3.5 stars rounded up

I love WWII historical fiction. I also enjoy Martha Hall Kelly's books I have read almost all of them. They are going back to Europe but this time we are searching for German Scientists who are in hiding after the war is over.

Josie Anderson is an American who was working for the French resistance and has been partnered with Arlette LaRue who is a Parisian They were caught and sent to Ravensbruck.

The story goes between the two women's points of view as well as the timeline hopping between the war and 1952. I figured out the plot pretty fast though I was thrown for a little loop at the end.

It didn't feel particularly historical fictional but a little more like historical fantasy, unfortunately..

Thanks, Netgalley and Random House-Ballantine for an eARC in exchange for an honest review

I loved Lilac Girls and its sequels chronicling the brave women fighting to survive during WWII. When I heard there was a new book in the series, I eagerly awaited reading it. Sadly this one didn't have as much heart as the author's previous books.

I enjoyed reconnecting with the characters but the story felt disjointed. I kept waiting for that moment where I was fully immersed in the novel and it never happened. There were a few surprises revealed at the end but it wasn't enough to save the story.

Instead of revisiting the characters, this book would have done better with new characters. Trying to fit Arlette and Josie into this suspenseful storyline didn't work. As others have stated, it felt like it was written for a movie rather than a continued story with beloved characters.

This is the third book I’ve read by Martha Hall Kelly and unfortunately my least favorite. While The Golden Doves is full of historical references and the author has clearly done her research, the book suffers from too many storylines: The Golden Doves being sent to Ravensbruck, hunting down the Nazi doctors, Operation Paperclip, searching for a lost son, as well as romance subplots. If you’ve read a lot of WWII books, you’re most likely familiar with these topics.

The Golden Doves would be an excellent book for anyone interested in WWII history but also enjoys the fictional aspect and doesn’t mind romance added into their books.

Thanks to Netgalley and Ballentine Books for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I am an avid reader of Historical Fiction and this story had me entranced!!! And also a fan of this author. I am always in awe and so impressed with how the women that lived through both world wars survived and persevered!

This was a fascinating read about a war I thought I already knew so much about. I really enjoyed following these two characters and all of the trials and tribulations they faced. These characters were pretty hard to like and root for sometimes and the pacing was off but overall a very enjoyable historical fiction read!

Omg what a heartbreaking and amazing story. These “golden doves” were so brave and talented. They persevered through so much heartache and pain. I was enraptured by the story. I loved getting the dual timelines as well as the dual POV. I was left on the edge of my seat through parts of the story. It was just wonderful.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Ballentine Books for this e-ARC of The Golden Doves. I am a huge fan of historical fiction and Martha Hall Kelly, so I was thrilled to read this one.

Hall Kelly was able to tell yet another lesser-known story of strong women during WWII that needed to be told. This was excellently written and definitely worthy of a 5 star rating.

2.5 ⭐️

This is a difficult to review to write.
Martha Hall Kelly was given the worst advice by her editors. She wrote a linear story then was told to write it in flashbacks contrasting the present. I read it took the author more than a year to rewrite her story and it fails in every way.

5/5 Historical Research
3/5 Writing
1/5 Plot
2/5 Execution of Plot

What I Liked:

The Golden Doves sheds light on atrocities of WWII that are seldom spoken of or written about. France itself didn’t acknowledge its War Children until 2010!!

This book covers (even if just a mention) the following historical acts of barbarity:

• Ravenbrück, an all female concentration camp comprised of more than Jewish women

• The Rabbits, the women at the camp used as scientific experiments (prosthetics etc)

• The Lebensborn Program, where unwed mothers gave birth if they could produce an child to fit the Aryan race

• Operation Paperclip, where the US obtained Nazi scientists before the Russians in the Cold War

• The Vatican’s underground to aid Nazi war criminals escape Justice by sending them to Argentina

Some of these I knew of and others I didn’t. I roused my curiosity to research to learn more of what I didn’t know.

The BEST part is this book is the Author’s Note. 💯 credit to her research and for continually sharing surviror’s stories and spreading awareness.

What I Didn’t Like;

1. How modern the dialogue and many themes were presented.

2. Too many themes detracted from the storylines.

3. The choppy chapters that cut off the flow of each story.

4. The first person narrative of both MC. Their voices sounded exactly alike which shouldn’t be since one was French and the other American.

