This book was a DNF for me. I got to 30% and decided it was not for me. Hopefully it will be a good fit for someone else!

This is one of the most moving books I've been fortunate enough to read in advance and I thank NetGalley. What a beautiful story about love, survival, empathy, resilience and sacrifice. Allegri's writing is exquisite and transportive that truly reels you in. I never wanted it to end. This was one compelling read

Historical Fiction lovers will really enjoy this one. Set in The 1940's when Hitler's Eugenics program was being run. I actually knew nothing about this until this book. Chilling and at times mind blowing. The pace was a little bit slow for me, hence the 3 stars.

Wow! My eyes were opened due to this book. Such a good and historically detailed book, that you forget that it is considered historical fiction. It’s based on the SS Lebensborn program. Hitler had opened homes were pure German’s were impregnated by his offices to keep the race pure Aryan. The story begins with Katherine’s mother falling off of a step ladder and getting injured. Her mother Allina, decided that she needed to tell Katherine the truth of her past. Allina lived with her uncle and aunt. The decision was made to raise her Christian and not Jewish. Allina’s birth certificate was forged. She was taken by a German officer with the hopes of impregnating her and she was left at one of the homes were the pure Germans gave birth. Allina got involved with caring for the newborns. After awhile, she discovered older children that were considered “slow” still living in the home. While there, she feel in love with another German commander named Karl. She shared her concerns with Karl and discovered that he was working underground to help children escape from Germany. It was also disclosed that Karl was part Jewish. Their love story grew and they had a daughter “Katherine”. The sunflower house is Karl’s house that had huge sunflowers growing around it. Karl was sent into Poland and it was not safe for Allina and their daughter to stay in the home. They were sent to his aunt’s in Switzerland. Allina discovered that there were Jewish children in hiding in the house. Karl was devastated with what he was having to do in Poland and it was discovered that he was aiding the kid’s escape. He was killed by a firing squad of his own soldiers. Allina and her daughter then had to escape to America to be safe. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced e-copy of the book. I look forward to reading more from the author.

Allina Strauss lives with her aunt and uncle in a small German town in the 1930s. At first things seem to be going fine, but then people start disappearing, friends can no longer be friends, two family secrets are revealed and the ideals of Hitler starts spreading through the country. One night the world around Allina comes crashing down and she is now placed into a situation that she never imagined existed…The Lebensborn Program. How well can she hide not only her secrets but the secrets of the man who has come into her life and has the same idea as her, save the children. Not only the ones who are Jewish, but also the ones that are hidden away because they did not meet the requirements of the program of perfection.

This book is written in two timelines, one back in the 1930s/40s in Germany and in present day in the US but they are merged in a perfect way. It touches on a subject that happened and what many women had to go through whether they wanted to or not. It does make you think a lot of what many had to go through in order to survive, sometimes giving up their own lives. Adrianna Allegri has written a book that captures your attention and holds onto it even though you know may not work out the way you think it should. It is a book that you can’t just put on your TBR list, you actually need to read it!!!

Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin’s. Press for an ARC of this book for my honest opinion.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the early copy. This is my honest review.
I cannot say enough about this heart wrenching book. Although fiction, much of it was also true. It is the story of Hochland House a baby factory where women were eager to bear thousands of perfect children for the Fuhrer to continue the Aryan race. And if the children were not perfect, they were systematically eliminated. This is also the story of the great peril that was taken by a network of individuals to save thousands more children.
By the Authors own words, this book was twenty years in the making. Meticulous investigation went into her book and it shows. An excellent book, well worth the time spent reading.

Allina's courage and determination are unmatched. She is such a relatable character and makes you feel everything.

The Sunflower House is a historical fiction set in the Second World War Germany. It sheds light on the Nazi operation of producing children that met the Nazi standards. At these specialized birthing hospitals, pregnant women, married and unmarried, were encouraged to stay and give birth. I had never heard of this side of German history and was fascinated and terrified by the events portrayed in this book.

