I wasn't sure what to expect when I requested this, but I was blown away by this novel. It is a very emotional read. It is hard to review because of this reason, so I will just say that anyone that has any interest in WW2 history, please give this a read. It was just so VERY well done. Thank you for the approval.

Where Butterflies Go is told in first-person and in two parts. The first part of the book starts in Warsaw, Poland, in 1932, and the second part of the book begins in 1948 as Meira immigrates to Great Neck, New York.

We follow Meira’s family as the Nazis invade Poland, and hostilities increase daily and year after year until family members are lost, and those who survive are starving. Finally, Meira’s family is packed onto a train and sent to a concentration camp.

As Part I climaxes to its end, it left me scarcely able to breathe. That night, I wasn’t able to sleep. I don’t want to give spoilers away, but I recommend you have plenty of tissues nearby when you read this book.

The first part of the book is written in chilling and heartbreaking details. From the depravity of the Nazis’ actions to the desperation of the ghetto dwellers as they fight to exist in a world of cruelty and heartlessness. Meira’s thoughts as a daughter, wife, and especially mother are heart-wrenching in their candor, and I challenge anyone not to be moved by them.

As Ms. Doxer moves us to the second part of the book, the tone lightens—as it should—but as we reside in Meira’s thoughts, we feel her despair, loss, and emptiness as well. Ms. Doxer has such a profound gift with character development and creating that all-important ambiance which pulls the reader in so we become part of the story. Though some of the characters were unlikable, that was intentional.

Each character had an arc, but our primary focus was on Meira and her journey. While I loved Max, Karen, Avrom, and so many other characters, and of course, sweet little Tovah, I adored Mr. Diamond. We all need a Mr. Diamond in our lives. He was the shoulder to cry on, the understanding heart, the wise advice, and the little push Meira required at just the right moment.

As Meira walks through her journey of healing, we, the reader, walk through it with her, and I felt myself profoundly changed because of it. I recognized those feelings of emptiness and earth-shattering grief, of pain so deep you fear you’ll never recover. Ms. Doxer’s ability to tap into that human consciousness and communicate those emotions in such an evocative way continued to draw me deeper and deeper into Meira’s story. I wanted so desperately for her to find love, but most of all, peace.

Ms. Doxer is an absolutely brilliant writer, weaving factual and fictional elements seamlessly into this poignant story following her great-aunt’s harrowing journey from Warsaw, Poland to New York. Blending family stories, archival information from Yad Vashem, and her incredible vision, she has created an extraordinary book of hope, love, and renewal. In the end, you are left with a powerful reminder that through tremendous loss, you can heal.

I’ve read many books on WWII and the Holocaust. All of them have moved me and left an impression on me, but the manner in which Ms. Doxer presented this particular story in all its starkness, brutality, beauty, and humanity will stay with me for a very long time.

This was a very beautiful tale about a Jewish woman who escaped the Nazi concentration camp. I recommend this for all those that love WWII stories!

WOW...I am sitting here crying after just finishing this book, but I wanted to write this review when my feelings are fresh.

This is a historical fiction that the first half took place in Poland, but the second half takes place in United States. This book is told by Meira the main character. This historical fiction does not jumps time instead it tells her life starting in 1912 through the WWII and after the war. This book was written so beautifully, and the characters came to live as you read the book. The events and hard ships that Meira went through during this book you felt like you where there with her. I cried and I laughed while I was reading this book. I have read a ton of Historical Fiction, but this is one of the best written and one of my one favorites. I have to say I like to go into book without knowing a lot about them, so I mainly pick up books by their covers. I have to say this book has been sitting on my Netgalley shelf because I had forgotten this was historical fiction. The cover made me think this book was a Thriller, and I just had not be in the mood to read a thriller. After I have read the book I understand the cover and I think it goes with the book, but I still feel the cover as I thriller feel to it. I was kindly provided an e-copy of this book by the publisher or author (Debra Doxer) via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review about how I feel about this book, and I want to send a big Thank you to them for that.

It was gripping and well written. It felt a lot like non-fiction and since it is based on a true story maybe it's harder to make it feel like a historical fiction. For this reason I wasn't as invested in the second part as I was in the first part. The romance part just wasn't as interesting. I did enjoy it though.

