Book Blurb:
1992. Josephine has many regrets. Despite having a family and forging a new life in post-war America, Josephine is haunted by her past while living in German occupied France during World War Two. She harbors a dark family secret that she can no longer keep inside.
1941. Jean Janvier is a philosophy student, etching out a meager life with dreams of being an accomplished poet. He surrounds himself with close friends and philosophical discussions at Café de Flore. His closest confidante is his sister, Josephine, and together they live with their overbearing and socially conscious parents, who push their children to achieve the unobtainable goals they have set for their family legacy. But Jean’s perfectly ordered world is disrupted by the arrival of a new member to his inner circle, Annette Zabek. Beautiful, intelligent, and cultivated, it doesn’t take long for Jean to fall in love with Annette. As their relationship grows, Annette reveals a secret that could endanger them both. Soon, Jean will discover that his greatest enemy isn’t the German occupying forces but someone much closer to him.
Inspired by the true story of Occupied France’s Romeo and Juliet, Love and Betrayal in the City of Lights tells a tale of love, family bonds, and betrayal.
Book Buy Link: https://geni.us/KGZ9
Author Bio:
Rachel R. Heil is a historical fiction writer who always dreamed of being an author. After years of dreaming, she finally decided to turn this dream into a reality with her first novel, and series, Behind the Darkened Glass. Rachel is an avid history fan, primarily focused on twentieth century history and particularly World War Two-era events. In addition to her love for history, Rachel loves following the British Royal Family and traveling the world, which only opens the door to learning more about a country's history. Rachel resides in Wisconsin.
Editorial Review:
Rachel R Heil is a prolific and talented writer. Her works on the terrible Siege of Leningrad, for example, are absolute gems. Here, with her latest and lengthy work 'Love and Betrayal in the City of Lights', she switches her focus to the experiences of the people of Paris, caught up in the German Occupation in the Second World War. With a characteristic sensitivity, Rachel R. Heil focuses on the fortunes of one particular family, the microcosm in the macrocosm of a terrible experience of total war, the Janvier family. and presents what is, in essence, a reworking of the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. In her Author's Note at the end of the book Rachel Heil tells the reader that the people and events in 'Love and Betrayal in the City of Light' are based on real people and actual events, before going on to provide some basic details. Where Shakespeare in his original telling of the story might perhaps be accused of failing to fully dwell on the repercussions that fell upon others as well as upon the main protagonists, Rachel R. Heil, on the other hand, goes to great lengths to detail these. Treated in this fashion, the tale of the 'star crossed' lovers acquires a great depth of emotion.
It is the recently bereaved Josephine Janvier who recounts this story, opening with a return to the Paris of her childhood and youth and accompanied by her son Christopher. She is drawn like a magnet to the Café de Flores, a focal point around which many events of the story takes place. Josephine is full of regret and bitter memories as she returns to Paris and finally locates and visits the Café de Flores:
''Never had it been my intention to return to this place, with all its dark memories that I had successfully pushed into the closet of my brain, locking the door and effectively throwing away the key. However, as I went about my life and raised my family, I knew they were still there, desperate to break free and live once more.''
In June of 1941 France, with the exception of an area designated as a 'Free Zone' administered by Nazi sympathisers, has been occupied by the Germans for an entire year. In Paris, as elsewhere, they are in full control. In Paris the German presence is everywhere and affecting the lives of the citizens at every level. Josephine is in the final stages of her studies to become a nurse and her younger brother twenty four year old Jean, whom she idolises, is a highly idealistic student of philosophy at the Sorbonne with aspirations of becoming a poet. The family is comfortably well off, practicing Catholics and classically bourgeoise [a title which Jean loathes being labelled as] and their father is a well established doctor with great aspirations for his children. He approves of Josephine's training to be a nurse but is always contemptuous of Jean's philosophical studies. To him it is of neither use nor value. To Jean, and many others, the Café de Flores is a second home; a place to meet, socialise and indulge in academic and philosophical discussions with his many like minded friends and acquaintances. The reader may be forgiven for a certain level of bewilderment at the number of different characters we are rather abruptly introduced to and who seem to be constantly arriving and then leaving the Cafe, individually and in groups. Despite the constant nagging presence of the Germans, young Jean appears to be spending his days happily and tranquilly enough. The Café is a safe haven where one could come and express views and opinions which elsewhere be termed as dangerous with a certain degree of safety:
''There was never any personal invitation to come and sit at the Café de Flore. All one had to do was come in with a firm set of ideas and beliefs, pull up a chair to the nearest crowded little table, and begin speaking without any sense of shame.''
Of his wide circle, Jean's especial friends are Claude and Bella, a couple who argue constantly, and, in particular, Jacques, a like minded person to Jean. On this particular day in June 1941 they notice that there is a stranger, a woman at the table at the Café with Bella and Claude. From his very first sight of her, Jean is transfixed, mesmerised. The woman is certainly striking looking, with vibrant blue eyes and delicate cheek bones. This stranger introduces herself as Annette Zabek, from Nancy. She is recently enrolled at the 'Beaux-Arts'. Almost immediately, Jean is struck with intense jealousy at the attention his friend Jacques is paying towards her. Back home, he tells his sister all about her and how wonderful she is. Josephine is both scornful and indulgent towards her younger brother. She, of course, has no idea of how this chance encounter and what she believes to be a passing infatuation will ultimately lead to disaster and tragedy.