The story begins with a phone call and eventual discovery of a family secret. Allina moved to America, never revealing her past to her daughter, who was around eleven at that time. When an accident at home leads Katerina to a box containing Nazi artifacts, she questions her mother who finally reveals how she spent the time during the war and her escape from Germany.

Allina grew up in a German village with her aunt and uncle. A few days before the attack that destroys the village, Allina learns her parents’ truths and how they influence her identity. Shaken by these revelations and also deeply loved by her caregivers, at the young age of eighteen, Allina has a lot to work through. But life does not give her a break and she becomes victim of rape and kidnapping during the attack. The General who ‘rescues’ her sees potential in her and delivers her at the Hochland Home, ordering the head nurse there to employ her should she not get pregnant. His recommendation lets her slip in without a security check.

At Hochland Home, a new world is revealed to Allina. She finds herself at a facility full of pregnant women. Some are married. Many are not. The Nazi regime encouraged Germans to have as many children as possible, even creating opportunities for soldiers to come and stay at these facilities and get unmarried women pregnant.

Allina meets women with many attitudes towards pregnancy and surrogacy - those who care deeply about the child they are having, those who have no emotional connection to them and are just going through the motions of nursing, others who enjoy having children and returning to the facility when they are pregnant again. But what was most astonishing for Allina (and me) was the children themselves. In her new role as a nurse, one of the first observations Allina makes is that the nursery is quiet. The children do not cry out. They are not engaged with each other. She is horrified to learn that everything at Hochland Home is on a schedule and nurses and mothers are not allowed to give love and soothe the children.

High ranking SS officers exercise their own power at Hochland Home. Allina learns that the General has a claim over her. This offers protection from other officers and stops their advances. Traumatized by the events at the village and terrified to have to face the General who left her here, Allina tries her best to settle into a new life. Eventually, she meets Karl, another SS officer whose influence is similar, if not the same as the General, and he takes her under his wing. I loved Karl and his backstory. Why he joined SS and how he and his friends were doing their best to carefully oppose Hitler. In the Nazi regime, the penalty of being found out would be death and Karl and Allina look out for each other. They play pretend where needed. Hitler’s speeches and propaganda are expertly woven into the narrative and good German values have to be shown at all times.

When the children at Hochland Home come of a certain age, those without parents are adopted by Nazi families. However, if children are ever returned and deemed not good enough by the adopted parents, they are returned to the facility. Allina finds herself an unwilling participant in Heinrich Himmler’s ruthless eugenics program. When she shares this with Karl who has been trying to save children in recent years and had suspected a malicious underground operation at the Hochland Home, he decides to support her in a new educational format to help the disadvantaged children. The Sunflower House is his ancestral home where they come up with their plans.

The Sunflower House is a heartbreaking story. I loved how it tugged at my heartstrings. I cried with Allina when she had to part from the children she had grown so close to while carrying. I felt her love and fear for Karl. He built a team of men who watched his back and looked after Allina when he could not help her. Telling this story from the perspective of a nurse was a great choice and I felt it allowed the numerous aspects of the Nazi program to produce racially pure healthy Aryans.

The Sunflower House reminded me of Handmaid's Tale, the dystopian novel by Margetret Atwood where women were used primarily for reproduction. Another book I thought of was The Farm by Joanne Ramos, a thought-provoking novel set in a luxury surrogacy facility where economically disadvantaged women were paid to carry babies for the wealthy. If you enjoyed either of these books, The Sunflower House would be a good one to read. It teaches about lesser known history through compassionate and kind characters for whom it is impossible not to root for. It is also a story about how immigration allows people to start a new life and choose to put a painful past behind for the sake of the children.

Many thanks to the publisher for a review copy for my honest thoughts and connecting me with the author. This review will be posted to my blog (armedwithabook.com) on Nov 11th followed by an interview with the author on Nov 12th.

Just when I think I’ve read everything that can be read about this war…another insane story is handed to me 🤯 It was well written and I was completely caught up in the story. Thank you to @stmartins and @netgalley for my copy!

