, stars and marks to record the names, old and new, for the children. Keeping them ‘known’ if only to the two of them.

I can’t begin to describe how immediate the impact of the young Eva and her personality, and her fascination with books, memories and being ‘recorded’ had, and the instant connection that she engendered. The older Eva with all of her worries, struggles and regrets lays out her own story that is full of danger, adventure and loss, and leaves readers on the edge of their seat more than once. Bringing Eva and the book, along with the secrets it holds and a little twist at the end made this story feel ‘just right’ - like all would be sorted with that ending and everyone got, even after years, the ending and hope they deserved. Impeccably researched with a feeling that the author is, even in fiction, honoring those lost in the war – brings that never forget feeling forward, and lets readers into stories that may not be well-known about the war, and provide a jumping off point that points to resilience, determination and ingenuity in dire circumstances. A favorite read that brings what could be ‘dry’ history into a story that is accessible and hard to put down, grab this book for all those hopeful feelings and to find a new appreciation of the many who tried to battle against the hate and polemic of Hitler.

I received an eArc copy of the title from the publisher via NetGalley for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.

Review first appeared at <a href=” https://wp.me/p3OmRo-aLw /” > <a> I am, Indeed </a>