A wonderful piece of historical fiction - so poignant I was swept away by the lovely characters and writing style.

This book was a beautiful WW2 novel. This was my first novel by Catherine Hokin, and she did not disappoint! We follow Magda, who is living a double life, working for the SS, but at night, distributing resistant pamphlets. This was just so well written, and I could not put it down. I also enjoyed the romance that was tied in. Complex, and well researched, I highly recommend this novel.

I throughly enjoyed this book. I love books with dual timelines. I engaged with both Magna, a WWII secretary, leading a double-life and her granddaughter Nina living in the 1980s.

I was educated about live in East Berlin and entertained with this beautiful story. You must read this if you haven't already.

This was a fantastic read that I couldn't put down as usual with Hokin books. I loved the characters but especially Nina and Magda. I dont usually enjoy dual timeline but this author does it well. This was well researched and so filled with emotion. Cant wait to read more books from this author.

4.5 STARS

I love historical fiction and this is a combination i haven’t read. World War II and the Cold War / Fall of the Wall
Magda leads a dangerous double life. By day, a secretary for the Nazi SS. By night, a member of the Resistance.
40 years later, Nina is openly criticizing of the East Germany government. She escapes on a forged passport to uncover Magda’s story.
It may start slowly but the two stories intertwine beautifully.
I couldn’t stop reading.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Magda, working as Heinrich Himmler’s secretary, has to all the planning going into the Final Solution of the Jewish populating during Hitler’s Nazi regime. Through the eyes of Nina, her granddaughter, we see the choices that Magda made, not only during Nazism, but also through the division of Germany and her life in East Germany. Sensitive and well written.

Catherine Hokin’s new novel takes readers to 20th century Berlin, where two women opposed the government at great risk to themselves, albeit in different ways.

There’s a strong sense of foreboding from the start of The Secretary. The opening pages describe mysterious ceremonies at the home of Heinrich Himmler, where a young woman is presented with a house which once belonged to a Jewish family. She has no choice but to accept the dubious honor, even as she participates in a dangerous game to undermine the very government for which she works. Fast forward and we see her granddaughter vocally questioning the diktats of the East German government. In doing so, she risks imprisonment or worse. Is it better to disobey secretly (as Magda does) or publicly?

I found The Secretary a difficult book to put down. The parallel stories of Magda and Nina wrap around each other until they combine for an explosive conclusion. The younger generation, born into a divided Germany, must wrestle with the actions of their grandparents – actions that are only now being revealed with the fall of the Berlin Wall. At times, the book is traumatizing. Magda’s observations regarding the treatment of the Jewish people and the contrasting attitudes of high-ranking Nazis and their wives are startling. And it’s hard to not feel emotion as both Magda and Nina’s thinking is turned upside down. What can you do, after all, when what you thought was the truth turns out to be a lie? And, furthermore, what can you do when what you believed was right turns out to be a wrong set of beliefs? Aren’t we all wrestling with the changing of beliefs that were formerly set in stone even today? Meanwhile, I also wondered how complicit Magda was in the actions of the Himmler and his fellow Nazis, by doing the work she did, even though her intention was to prevent and circumvent. Should she have come forward with her knowledge after the war? Do you speak up even when doing so could put your life in danger?

In The Secretary Hokin includes real events and places, such as a Berlin neighborhood known for its anti-Nazi sentiment during the 1930s and 40s. The street where the Tower House was situated is real - I looked at both satellite and street views of it online – as is a station from where Jewish people were deported to their deaths. This is an expert coming together of both the real and imagined, to the point where I was surprised not to read that this was based or inspired by real life events and people. It’s an incredible book which I recommend to any lovers of historical family sagas. You won’t regret it.

Disclaimer: Although I received an electronic copy of this book from the publisher, the opinions above are my own.

Thoroughly engrossing is the best way to describe this book. I honestly don’t know what else to say. It was drawing me in from the synopsis and did not let me go for hours after finishing. I can only suggest to every historical fiction fan read this book.

I voluntarily reviewed a copy of this book provided by NetGalley.

A historical romance set in WWII are my favourites and this did not disappoint! It starts slowly but once it finds its footing it really develops into an eye-opening remarkable story that gives a fascinating insight into one family experiences of war and its long time reverberating impact.

Catherine Hokin’s The Secretary is the latest heart-breaking, dramatic and emotional historical novel from this very gifted storyteller.

Germany 1940 and Magda is the secretary to the leader of the SS. Magda seems to be completely and utterly dedicated to the cause and she is the last person anybody would suspect of being a traitor. But there is more going on beneath the surface than meets the eye because while Magda spends her days and nights sending party invitations to high-ranking Nazis and distributing pamphlets, she is leading a dangerous double life. If her employers were to found out the truth about where Magda’s loyalties truly lie, the repercussions simply do not bear thinking about. Yet, Magda is willing to do whatever it takes to protect the man she loves – even if it means paying the highest price of all.

