Publisher: Harlequin Books, May 4th, 2021

Format: ebook

Pages: 336

Rating: 4/5 stars

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

1942. Sadie Gault is eighteen and living with her parents amid the horrors of the Kraków Ghetto during World War II. When the Nazis liquidate the ghetto, Sadie and her pregnant mother are forced to seek refuge in the perilous sewers beneath the city. One day Sadie looks up through a grate and sees a girl about her own age buying flowers.

Ella Stepanek is an affluent Polish girl living a life of relative ease with her stepmother, who has developed close alliances with the occupying Germans. Scorned by her friends and longing for her fiancé, who has gone off to war, Ella wanders Kraków restlessly. While on an errand in the market, she catches a glimpse of something moving beneath a grate in the street. Upon closer inspection, she realizes it’s a girl hiding.

Ella begins to aid Sadie and the two become close, but as the dangers of the war worsen, their lives are set on a collision course that will test them in the face of overwhelming odds. Inspired by harrowing true stories, The Woman with the Blue Star is an emotional testament to the power of friendship and the extraordinary strength of the human will to survive.

My Review:

Thank you Harlequin Books for the copy of this book.
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Read if you like: WW2 fiction and historical mysteries.
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Sadie is a Jewish person in Poland when WW2 breaks out. When the Ghetto is being liquidated, Sadie and her family go into the sewers in order to survive. Then there is Ella, who is a young Polish woman who wants to help the war effort and the Jewish people, but she doesn’t know where to start. When she sees Sadie in the sewer, she sees this as her opportunity.
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This book was very intense with many twists and turns in the plot, enough to keep me engaged. I also liked that we got to read about Polish history, which I don’t think we get to do very often!
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CW: war and violence, torture, abuse.