5. The absurd storylines of Josie & Arlette. Some of it was cringeworthy (“it must be hard to meet a man in a concentration camp” or “The Maroon kids and the German kids mix well together. Brought up as color-blind”) and the French Guiana segment was completely contrived.

6. If Josie & Arlette were such good spies then how come they were weak, whiny and made incredibly stupid decisions?

7. ALL TELL AND NO SHOW.

I truly believed going into this novel (and why I requested it) I would read about two strong female spies, their journey through it and the aftermath after surviving the horrors of the Holocaust.

This book spent more time mentioning what happened and less time developing its characters. I couldn’t connect with either of them nor at any time did I come to understand what they’d been through during the war.


I would skip this book and pick up The Lilac Girls. Every time I picked up The Golden Doves, I put it down again and it took me three months to finish because it could not keep my attention.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of The Golden Doves in return for an honest review. All onions are mine alone.

*4.5

Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly blew me away and Lost Roses was wonderful as well. I have yet to read Sunflower Sisters, but it is moving up on my TBR after this!

As in her previous novels, readers are fully immersed into history, this time learning about Operation Paperclip, the Nazi "ratline," more about Ravensbruck concentration camp, and female spies during and after WW2. This action-packed story was almost cinematic in nature, clearly providing me with mental images of scenes, characters, and dialogue that I did not want to stop. Josie and Arlette were fascinating characters to follow and I enjoyed both of their storylines! The mystery was done most intriguingly and I did not guess the twist ending! That ending scene is making me curious if there will be a continuation?

I urge you to please read the author's note as well! She adds many of the true life examples that this book was inspired by including some scenes that were taken straight from history. Some facts are horrifying to read, but history is never clean. I loved reading her experience with a Ravensbruck survivor who inspired this story. May this history never be forgotten.

I read an advanced reader's copy from the publisher through Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Full review and recipe that matches the book: https://wordpress.com/post/bakingthroughbookclub.com/972

** Thank you to Netgalley and Ballantine Books for the chance to review The Golden Doves in exchange for my honest review. **

Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Even avid readers have moments in life when their reading drops off. For me, it was when my kids were little. The baby and toddler years are tough, and there isn’t much free time to read. Then, not reading becomes a habit in itself.

I remember the moment that I decided to get back into reading. I was working in the marketing department of one of the Air Force’s Force Support Squadrons. After a meeting with the head of the base library, I longingly ran my finger along the new fiction shelf and remembered how much I loved reading. I decided right then and there to get back into it, so I picked up one of those new releases. It was Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly, and it is still to this day one of my favorite books.

The Golden Doves is not technically part of the Lilac Girls series, which follows the family line of socialite Caroline Ferriday in its sequels. Instead, it reintroduces us to several characters from the original Lilac Girls book. This is particularly true of Herta Oberheuser, the female doctor who slowly adopted the Nazi’s belief system when she went to work at the Ravensbrück concentration camp.

The Golden Doves takes place in 1952, shortly after the end of the war. It tells the tale of two unlikely Allied spies who gave Germany a run for their money before their capture. Josie was an American who was recruited to intercept radio signals. Arlette was a young French woman who became pregnant from a German soldier. Her aunt sent her to a state-run birthing house to have the baby, which would then be seized by the Nazis and adopted to a high-ranking Nazi family. Arlette couldn’t bear to lose her baby, so a nurse who was secretly working as a spy guided her to safety. Arlette and Josie lived with baby Willie in a small Paris apartment, where they intercepted high-level radio messages. They became known as The Golden Doves, and the Nazis would stop at nothing to capture them. Then, a chance encounter caused the Nazis to arrest them, not knowing they were the spies in which they sought. The women were sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp, where they endured unspeakable horrors until the war ended. Most painful of all was the seizure of baby Willie while Arlette was working one day. Arlette had no idea whether her son was alive and merely transferred somewhere else, or whether he was killed at the camp.