4.5⭐️/ Allina has a lot to remember and explain to her daughter after a box of old memories is found. It goes into her horrific journey to becoming a nurse at a birth house in the Lebensborn program, which is handled by Himmler himself. We see how tragic the lives of so many women and children were handled like experiments rather than individuals.
Allina works hard to help the children suffering from lack of touch and communication. Meanwhile she catches the attention of a top SS officer, Karl who has incredible secrets of his own. Together they try to save Jewish individuals from being exposed and protect the children who are ‘slow’ or vulnerable from neglect from being harmed by Nazi scientists. A sweet but bittersweet love story begins between Allina and Karl, and with the constant suspense I couldn’t put this book down. As with many WW2 historical fiction, there’s always a sense of both sadness and hope.
* this book does have scenes of racism, rape, violence and abuse.

I loved this book so much. It was very well researched and well written. I found myself in tears multiple times at the beautiful and heartbreaking story.

This was a fantastic book! I really enjoyed learning about the Lebensborn homes during WW2. The story is told from the point of view of Allina Strauss as she experiences the war, and all of the horrible atrocities that took place. As she finds herself a resident of one of the homes she is very disturbed by the behavior of the the other women and girls there and the way they behave around Nazi soldiers. She is even more disturbed by the treatment of the children who are not perfect. She soon finds a like minded friend and is able to do her part to help these children.
I could have read this book in one sitting, and really enjoyed the authors style of writing. I’m looking forward to more stories written by Adriana Allegri.
Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the digital ARC.

I honestly have no idea how to rate or review this book.

I loved it, but it broke my heart and it hurt to read.

Definitely some trigger warnings for SA and general content for those unfamiliar with exactly how bad the situation was surrounding the eugenics obsession in Germany surrounding WWII.

The Sunflower House is fiction, but much of the story was all too real.

If you enjoy historical fiction and are prepared for the content, I’d absolutely recommend this book, with the caveat that you should be aware of what you’re getting into.

I received an advance copy from the publisher, all opinions are my own, and a review was not required.

The Sunflower House is a frame story that starts in the present day when Katrine makes a shocking discovery in her mother’s bedroom closet. Her mother, Allina, begs her daughter the chance to explain and in doing so, many things about Katrine’s unorthodox upbringing begin to make sense. Now to figure out how she will ever make peace with what she has learned.

Sixteen-year-old Allina Strauss owns her aunt and uncle everything after taking her in and raising her when her parents passed. When her uncle falls ill, he revels many things about her own family she didn’t know, and now finds complicated as the Nazis have arrived on their doorstep. Quickly, they decimate her small village looking for traitors, and those not immediately killed are beaten and raped. Allina makes it out alive, but the damage is immense not only to her body, but her spirit. Sent to Hochland House, a eugenics program that churns out perfect Aryan children, Allina is disgusted by the behavior of the visiting soldiers and the treatment of the babies in the home. After gaining the protection of ranking officer Karl von Strassberg, who has his own host of secrets, the “home” becomes slightly more tolerable as the two make plans to aid as many of the neglected children as they can.

Allina and Karl’s story gives one hope that somewhere in that Nazi war machine there were resisters trying to subvert Hitler’s agenda in Germany. The author does an excellent job of making both Allina and Karl both inspiring and flawed. It is easy to feel for Allina who is brutalized and wears her feelings on her sleeve, but to make a reader feel for Karl takes plenty of finesse as his day job makes him intolerable. The work the two did to save not only Jewish children, but also those born in the Lebensborn program who didn’t develop as expected is touching.

I cannot believe this is a debut novel. Adriana Allegri clearly did her research, and her writing drops the reader directly into some of the most cringe-worthy moments of Hitler’s plans for a master race. I found myself holding my breath on more than one occasion to see if Allina and Karl had gotten away with another act of sabotage in the face of evil. Fans of The Nightgale and The Book of Lost Names will enjoy this story.

Thank you to NetGalley, St Martin’s Press, and of course author Adriana Allegri for the advanced copy of the book. The Sunflower House is out on November 12th! All opinions are my own.

