Wildflowers of Terezin by Robert Elmer is up on CFBA with bonus review!

This week, the


Christian Fiction Blog Alliance


is introducing


Wildflowers of TerezinAbingdon Press (April 2010)by


Robert Elmer

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Robert Elmer is a former pastor, reporter and as copywriter who now writes from he home he shares with his wife Ronda in northern Idaho. He is the author of over fifty books, including eight contemporary novels for the adult Christian audience and several series for younger readers. Combined, his books have sold more than half a million copies worldwide. Like his popular "Young Underground" youth series, Wildflowers of Terezin was inspired by stories Robert heard from his Denmark-born parents and family. When he's not sailing or enjoying the outdoors, Robert often travels the country speaking to school and writers groups.

ABOUT THE BOOK

When nurse Hanne Abrahamsen impulsively shields Steffen Petersen from a nosy Gestapo agent, she’s convinced the Lutheran pastor is involved in the Danish Underground. Nothing could be further from the truth.

But truth is hard to come by in the fall of 1943, when Copenhagen is placed under Martial Law and Denmark’s Jews—including Hanne—suddenly face deportation to the Nazi prison camp at Terezin, Czechoslovakia. Days darken and danger mounts. Steffen’s faith deepens as he takes greater risks to protect Hanne. But are either of them willing to pay the ultimate price for their love?

To read the first chapter of Wildflowers of Terezin, go HERE.



My review:

I read Wildflowers of Terezin quickly and enjoyed the story a lot. I am always inspired by novels set during the WWII era because of the many tales of courageous acts by citizens that can be found in their pages. So many valiant attempts to save targeted peoples such as the Jews are a rich part of that history. Some -- like Schindler -- were fairly successful, and many others died as a result of their passion to help others survive. The people who tried to help their fellow man at all costs are to be commended.

This story reminded me a bit of the story written about Corrie Ten Boom titled The Hiding Place, mainly because of their family's initial attempts to save their Jewish neighbors by hiding them in their home. And like Corrie's family, some of them ended up in camps themselves. I remember reading about Nazi propaganda in other novels and it never ceased to amaze me that the Third Reich went to such great lengths to deceive people. A lot of these stories can be found in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC.


Wildflowers of Terezin moved at a brisk pace and contained enough realism and peril that it held my attention. It also had a nice underlying love story that kept me reading. There aren't many novels about Pastors set during WWII that show what they did to try and motivate parishioners to resist the Nazi influence, and that showed those activities that placed them at great risk. I'd recommend this story to people who enjoy historical fiction set in this era and like to read about people who try to do their part. There is a strong message about not sitting by and just letting bad things happen. I enjoyed that aspect of the story most.