Now, in 1952, Josie is living in Texas working for the U.S. Army. She evaluates former Nazi scientists and determines whether they are still sympathetic to the Nazis or whether they are “reformed” enough to help the United States in its race to out-arm Russia. One day, her boss sends her on a mission to find Dr. Snow, a virologist responsible for horrific medical experiments while at Ravensbrück. Josie’s own mother was killed in these experiments. Her travels lead her back to France, where she briefly reunites with Arlette. Arlette still lives in a cloud of grief praying that her son is alive. Then, a rich stranger named Luc finds her in her cafe one day and claims that he has her son. He runs a non-profit orphanage named Hope House that reunites war orphans with their parents or finds a suitable home for them. Luc offers to bring Arlette back to French Guinea so that she can find her son. Needless to say, Josie and Arlette’s missions are not quite what they seem.

The Golden Doves was a breathtaking tale of healing, longing, and the need for closure in the face of unspeakable evil. While it was extremely sad to hear about the conditions that real women had to face at Ravensbrück, I would not consider this book a tearjerker. I only mention this because I know some people do not like books that are intended to make them cry, or they have to be “in the mood” to do so. If this is you, fear not. It methodically painted a picture of the Nazi’s brutality without making the reader feel like they needed to cry.

Instead of centralizing around Arlette and Josie’s experiences at the concentration camp, The Golden Doves addressed the quest for justice that existed in post-war life. Even after the Nuremberg Trials, some citizens felt like justice had not been served. Josie was fueled by her desire to “catch” Nazis that she felt had lied their way to lighter sentences. After the atrocities that she viewed, how can one possibly heal? However, the nation seemed intent on forgiving Nazi scientists so that they could defeat Russia. Was this good? Bad? Understandable? Inconceivable? How can the entire nation move on when the people who had harmed her were running free? In Arlette’s case, how could people forget the children that were lost? Everyone else was moving on, but Arlette could not let go of the son she had lost. Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.” In order for Arlette and Josie to experience personal peace, they needed justice first.

I highly recommend The Golden Doves and the rest of The Lilac Girls series for historical fiction fans wanting to explore different perspectives of the Holocaust. Kelly does an amazing job writing her stories in a way that makes the reader engage in the same moral dilemmas that average citizens must have wrestled with at that time. While there is no shortage of books about the Holocaust, The Golden Doves and Kelly’s other books stand apart from the rest of the field. I will happily pick up any future books that she writes about this terrible, world-altering event.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Another fantastic historical fiction novel from this author! Her research, detailed in her author's note at the end, seems so thorough and I love her stories about meeting survivors or family members who inspire her to delve deeper and write another book, especially these little-known stories of WWII. This novel centers around Josie and Arlette, who meet while working in the Resistance, and the chapters alternate between this time and the early 1950's. Both storylines held my interest, but I was especially drawn into Josie searching for Nazis who had escaped prosecution for war crimes and/or had made deals with foreign governments to live a life of luxury after the war.

The Golden Doves by Martha Hall Kelly was a well written and meticulously researched historical fiction mystery about two young women whose paths crossed and became woven together during the Nazi occupation of Paris and beyond. It was told from the POV of Josie Anderson and Arlette LaRue and alternated between 1943 (before) and 1952 (after). The Golden Doves was inspired by true events.

Josie Anderson was a fifteen year old American girl whose diplomat father had moved her and her mother to Paris prior to the Nazi occupation. As soon as the Nazis invaded France, Josie’s father secured his safety by traveling back to the United States. Josie and her mother refused to accompany her father since Josie’s grandmother was sick. Her grandmother had been too ill to travel at the time and by the time she could travel the Nazis had made it impossible to travel anymore. It was dangerous and scary for Josie and her mother in Nazi occupied Paris especially since Josie’s mother was Jewish. It wasn’t long before Josie was recruited by the resistance and started working for them. Josie had received training and became proficient at using a ham radio to listen in on Nazi conversations.

