Description: From the award-winning author of "Catching the Wind" comes another gripping time-slip novel about hidden treasure, a castle, and ordinary people who resisted evil in their own extraordinary way.
Brief description:
Writing fiction is Melanie Dobson's excuse to immerse herself in the past by reading old books, interviewing new friends, and exploring fascinating places around the world. She is the award-winning author of almost thirty novels including The Lost Story of Via Belle, The Wings of Poppy Pendleton and Catching the Wind. Five of her novels received Carol Awards, and The Black Cloister was named the Foreword Religious Fiction Book of the Year. When she's not writing, Melanie enjoys kayaking, teaching creative writing, and connecting with readers at melaniedobson.com.
Review Quotes: Dobson (Catching the Wind) delivers another era-hopping tale that pairs a contemporary sleuth with a secretive plot to escape the Nazis at the end of WWII. In 1938 Austria, overrun by Hitler's Anschluss, Max Dornbach, now in his mid-20s, yearns for Jewish Luzi Weiss even as his childhood friend, Annika Knopf, yearns for him. Max's family, for whom Annika's father works, owns the massive Schloss Schwansee estate on Lake Hallstatt, deep in the Alps and far from Vienna, where Max spends most of his time. Luzi, a gifted violinist living in Vienna, becomes frightened that she will be executed as the Nazi march nears the capital. After promising his Jewish friends he would hide their possessions, Max convinces Annika, a woman of deep faith, to help him, but without revealing he also plans to hide Luzi--a decision that could get them all killed. Dobson intertwines their story with that of Callie Randall, co-owner of Magic Balloon Bookshop in Mount Vernon, Ohio, who receives a copy of Bambi with an inscription to Annika Knopf dated 1932. Along with a doctor who believes Nazi treasure is buried in Lake Hallstatt, the two embark on a journey to uncover what happened to Annika, and on the way discover the full history of Max, Luzi, and the sprawling estate where they lived. This exciting tale will please fans of time-jump inspirational fiction.--Publishers Weekly