Where Butterflies Go by Debra Doxer is the captivating story of survival and heartbreak and love. Based on the true story of a holocaust survivor, the book tells the story of Meira, a young Polish woman whose life is forever altered when the Germans force their way into her small part of the world. Meira was happily married with a young child, surrounded by her family and loved. Then her life was upended and ensuring her family survived day by day was all that she could do. Her husband did all he could to feed them. They lived in ghettos, surrounded by other Jewish families in small apartments while hope faded away. When her seamstress skills allowed her and her family to be sent to a work camp rather than a death camp, she was so grateful they were still together. But tragedy was not done with Meira, and after losing all she knew, she also lost her family. Called lucky by so many, she felt like she was the unluckiest lucky person alive. She had lost virtually everyone she knew and loved. When the war ended and she was relocated to the United States, she lived day by day, marking her time until she was with her family again. Then she met Max, a young father who managed to capture her attention. But could she love again? Could she open herself up to that kind of pain? An amazing story about the pain of loss, the resilience of the human spirit, and our capacity to love. I am forever grateful to the survivors of this war for sharing their stories with us, even amid the pain. Their grief and their persistence and their hope will forever model what love looks like. Thank you to all of the survivors who spoke out. Thank you to the authors who share their stories. Thank you for allowing us to know you.
I am so blessed to be able to read books via #NetGalley. All opinions are my own. Thank you to the publisher for this chance. #WhereButterfliesGo #Bookstagram #all_the_pages

*** I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review ***

Wow! Is all I can say after finishing Where Butterflies Go. This book is written so well and is such a remarkable story. It is actually the author's great aunt's true story of surviving the Nazi occupancy in Poland as a Jew during WWII and her life afterwards in New York City. This is a story of survival, family, history, and love. I whole heartedly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys WWII historical fiction books. I have read several books in this genre and this one is an unforgetable, inspiring, unique, and heart-wrenching story unlike any I've ever read. It's just so good. Just read it.

Based on the life of Author Debra Doxer's grandmother's sister, Where Butterflies Go tells the story of Meira, who is living with her sisters and parents in the Jewish quarter in Warsaw, Poland, at the time when the book begins. The story begins with Meira finding love in an unusual situation that sent her older sister to America New York. It skips to Meira and Avrom's family with Tovah and the beginning of the German onslaught of Poland, to the Ghetto and to the workcamps. Meira's loss of her father and then her mother who had kept her tethered to Poland. Then off to the workcamp in which things began lenient then got much harsher. The devastation it evident and you can feel the pain in the words.
We watch as Meira goes from a young girl, to a wife and mother, to a prisoner of war, to being a survivor and moving to America. We then get to watch her journey as she figures out what her "new" life and days are like.
The first part of the book is written in chilling and heartbreaking details. From the depravity of the Nazis’ actions to the desperation of the ghetto dwellers as they fight to exist in a world of cruelty and heartlessness. Meira’s thoughts as a daughter, wife, and especially mother are heart-wrenching in their candor, pulls deeply at emotions. After the war, she has lost everything and is trying to create a new life for herself in the US. Her only surviving relative is her sister and they have a strained relationship after what happened with Avrom, Meira’s husband. Zotia moved to the US before the war so she and her husband’s experience of the war are very different than Meira’s. It was really interesting to read about Meira’s life after the war and the hardship there since most of the book concentrates on the wartime. It was also interesting to see Zotia’s family’s reaction to Meira since their view and experience of the war was so different. I haven’t read many books that focus on life after the war so this interesting. It is incredibly moving each time I read about World War 2 and the holocaust. I feel I owe it to those that were murdered, the survivors as well as all those that fought to continue to read their stories and hear their voices.
Thank you Netgalley, the Author Debra Doxer, and the publisher for the book in exchange for an honest review.

When I began reading this book I saw a bit of the Rachael and Leah story of the Old Testament. You know the one. The father wanted the oldest daughter to marry first but the young man was in love with the youngest. I couldn't have been more wrong. Lies and gossip are never a good idea and when used to make a wrong right can cascade into a series of events that change lives forever

This story is a microcosm of what it must have been like in the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII. The author uses very interesting characters to portray the terror of the time. Hiding in stairwells... Always hungry and scared... Physical and mental harm and stress... Work camps... Death camps... Survival was hardly worth it. Reality comes in bits and pieces but it does come. The Jewish people were treated horribly by not only the Nazis but essentially by the whole world.

Finally, our protagonist is able to 'escape' from it all. The war is over and she is moved to America. The challenges of this move bring some relief from the deep fear. But, there is more to the story. New challenges, new relationships, and many decisions.

