The Secret History of Audrey James is a gripping novel about a pianist in Berlin on the cusp of WWII and a choice she makes that echoes across generations.

If you enjoyed Looking For Jane or love historical fiction, you’ll want to read this one. It was inspired by two courageous women and the German resistance and set during WWII. Again, Marshall showcases women and causes that have been lost to history and examines the aftermath of tragedy/trauma and how we grow from it and forge a new path ahead.

This dual timeline features Kate Mercer in Northern England, 2010 and Audrey James in Berlin 1938.

I appreciated an examination of:

💜 fresh starts
💜 how love sometimes challenges what we believe
💜 how difficult it is to outrun our bad decisions
💜 the power of a question mark to set in motion events that change EVERYTHING
💜 what it means to be a survivor
💜 the chasm that develops between the people who have and haven’t seen the war
💜 the danger of self-loathing and the difficulty in breaking through it to experience love

A quote that gave me pause:
- “A person could feel the weight of the Third Reich.”

Something I Googled to learn more:
- North Nova Scotia Highlanders

Passage I loved:
- exploring other people’s book collections and what it says about them

This will be another winner for this author! Don’t miss out. Each time I set this book down, I couldn’t wait to pick it up again.

I was gifted this copy by Simon & Schuster Canada and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

Another amazing novel by Heather Marshall! This is one of my most anticipated reads for 2024. This book drew me in quickly and kept me wanting to pick it up again. There is so much depth to the characters and character development. Audrey’s story is the main focus of the novel but having Kate’s interwoven in there and eventually being the one recording it really helped develop the story further. I got really attached to each of the characters in this story. The ending was perfect, exactly what it needed!

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC.

I have to admit, I wasn’t sure I wanted to read yet another World War II book. For the first several pages, it seemed like there was nothing that hadn’t been told before, but then the story took a turn and it became something else entirely. I should have known. This is the second novel from this author who focuses on fictionalized accounts of the real life plights of women. This one is based on the true story of Mona Parsons, a Canadian Nazi resister and a network called the Red Orchestra. I had never heard of either.

It is very evident that a lot of research went into writing this book to create the atmosphere, vividness and the emotions that exude from the pages.

This story focuses a lot on chance and its effect on the events that happen in our lives. It’s an exploration of guilt and how we deal with it. Told in a dual timeline, Audrey and Kate have both suffered in life’s game of chance and have blamed themselves for what transpired. This is their story of resilience.

Thank you NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Canada for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

🎧Song Pairing: Only Hope by Mandy Moore (hello best forgotten song ever)

💭What I thought would happen:

Did I drop everything the second I got approved? Yes. Looking For Jane was my favourite book of 2022 and you know I don’t give you 5 stars like Oprah. I don’t know what this is about but she could literally have a list of her favourite shows and I’d read it 😂

📖What actually happens:

1938 Germany - nazi flags are everywhere and Audrey is worried. The family she lives with whom she has known and loved from birth are Jewish. Audrey wants to protect her best friend Ilse and the rest of the Kaplans.

2010 London - Kate is getting a divorce and has no idea what to do with her life since her accident. She decides to retrace her parents travel steps and happens upon a quaint inn where she meets Audrey.

🗯Thoughts/sassy musings:

Well damn, I didn’t really want it to be a WWII historical fiction because well there are so many and I wanted more Canadian history. But that’s ok! I still very much loved. She hit the weepy button with an aggressive push.

I love the colliding worlds between the past and present. GOOSEBUMPS! I was leaking out of my eyeballs at 10%. It was a shock so early on 😱

Audrey + Ilse their friendship and the unrequited romantic love….❤️‍🩹

In her notes Heather says her next book is set in 1960s Toronto and it’s about women’s mental health and incarceration…HOLY SHIT DO I WANT THAT BOOK NOW!

The Secret History of Audrey James is an incredible sophomore novel from Heather Marshall. In this dual timeline, dual perspective novel we meet Audrey James who begins the book as a student in 1938, weeks away from graduating from a prestigious music school in Berlin, soon to return to her father in England. Audrey was born in Berlin but had moved with her father back to his home in England some years before and following her return to Berlin has been living in the home of her Jewish best friends family, who we quickly see torn apart by the Nazi regime. In 2010, we meet Kate who has just suffered the loss of her parents and her marriage and is looking for a fresh start. She applies for a new job, which takes her from London to Northern England to work at an old guest house owned by Audrey, now in her 90s. Audrey who at first is apprehensive of Kate’s arrival, soon starts to open up and tell Kate about her time during the war. Through Audrey’s re-telling of her experiences we learn of Audrey’s work with the German resistance during WWII and the incredible lengths she takes to try and save her best friend, Ilse. This is a story about love, friendship. sacrifice, loss and healing. The author has an incredible way with words and I’m already excited for the next novel as well as re-reading this one, once it releases.

Thank you to the publisher, Simon & Schuster Canada, NetGalley and the author for an eARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.