Forty years later and Nina finds herself stumbling onto an uncertain future. With only a forged passport, a few bank notes and a scribbled address for a place called The Tower House, which she believes will help her find the answers to the questions she so desperately seeks, Nina forges head desperate to find out the truth about her family’s past. She firmly believes that The Tower House holds the key to laying bare old sins and forgotten secrets, but is she ready for what she is about to uncover? As shocking revelations that have been buried for a long time come to light, she quickly realises that events from four decades ago will end up shaping not just the present, but also the future.

Can Nina finally lay old ghosts to rest and discover where she truly belongs?

Catherine Hokin’s The Secretary is another compulsively readable historical novel from this immensely talented writer. As always, Catherine Hokin makes the past come to colourful life and will make her readers feel as if they are living in Nazi Germany alongside her characters.

The Secretary is a poignant, intense, devastating and unflinching tale of love, loyalty and betrayal that readers will struggle to put down as they will find themselves completely and utterly consumed by this wonderful story.

A first class novel that is absolutely superb, Catherine Hokin’s The Secretary is an unforgettable tale perfect for Heather Morris fans.

This was a pretty basic dual timeline novel set during WWII and forty years later. I didn't really connect to the characters, but I did find myself imagining - could this really have happened? Is there a true story somewhere that we don't know about yet? The historical part of this book was the more interesting, and I ended up skimming the "present" part in order to finish.

I reviewed this book for the August edition of Historical Novels Review Magazine, the magazine of the Historical Novel Society. Per their policy, I cannot post any reviews online until the magazine is published August 1, 2021. I will update this review then.

Germany 1940. Magda is in a very high position as Secretary to Himmler. She appears to her fellow citizens as a traitor, despicable and despised but she has by sheer grit come to this position to get information and help her fellow citizens. Fast forward forty years and her grand daughter is now in East Berlin acting in the same manner as her grandmother and creating dissension amongst the East German police, and trying to protect her fellow countrymen. Magda despite her connections cannot save Nina and Nina is imprisoned.

Nina trying to trace her family's enigmatic history stumbles upon the Tower House, from a drawing found in her grandmother's cupboard and the whole story of Magda's past trickles out. The house was originally owned by Jews, requisitioned by Himmler and given to Magda for "good behavior". Magda hated it, did not want to have anything to do with it and did not talk about it to her family.

The book was an emotional read, well documented and East Germany was the setting. Before the Wall came down. A totally police state governed by their own laws, suitable for those in power. Apart from the historical aspect this book also dealt with a family saga and their own history which added a lot of interest.

Thank you net galley for the advance reader copy of this novel. This was a fantastic read that I couldn't put down. I loved the characters but especially Nina and Magda. I loved the dual timeline that was WWII and Berlin Wall. This was well researched and so filled with emotion. Lots to think about with choice in this novel. Well done!!!!!

1930s and 40s Berlin. Magda is horrified by the Nazi rise to power but uses her position as secretary to Himmler to obtain information. 1980s East Berlin: Magda's granddaughter Nina struggles to comply with the oppressive nature of life. She yearns for freedom but uncovers family secrets at the same time...
The Secretary is an emotive and fascinating dual timeline novel. It features two generations of the same family living through dangerous times when they seek to challenge the ideologies in power.
I was interested in Nina's timeline as I know very little about life under regime of the GDR (East Germany). I do remember the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 but was unaware of the significance. However, Magda's timeline was much more familiar to me and was captivating in a haunting way due to the atrocities she is witness to.
The contrast and comparison between the 1940s and 1980s is impressive. Two regimes of oppression and control. Violence and brutality, secret systems of crime and punishment. Both timelines had been well researched to allow the author to bring them to life.
The two main women are brave and determined, unhappy to sit back and accept the regime in power. Both women are also driven by love but this takes a less prominent role in the narrative. The personal relationships of Magda have greater impact on events in the book and I did feel like her character was more developed.
The Secretary was a fascinating historical novel but not for the fainthearted due to the emotional and threatening historical content.

The Secretary is a powerful story of hope and bravery in the face of evil, portrayed through the character of Magda during the Second World War. But then the ramifications of this are explored through Magda’s Granddaughter, Nina throughout the 1980’s.

The author has thoroughly researched the history and politics of Berlin and she has then successfully penned a novel that I would highly recommend. This is the second Catherine Hokin novel that I have read and once again, her writing is impressively descriptive and educational.

I found the plot to be very cleverly thought out and the pace of the story flowed well between the dual timelines. The characters are deep and incredibly well-developed. This informative novel is filled with tension, twists and turns that made it a really compelling read.