This quote from the book really says it all. It is referring to the people in the concentration camps is incredibly descriptive of the people interred there. "...all of them were taken away over time, like rocks carried off the beach by a relentless tide.

To discover what the title has to do with it you'll have to read this excellent book.

I am completely lost for words, I could use various platitudes such as ‘wow, stunning, breath-taking’ but to be perfectly honest there are no words that can fully do this gorgeous book justice. Nothing I can string together in form of a review will do justice to just how incredible and moving this book is, it feels wrong pinning a few overly used words to this beautiful book, this is incredibly special and a stunning tribute to those who were taken so brutally and a powerful testament to those who survived to share their stories with us all.

Where Butterflies Go is a historical fiction based on the true story of the author; Debra Doxer’s family history, of her great aunt. I want to say a huge thank you to Debra for sharing such a personal and powerful story with us all.

The book is split in, the first part tells the story of Meira who is currently living with her family in the Jewish quarter in Warsaw, Poland, the animosity towards the Jewish community is palpable, there is a feeling of unease as anti-Semitism grows. But Meira and her family just go about their lives day after day. Years later the German army arrived in Poland, Meira is now a mother and happily married and they now face the unthinkable, their own countries government looks the other way as the Jewish community is brutally forced to leave everything they have, taken from their homes and jobs and dumped in the middle of the rat-infested, decease ridden ghetto.

Meira is a strong and determined woman she keeps her head down gets on with the job assigned to her and hopes for the light at the end of this dark and perilous tunnel, but that tunnel is about to longer and darker as Meira soon finds her self with thousand, upon thousands more in the nightmare that is the camps, good and innocent people being brutally murdered. Incredibly Meira survives and the second part of the story starts as Meira manages to make her way to America, where she not only finds her long lost sister, and there is blossoming of love on the horizon for her. But with everything Meira has had to endure over the years, what she had seen and done, her experiences have taken a toll on her, can she really be able to trust and move forward to grab the happiness which she deserves?

Where Butterflies Go is a once in a lifetime book which everyone must read, it isn’t the easiest of reads at times, it’s emotional and haunting and will break the hardest of hearts, and there is hope and love and the pure unrelenting determination to survive. It will leave you feeling very emotional, I know that Meira and her family will stay with me for a long time.

I have read a lot of historical fiction, especially surrounding the Holocaust, and this is easily one of the most inspiring and powerful. These harrowing stories of hardship, of horror, of survival, NEED to be told, they need to be shared only by knowing the grim reality of what happened all those years ago can we learn and make sure that such atrocities never happen ever again.

There is not much more I can say, this book is just stunning!

Brutal and unrelenting horror is all that Meira Sokolow experiences from the Nazi invasion of Poland. Ending up in a pit surrounded by the dead, shielding her dead daughter, Meira is able to escape the brutality and find her way to New York City. Still dealing with her troubled past, she is wary of any human contact, but there will come a time when it is right... Well written historical fiction, recommended.

The first part of the book focuses on Meira’s life in Warsaw before and during the war and the second part of her life after the war after she emigrates to the US.
Meira falls for the boy that her parents intended for her sister resulting in a fractured relationship with her sister. She is a married woman with a small child when anti-semitism is on the rise and Jews are moved into a ghetto where she works as a seamstress.

After the war, she has lost everything and is trying to create a new life for herself in the US. Her only surviving relative is her sister and they have a strained relationship after what happened with Avrom, Meira’s husband. Zotia moved to the US before the war so she and her husband’s experience of the war are very different than Meira’s.

It was really interesting to read about Meira’s life after the war and the hardship there since most of the book concentrates on the wartime. It was also interesting to see Zotia’s family’s reaction to Meira since their view and experience of the war was so different. I haven’t read many books that focus on life after the war so this interesting. Seeing the every-day hardship as an immigrant in a strange land. Where no one wants to hear what really went on.

“Tears trickled down my cheeks too, as I hugged my family tighter. They weren’t the only ones breaking down tonight. I was falling apart too—slowly, quietly falling to pieces. We all were, and there was nothing to do but keep breathing and deal with each day as it came.”

Beautifully written story based on the life of the author’s great-aunt, a Holocaust survivor. It’s a story of love, constant fear, cruel loss, resilience, unimaginable strength and the will to live. It’s also a story of hope and remembrance as Meira struggles to live, heal and move forward after the war.
Highly recommend to fans of historical fiction.