Close to the border that France shared with Germany, a young sixteen year old girl named Arlette LaRue was met by her German boyfriend, Gunther Wagner, a seventeen year old Wehrmacht soldier, at her school. Gunther informed Arlette that his unit, the Twelfth SS Panzer Division, was scheduled to leave for the front the very next day. By the time Gunther left Arlette that day, neither Arlette nor Gunther knew but Arlette was pregnant with Gunther’s child. Arlette had been able to conceal her pregnancy from her aunt until the day her aunt saw Arlette emerge from her bath. Her aunt immediately took Arlette to Westwald, the only French Lebensborn home, where Arlette gave birth to her son Willie. When Arlette learned that Willie would be taken from her at birth and would be adopted by a pure Aryan family, she was beside herself in grief and anger. A member of the resistance who was posing as one of Arlette’s nurses smuggled Arlette and Willie out of Westwald to the safety of an apartment located in the flower district and right behind Nazi headquarters. Much to Arlette’s initial dismay, she and Josie began to work together for the French Resistance. Arlette became responsible for transcribing the conversations Josie overheard and then she delivered them to the proper sources so that they could be sent to the allies in London. Josie and Arlette became known as The Golden Doves and were notorious all over France. The Nazis were determined to find them but The Golden Doves were never found. Unfortunately, they ended up in Ravensbruck but no one ever suspected that they were The Golden Doves. The atrocities Josie and Arlette had witnessed at Ravensbruck remained with them throughout the rest of their lives.

Ten years later, Josie was working in U.S. Army Intelligence in Texas. She had just been given an assignment to track down a doctor that had been at Ravensbruck when she was a prisoner. This particular doctor, Dr. Snow, had been responsible for Josie’s mother’s death and for performing horrific experiments on various prisoners. Josie accepted her assignment reluctantly. She knew it would bring back memories she had tried but never could keep from surfacing her entire life. The assignment took her to Europe.

Arlette had come back to Paris to live after the war was over. She never got over loosing her son Willie at Ravensbruck. Willie had just disappeared and Arlette had tried to find him ever since with no luck. She was working in a coffee shop with other survivors from Ravensbruck when a man named Luc Minau representing Hope Home asked to speak with Arlette. Luc told Arlette that he believed that Willie was one of the war orphans that lived at Hope Home, a nonprofit organization that he and his grandmother ran together. He invited Arlette to go to French Guiana to Hope Home so she could see if Willie lived among the other orphans. Arlette was skeptical at first but she finally agreed to go. When Arlette had begun to uncover secrets and became suspicious of the way the orphanage was being run she contacted Josie to help her. Would The Doves be called upon once again to get to the bottom of what was transpiring at Hope Home? Will Arlette finally be reunited with her son, Willie? As Josie and Arlette uncovered one secret after another, the two Doves once again found themselves in serious danger. Will The Doves be able to persevere this time?

The Golden Doves by Martha Hall Kelly was a riveting book that I found hard to put down. I alternated by listening to the audiobook that was well narrated by Jeremy Carlisle Parker and Saskia Maarleveld and reading it on my kindle. I have read all of the books that Martha Hall Kelly has written. The Golden Doves was my favorite by far. I enjoyed that she chose two strong, brave and resilient women as the protagonists for this book. She incorporated true events into The Golden Doves that included the Nazi Occupation of Paris, evidence of the French Resistance, the Lebensborn program that was initially initiated by the SS as maternity homes, Operation Paperclip that was a secret intelligence program that brought Nazis to the United States, the Ratline and the Vatican’s part in it, the numerous experiments conducted on prisoners at Ravensbruck and the treatment of the children at Ravensbruck including the formation of the Kinderzimmer bock or maternity block. I was horrified to learn about Operation Paperclip. How could the government of the United States knowingly have brought Nazis here and allowed them to go unpunished for their heinous crimes against humanity? I was impressed with all Martha Hall Kelly included within her book. It was impressive and I highly recommend it.

Thank you to Balletine Books for allowing me to read The Golden Doves by Martha Hall Kelly through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Dear Fellow Reader,

Summer is barely upon us and there are lists and lists of summer books out. Do you look at them? I must admit that I always do just to see if I have missed any books that I might like. I saw a list last week and made a list of books that I would like to read from that list. I have finished two of the books so far. They were not very long but I did enjoy both of them. One was the new Elizabeth Berg book, Earth’s the Right Place for Love. It is the prequel to the Arthur Trulov series. It is a lovely quick read. I think you should put it on your summer reading list. (In case you missed the series, go back and read them all.)