I am grateful to the publisher, Bookouture, via NetGalley for a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

It took me a while to recover emotionally from this book! As many of you know, I was born in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), i.e., the Russian-occupied part of Germany. I was 14 when the Wall fell and the two Germanies reunited.
The Secretary is written in two timelines. On the one hand, you have the World War II timeline and story of Magda and, on the other hand, you have Nina and her life in post-World War II East Germany until the revolution which resulted in the fall of the Iron Curtain (and the Wall in Germany). Catherine Hokin did her homework 100%. All the historical details regarding life and the historical events in the GDR are very accurate. If you want to know more about Germany during the Cold War, this book is a great start! I felt a close connection with Nina. My life was in part and could have easily ended up being entirely like her life. You see, my family was a family of Germans who refused to join the Communist party and who got into trouble with the regime on multiple occasions because of our resistance. My uncle and his wife spent many months in an East German jail for trying to escape to West Germany. We believe that my uncle's own father, my grandfather, ratted him out. My grandfather was a passionate supporter of the East German government and its policies. The rest of the family saw the system for what it was: a system in which the Nazis were replaced by a party who pretended to be a Communist party, but was actually a totalitarian system. If the Wall had not fallen back in 1989, I would not have a college degree now and I truly believe I would either be in a Russian gulag, German prison, or even dead right now. Just like Nina in the book, I made some jokes about the conditions in East Germany that the government officials did not find funny at all. Just like Nina, I could not just stand by when injustice occurred. That is what made this book such an emotional story for me. I have read many WWII stories, but the combination of a WWII story and a pre-1989 East German story made me super nostalgic, extremely emotional, overwhelmed me at times, and resulted in me taking a little longer to finish the book because I had to take breaks to process what I had just read. Magda's story didn't make it any easier for me to finish the book. The gripping story of her bravery and loss added another level of emotions for me. I had to stop multiple times since I was reading in public and didn't want to break down in tears in front of strangers over a book. If you haven't experienced this part of history yourself, you may not be quite as emotionally attached to the characters, but you will definitely feel all kinds of emotions when reading this book! If I could, I would give this book more than 5 stars on Goodreads!

The Secretary by Catherine Hokin. Bookouture, 2021.

This wonderful, dual timeline is a compelling story, both impossible to put down and difficult to read. Readers will immediately engage with Magda, a secretary in WWII and her much loved granddaughter Nina living in late 1980s East Berlin. Magna’s story was especially hard to read, knowing more about the Nazi history, what happened and what to expect. I knew much less about life jn East Berlin before the end of the Cold War and dismantling of the Berlin Wall.

I love dual timeline books, especially books that show shared likenesses between different family generations. This book is much more than that, it is an education, so well written that we see life up close through the eyes of each of these women as they struggle to do what they see as right.

It is difficult to do this book justice in a short review.

Warmly recommended.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of The Secretary for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. #TheSecretary #NetGalley

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this novel. The review is my own and was not influenced in any way.

Unfortunately I was disappointed with this novel. The premise is great, the dual timeline of WW2 and Cold War/Fall of the Wall is rich with conflict and story. The majority of my dissatisfaction with this novel is in the way it's laid out: Magda's chapters span vast swaths of time (sometimes 2 years within a single chapter) but the narrative seems to skip far forward in time with no warning and I was routinely jarred out of the story to flip back to the chapter heading and check "oohhhh yeah - 1941 to summer 1942..." etc...

Overall 3.5 stars.

The Secretary by Catherine Hokin is a dual timeline story set in Germany during World War Two and the 1980’s as the city is split between East and West. It’s a slow burner, as I have found with several of this author’s books, but once it finds its footing it really develops into an eye opening remarkable story that gives a fascinating insight into one families experiences of war and its long time reverberating impact. The book opens as Magda, a young woman who is methodical and never careless, always wanting to be safe, is given a gift by her boss Heinrich Himmler.

Tension radiates from the pages and she is on tender hooks thinking she has been discovered. It’s clear she doesn’t want this gift, that she would return it in an instant. For it symbolises torture, danger and evil. She has worked under false pretences with the danger of discovery imminent on a daily basis. ’We have played our parts so perfectly, they believe we are the same as them. What if no one ever believes we were not?’ An interesting statement that will stick in the readers mind as they navigate their way through this complex, twisty and eye opening read.

The story is told from two female viewpoints, that of Magda during the war years working for Himmler and then we move back and forth between Berlin in the 1980’s as her granddaughter Nina tries to understand why her city is split in two and just what role Magda played in the death of so many innocent people. I’ve read so many books set during World War Two so it was refreshing that the history of Germany is explored in a new way here. I really felt as if a window was opened into the past and the ramifications of the war were explored so many years later.