Advanced reader copy courtesy of the publishers at NetGalley for review.

After Meira and her sister fight over the same boy, Meira is married and Zotia moves to America to marry a stranger. Years later, Meira, her husband, and Tovah, her daughter, are forced into the ghetto, where they live in constant fear and starvation. Sent to a work camp, Meira is one of two survivors when the camp is liquidated. After years in displaced person's camp, Meira travels to New York, reunited with her sister. After spending years and years in grief, living a half life, Meira meet's Max and instantly sparks a connection with him.

There were huge time jumps in this book, which were a bit unsettling. It made the book seems like a series of short stories, rather than one coherent story. I wish the author had spent more time on the pre-war and war time stories, and minimized the after war stories. The romance was extremely predictable and a bit boring. Despite these criticism, I did enjoy the book. Overall, 3 out of 5 stars.

‘Those that love us never really leave us.’ ~ Sirius Black

My mum found me sitting earlier staring blankly at my laptop screen and asked me what was wrong. I explained I didn’t know where to start with my review of this book and was struggling to find the words. (Yup, the irony was not lost on me either!)

Since my mum has witnessed first-hand the emotional impact this story has had on me, she simply told me to write from the heart. “Tell them how you felt”, she said.

So, *deep breath* here goes...

Meira’s story shook me to the very core of my being. I was utterly spellbound from start to finish. I couldn’t bear to tear myself away even when it felt like my heart was breaking at all Meira has witnessed, suffered, and endured.

It was heart-rending, tragic, emotive, inspiring, and uplifting all at the same time. In short, it’s a story that I will never forget. Telling of a time that we need to remember even if we’ll never truly be able to understand it. But as Meira said herself in the book, “Sometimes hate has no reason.”

For Meira to find the strength and fortitude to forge a new life in a new country after losing everyone and everything made my heart soar. I know she didn’t see it like that, but she is a hero in my book.

Can I tell you all something? I sorta, kinda, okay totally, fell in love with Max. This gorgeous, tender man that fell in love with a woman and all her broken pieces. His only wish to help her fit them back together again, all the while knowing there will always be a few pieces missing. Nevertheless, hoping to add a new piece from him to help her heart beat once again.

Where Butterflies Go was my first introduction to Debra Doxer’s work and I could tell how much this story meant to her. I can’t wait to read more of her books. And she writes PNR (my fav genre!).

Even though I currently feel like I’ve been hit by an emotional two by four and I’m worried this isn’t the correct way to phrase this – I loved this story.

*sigh*

There is no place for hate in this world. End of.

"Sometimes I imagine a fragile thread is all that connect us to everything else. That thread can bend and overlap in places, or it can unravel and give way. As forces pull on it, you can try to hold on, but once it's broken, that piece of thread can't be mended. All you can do is take hold of another thread or let yourself drift alone, untethered to the world around you."

I wish that this review could quite convey half the emotion this book made me feel.

I often apply for eARCs online and I won't hide! Half the time they don't give me much if not the pride and satisfaction of knowing that I'm helping an emerging author. But this book was on a whole 'nother level. This didn't feel like a book from an emerging author, this was by all means a story with a great power, such as that of Kristin Hanna's The Nightingale, which is one of my favorite of the genre.

Let's start by saying that the fact that it was a Historical Romance was already a thumb-up for me. I love the genre and I find it impossible not to get touched by books that are set in specific historical context such as WW2. But it's not easy to write about such topics. You have to have a certain sensitivity in order to portay certain pictures and convey important messages without being too harsh or too soft. I really liked how the author decided to narrate Meira's experience of the occupation: at first, I though it was too fast-paced and that it deserved more focus. But then I probably understood the decision: the days were all the same. You have gaps of years that do not need to be recounted because what the characters were living was just a routine of horrors and injustices. The escalation of horror our protagonist had to endure was heart-breaking until we reach a climax of harshness and cruelty that I was not expecting but that it totally serves to smash the truth into the reader's face.

And that's what Meira will learn to do: to narrate her story, to keep telling the truth no matter how harsh it is because certain atrocities can not be forgotten. I loved how the book can be divided into Meira's experience of the war and her attempt at starting a new life. I believe it is a point of view not often explored as most books I've read just center around the historical events and not on how the war might have impacted the survivors and their chance at a new beginning. It was wrenching and emotional to follow Meira through her struggles and to see how much courage it takes to push the past aside and start living again. I found it incredibly relatable how Meira's rebirth does not come from her forgetting her family - as Esther seemed to do! - but how she managed to find a way to honour her family despite her willingness to start over: it made me feel so much closer to the character and more supportive of her choices.