Hitler wanted a master Aryan race. One way to develop this was to encourage Aryan women, married and unmarried, to have many children. To help facilitate this, the Lebensborn program was developed. Special houses were created to keep women and their children until the children were adopted by Aryan families. After Allina’s village was raided, her family was killed, and she was brutally raped and beaten, she was taken to a Lebensborn house. Here she worked to help the children born there. Here she met her future husband, a Nazi officer who was working to get Jews out of Germany.
The Sunflower House, by Adriana Allegri, is the telling of Allina’s story to her daughter years later. It is a story of the horrors ordered by the Nazi leaders, the courage of a few to defy those orders, and the love that can be found during the most difficult of times. I am stingy with 5-star reviews, but this book deserved it. I was able to read an ARC on #NetGalley.

It’s 1939 in Germany and Allina has found out that her birth mother was Jewish. After Allina’s life is tragically changed, she is forced to work at the Hochland Home; an institution for pure Aryan women to reproduce. When she meets Karl, a high ranking SS officer, she realizes he also has secrets.

I highly recommend this great World War Two historical fiction with a romance subplot. This story is intense and suspenseful. The characters have a lot of depth. I really liked Karl’s character and the ethical dilemma that he faced. This one not only tells a true story of the Nazi baby factories, but also pulls heart strings as two individuals do the best they can in horrible circumstances.

“The Führer is like a poison pill coated in chocolate. If you’re hungry enough, you’ll eat it. But poison always kills in the end.”

The Sunflower House comes out 11/12.

My thanks to Net Galley, St. Martin s, and the personal invitation I received to review this book.

What an EXCELLENT book! I loved this and could not put it down! Look forward to more from this author!

Young Katrine finds a box of her mom s, Alline with a swastika on it in present time line. Thus begins her mom s past tale of how her family was killed and she was brought to a baby factory/orphanage/ to work as a nurse under the protection of a Nazi officer but prevails and finds love!

Wonderful story, excellent writing, strong characters. Highly recommend!

A jarring look into Germany during WWII. I have read other books on this subject but this story was more emotional to me. I loved the romance between Allina and Karl and the trust they had for each other. As with other books on this subject it tears at my heart that something like this could happen. Thank you for bringing a new look to a part of history that many would disagree happened.

I've read many books about the Holocaust world war II and the terrors that the world went through thanks to the Nazi reign however this book was very different than I was used to. This book is told through two different timelines one with our main character, Katine , discovering the secrets her mother has long since buried, about her time in Germany. The book then flashes as we get to see what actually happened with Allina, (Katherine's mother) and what led her to make the decisions that she did. Allina is a wreck when the Nazis invade her hometown killing everyone she loves. Thankfully by some unforeseen circumstance Allina survives, well at least physically. She is then forced to work in a clinic on something called the Lebensborn project. The project itself was absolutely horrific however Alina decides that it's up to her to try and save as many of the children as possible. I loved her for sticking to her grounds and doing what she knew to be right even when everyone was telling her not to. I love the dual timeline on this because it really gave the reader a whole lot of information that we wouldn't necessarily have had otherwise. I found the characters were very strongly written and my favorite had to have been Allina's because it was very sad to see all of the struggle she had to go through but knowing she made it out in the end made for a very compelling read. This book focuses on the Lebensborn program which unfortunately was an actual thing. With all of the books that I've read over the years about the Holocaust and world war II this was a new thing that I've never heard of before. It was terrifying and interesting and fascinating all while filling me with terror at the same time. This is one book that will really leave you thinking as well as leaving you desperate to learn more. Even after this book was long finished I know that this one will stay with me for a while. If you love books with a historical fiction this is definitely one you'll need to check out. There's so many things going on in this book that any review won't do it proper justice. All I have to say is this is one book that you will want to check out, and I can't wait to see it hit the shelves.

This is the most amazing book ever! This book is about baby factories in Germany during world war 2. I have literally never heard of these before! This is historical fiction, but it is so well researched that it could easily be nonfiction. An absolute love!