The Berlin that Nina inhabits is split into West and East with Nina living in the East. She is a complex character who initially I found difficulties in feeling any sympathy for. She seemed very whingy and moany. Not at all happy with her life and ok I could see why this was the case as her life is ruled under an iron fist, with innumerable rules and regulations and constant fear that you could be taken off the streets and imprisoned for something in this present day wouldn’t be viewed as a misdemeanour at all. But still she was hard to crack and perhaps because she was so young I didn’t value her daily life experiences earlier on in the book as much as I should have given the crucial role she played later on. I found myself much more interested in Magda’s story at least until the last quarter or so of the novel.

Nina is a crucial element to the overall story and she becomes the catalyst in bringing the past and present together in order to confront itself. She is a character who is confused and lonely and deeply caught up in a longing for a life in the west that was so very far away even though a wall was all that separated the two worlds. When we first meet her she is a young girl attending her grandfathers funeral but we then journey with her as she becomes a teenager. She has great respect for Magda but she can’t understand why her past is such a closed book. Just what did she do during the war that she will not talk about and how does it impact the present political situation.

Nina becomes a rebel and endures many spirit shattering experiences. She places herself in the firing line in dangerous situations and you do think why is she doing this? But it’s like the essence of her grandmother is deep within her. That need, desire and want to do what is right in the face of such oppression and unnecessary suffering. She is similar to Magda in that she can’t stand by and do nothing but in becoming active with the best of intentions she is putting her life on the line. One girl can’t change the course of time or history on a national scale but she can delve back into the past on a more personal, family level and in doing so she uncovers a story that is heart-breaking and inspiring in equal measure. Will Nina believe the cold hard facts as presented or can she search further, pull back the layers and see the wood for the trees and find out just what Magda has been running from all these years? Was this running and invasion necessary? Do we judge people far too rashly?

I found the parts of the book set during Magda’s time working for Himmler during the war were the sections that I wanted to get back to when I was reading about Nina. The research undertaken for this book must have been immense as you really do feel you are in Berlin during Nina’s time. But still it’s further back in the past that caught my attention. I think we still think the bringing down of the Berlin wall occurred only a few years ago when in fact it was 30 years ago. But Magda, for me, was the stand out character. The rise of national socialism in the late 1930’s meant Magda’s life direction took an unusual and over time life threatening turn.

She had been brought up to believe in and stand for equality for all. That the same standards and laws should be applied to everyone regardless of religion or politics. But when Hitler is hell bent on eradicating Jews Magda can see that her families opinions are not held by everyone. When she is offered a job as secretary to Walther, who runs a factory which employs many Jews, she jumps at the chance and as the political situation in Germany deteriorates and the venom of Hitler expands beyond the country borders, world wide, Magda finds herself entangled in a double life that if discovered could lead to the ultimate punishment.

Magda was brave, fearless, courageous and determined and the love she has for someone will see her push through the darkest of times as her resistance work increases. For what she and Walther are engaged in, if discovered, would mean not just their downfall but the end of so many others. Even after reading lots of books featuring resistance work I still am always surprised by the fact that so many people put their lives on the line when they didn’t need to. It shows their compassion and need for right to triumph over wrong, good to win over evil and their urge to fight against so much needless injustice. Magda believes, and rightly so, that nobody is worth more than anyone else on the basis of birthplace or wealth or blood. ’We bury ourselves in Hitler’s world so we are in step with them, not running behind’. She certainly did this as accepting the role of Himmler’s secretary, well she really had no other choice, really leads her to the lions den and what she learns and witnesses is very helpful. But is she too close to the centre? Will her actions be misinterpreted by those she is really fighting for? ‘We didn’t stand by, or turn away .We did something. That has to count’. But will it count when Nina makes a discovery and sets about finding the answers that arise.

Secrets and a tangled web are slowly revealed and in my mind the last quarter of the book was by far the most superior with so many twists and turns and things began to make much more sense. There are several reveals which leave you open mouthed in shock and you think wow what a clever, intriguing and spellbinding story Catherine Hokin has written. I find this author leads you along a certain route for the majority of her books and then bang with one single sentence whatever opinions you had formed of the book are shattered and the plot takes on a whole new level of intensity. I just wish as I have said previously when reading her books that this intensity would come much earlier in the book. What you think is perhaps just an average read becomes something so much more once you reach a certain point and I would love for this to be evident from the outset. Saying all that Catherine Hokin is a really impressive author and any book I have read by her has opened my mind in a new way to the past and I love the way connections are made with surprising reveals and explanations. The Secretary is definitely worth a read and will truly show you how the events of the war years were still being felt right up until the early 90’s.