Another detail that I particularly enjoyed is how the author managed to pull all the narrative threads together. It happens often that a novel brings out topics or sub-stories that in the end are left aside, but this does not happen with Debra Doxer: every bit of the story mentioned, find its conclusion in the end.. sometimes in unexpected ways! I was completely taken aback by a couple twists that the author brings out in the end and that I though were a really ingenious and touching way to bring closure to Meira's story. So, if by the end of the book I was already reading through heavy tears, you can imagine what my state was when I learned that the beautifully narrated story was based on the true life of the author's great-aunt!

So for those of you who like historical romances just like I do and for those who want to read a touching testimony of a war's survivor, you should definitely read this great novel, full of historical facts, everyday struggles and deep with emotions!

** spoiler alert ** Where Butterflies go was a touching read.. Full of love, hope and heartbreak. When Germany invaded Meira's small town in Poland watching her family die by the Nazi's, my heart broke.
With her husband and daughters time in the concentration camps, so horrible more years fell.
This was not the end to Meira's story. The symbolism was endearing. The almost supernatural aspect. Finding love again. A beautiful story I had the pleasure to read.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publishing house, Xpresso Book Tours, for providing an advanced e-copy for review. All thoughts and opinions written in this review are my own.

I’ve been very lucky this year to have the opportunity to review some amazing World War II Historical Fiction and Where Butterflies Go by Debra Doxer definitely falls into this category. This book is based on the life of the author’s great-aunt, Meira Sokolow. Ms. Doxer was able to paint a vivid picture of what her great-aunt went through growing up in Poland, living in the Poniatowa concentration camp and her life after World War II in New York. Her life story was an emotional one and I found myself putting the book down multiple times to gather my thoughts and dry my eyes. Meira was unbelievably brave and strong and I am so grateful to Ms. Doxer for sharing her great-aunt’s story with the world. I would suggest this to other historical fiction lovers or those who want to get into historical fiction and I would read another book by this author.

Where Butterflies Go just hit home with me and the butterflies reminds me of a promise my mother made and every time I see a butterfly I know it is her coming by to make sure everything is okay. This is a must read. I would give it a 10 plus as a book to read. Cannot wait for the next book to come out by this author.

I read a lot of WWII historical fiction and its one of my favorite genres. This book is different because it's not only about the war but it's also about acclimating to the United States after the war where people don't really want to hear or remember what went on in Europe. According to the author, the book was based on the life of the author's great aunt.

Part 1 takes place in Europe. In 1932, Meira lived in the Jewish Quarter of Warsaw with her parents, older sister and younger sister. They were poor but had all they needed and were a loving family. Meira married Avrom and they had a daughter, Tovah. When they began to hear rumors about Germany invading Poland, they knew they would be safe because they were good, hardworking people. In 1939, the German Army invaded Poland and the family learned how difficult life would be. They were soon forced to move to the Warsaw Ghetto where people barely got enough to eat and life was very difficult. When the Germans decided to destroy the ghetto, the small family of three was sent to a work camp where they treated even worse.
By the end of the war, only Meira was still alive. Without her family and her home, she knew that she needed to leave Europe behind and try to start a new life.

Part 2 takes place in NYC where Meira has an apartment and a job in New York. She felt like a ghost 'unable to process the horrors of the past few years, unable to think about my life after. For me there was no after. After didn't matter...I lived but I had nothing to live for." (loc1324) It was difficult for her in American where everyone wanted to look ahead and not think about the war. As she acclimated to America and met a man who understood her and loved her, she began to realize that her family would want her to move ahead and try to find happiness in her new life.

Part 1 of this book was difficult to read because of the brutality that the Nazis inflicted on the Jewish prisoners at the camp. The author provided a very personal look at the atrocities. Part 2 was difficult to read but from a mental perspective. I cried for Meira as she tried to begin her new life bogged down in her past and her memories of her family. She was a brave and resilient woman even when she didn't realize it. It was fantastic to see her finding happiness while she never forgot the past.

This is one of the best books that I've read about this horrific time in history. It was very sad to read about the survivors of the camps and their struggle to overcome their survivors guilt as they tried to begin their lives again. If you enjoy WWII historical fiction, you don't want to miss this one!