Blurb:

Soon to be a major motion picture, The Nightingale is a multi-million copy bestseller across the world. It is a heart-breakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the endurance of women.

This story is about what it was like to be a woman during World War II when women’s stories were all too often forgotten or overlooked . . . Vianne and Isabelle Mauriac are two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals and passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path towards survival, love and freedom in war-torn France.

Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime.

Review:

This is my first taste of Hannah’s books and I am sure it will not be my last. Her writing is absolutely stunning, taking me to locations in France and painting a picture so vivid that I could not help but be immersed in Vianne and Isabelle’s story. 

Historical fiction is a little out of my comfort zone, but I found it very interesting to learn about World War II from a French perspective, as this is something I’ve never studied before. Hannah’s research is clearly very thorough but it never feels like the information is “dumped” : it’s all relevant and used in a very compelling way.

Hannah’s central characters are really well developed and this helps to feel sympathy for (most of) them. I felt incredibly emotional as I read this novel, including sadness, anger and fear. It is testament to Hannah’s writing that she made me feel like this. The ending, in particular, is especially poignant. 

The Nightingale is available from Amazon.