The Golden Doves by Martha Hall Kelly is this week’s book. It is a historical fiction book that takes place partially during WWII and partially after the war. American Josie Anderson and Parisian Arlette LaRue are thrown together while working for the Resistance in Paris during the war. Josie was a willing recruit to the cause, but Arlette was very reluctant and without much choice. They become the target of a Gestapo manhunt because they were effective in thwarting the Nazis by sending out important information via a hidden radio. But they get caught and are taken to a concentration camp. They survive but Josie loses her mother to a doctor’s experiments and Arlette’s son is taken from her. After the war, Arlette is still looking for her son and Josie is working with the military. They are brought back together to face another challenge. Can they still work together effectively?

This book goes back and forth in history to tell the story. So, you gradually get both the history and the current story.

The book keeps you turning pages to see what will happen next. The two women are forced together because of the Nazis and will come together for that reason again. I enjoyed the book.

Thanks for reading.

I was given an advance copy of the book for my unbiased review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Book for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I am a HUGE Martha Hall Kelly fan, and I have read all of her books. "The Golden Doves" is another gem of a historical fiction novel that should be required reading for all who love the genre.

I’ve enjoyed all of Martha Hall Kelly’s novels and this is no exception. She pulls the curtain back on a part of WWII history that isn’t often talked about: what happened to the nazis who inflicted such torture? You can tell this was thoroughly researched and I really came to respect The Golden Doves and all the women like these characters did during and after the war.

Never have 500+ pages flown by as it did for The Golden Doves. I fell in love with Martha Hall Kelly's writing when I read The Lilac Girls and the sequels. Even when she writes about historical periods I don't usually like reading, I love the book. So I was disappointed that it took me this long to get to the book, but at the same time I'm glad I had it to read during my vacation this week. I didn't have to put the book!

In The Golden Doves, Kelly returns to WWII and women who were imprisoned in Ravensbruk. The story is told from two points-of-view and in multiple timelines. Josie is the daughter of an American diplomat. During WWII, Josie, her mother, and grandmother were left behind in France while her father was in Rome. In the book's present day (the 1950s), she is working for U.S. Army intelligence helping to locate prominant German scientist to recruit to the USA so that Russia doesn't get them first. In reality though she is hunting Germans that have escaped arrest. During the war she worked for the Resistance as a radio operator.

Josie's partner was Arlette and Parisian woman who was raised by her German aunt. She becomes pregnant by her German sweetheart as he has been sent to the front, her aunt sees a way to curry favor with the Third Reich. She takes Arlette to a Lebensborn home. Arlette escape with her child and flees to France where her parents had lived before their deaths. With the help of the Resistance, she is able to locate the apartment they had left to her. In the book's present day, she works at a local coffee shop that only employs people who had been in the camps. She is also desperately looking for her son - she never believed he was the day after he disappeared from the camp near the end of the war.

The flashbacks to the war years and the changing points of view were easy to follow. Little snippets are dangled in front of us, and I was anxious to return to their war service to see what happened.

I really liked the characters. I wonder if there will be a series spun from this book. While complete on its own, there were moments at the end that could leaad into a a sequel.

Of the three novels, tthis is my facorite book - at leat until a new book comes out.

My review will be published at Girl Who Reqad come - https://www.girl-who-reads.com/2023/05/3-historical-fiction-stories-you-may.html

The Golden Doves was well done and engaging. I’ve enjoyed Martha Hall Kelly’s previous books and appreciated the return to the WWII era. The alternating storylines were equally interesting and I loved how the story came together in the end.

What happens after you are spies for the resistance, captured and sent to a concentration camp and then liberated? Does life go on? American Josie Anderson and Parisian Arlette La Rue meet when they are paired up to work together with the resistance. They become friends and confidants, known as the Golden Doves, but after the war they each carry their own scars and burdens. Josie joins the US Military and Arlette works in a café with fellow war survivors. They stayed friends, and ended up reconnecting while each is on a quest for something lost.

"The Golden Doves" by Martha Hall Kelly is a powerful and interesting historical fiction novel about two women spies during WWII and their activity and passion for bringing nazi criminals to justice after the war. Full of devotion, personal motivation and confusion, this novel is wonderful. Thank you NetGalley, the author and publisher for the review copy. All opinions are my own.

I absolutely loved this book, as well as all of her orders. The two timelines were woven together so seamlessly, and I loved learning about what happened to the Nazis after the war ended. I would definitely recommend this book to any historical fiction lover! I received a free copy of this book from netgalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.