Although not fully qualified, Josephine take up a post at her father's hospital, the 'Hȏpital franco-musulman de Paris'. Her best friend is Amelie, who is courting a German serving in the Wehrmacht, a Leutnant called Werner. It is through this connection that Werner asks if he might call upon Josephine's father to ask for a medical favour on behalf of a superior officer. This is very much against her better nature, but her father does not seem unduly disturbed. Indeed, at the hospital a short time afterwards, she discovers her father conversing amicably
with a sinister looking S.S. Officer, Hauptsturmfȕhrer Rowohlt. It appears that her father has done this man some unspecified service. Josephine begins to feel faint: ''The S.S. was the secret police. If you saw one coming towards you on the sidewalk, you crossed the street and went the other way. They were the ones prowling the streets looking for potential enemies of the Fatherland - the ones every person feared most. The military could be a nuisance, but they were mere children compared to the S.S., and this knowledge almost made my knees quake.'' Josephine is appalled at this connection and the fact that the Germans have penetrated her own family circle.
Much to Jean's dismay, meanwhile, Jacques has formed a relationship with the delectable Annette, with Jean looking on, hopelessly in love. But, as Jacques confides to him, the relationship isn't going anywhere. He admits it is failing and, for example, Annette refuses to make love to him. He has decided to move to 'The Free Zone'', probably to join the Resistance. Annette, however refuses to join him and, after they bid Jacques farewell at the Gare du Nord, Jean and Annette walk together. They witness a very unfortunate occurrence, where they witness an assault upon and then an arrest of a Jewish shopkeeper. Annette is appalled and calls upon Jean to intervene, which, perhaps understandably, he refuses. As a result, a coldness between the pair emerges and Jean, to his misery, doesn't see Annette for some time afterwards. Finally, plucking up courage, he discovers her home address and, bearing flowers, he goes to see her, to apologise and to make amends. There, through the glimpse of a family photograph, he discovers that Annette is in fact Jewish! In their subsequent conversation, Annette breaks down in tears. Jean is stricken by her distress: ''he wanted to do everything he could to alleviate that pain. It would become Jean's lifelong mission.'' As time passes, Jean's protestations grow in their strength and determination. At one point he tells her:
''I know that I'm not the most intelligent, well rounded and worldly person you have ever met, but I promise you this: i will love you as if every day is our last day. I will support you in whatever you do, and I don't give a damn what anyone else has to say about us.....I will do everything to assure you of this promise. I will stand by your side no matter what challenges come our way, and even when something looks impossible, I will do my part to ensure we reach our goal either together or separately.''
Josephine has very little time for Jean's constant moping about Annette. Indeed, and not for the first time, she wishes he had never met her! Her friend Amelie, meanwhile, has begun work at an exclusively German run Hospital, making her guilty in many eyes of the crime of collaboration. Jean is confronted by a furious Bella, accusing Annette of attempting to steal Claude. 'Tramp' and 'slut' are just two of the words she uses to describe her. In his urge to defend Annette, Jean lets slip to Bella that Annette is in fact Jewish. This is, of course, a grave error at a time when even stronger measures against the Jews are beginning to be enforced. He swears Bella to secrecy, but is left with the distinct impression that Bella might herself be Jewish! At work, Josephine is instructed to administer to the needs of an elderly Polish patient named Benjamin Balcer, to whom she forms an attachment. On that same day she encounters her family Priest at the Hospital, Father Faucher, the man who had both baptised and confirmed her; a man she greatly likes and respects. As he takes his leave of her, he says something which will grow in significance in the following very difficult months ahead; he tells her that if ever she needs something, anything, then he would also be at her disposal.
There is a tragic inevitability to this story. Jean's love of and passion for Annette continues to grow against an increasingly harsh backdrop of growing repression of the French in general and of the Jews in particular; a steady erosion of basic human rights. This fact is brought violently home to Josephine when one day in October 1941 she has her first brush with the full power and authority of the German state. She is on a night shift when the soon to be promoted Hauptsturmfȕhrer Rowohlt arrives unexpectedly. He has come to arrest the patient Benjamin Balcer! With the courageous help of a fellow nurse, she manages to stall him, spirit the patient out of his room and hide him elsewhere in the hospital. She then tells Rowohlt that the patient has been discharged. In a panic and remembering his words, she calls upon Father Faucher who, through some means, manages to hide him away. Josephine has committed treason against the state and owes Father Faucher a debt that she fears she can never repay.
In attempting to review a book of this scale and scope there is the constant danger of falling into the trap of simply summarising the main events. This is a very easy snare in which to fall and ultimately it serves any book in question no favours and serves also to cheat the reader. Suffice to say, therefore, that by November 1941 all of the elements of this individual tragedy, in a period of time in which such events can be multiplied literally thousands of times over, are firmly in place. It is Rachel R Heil's gift to the reader, therefore, that she encapsulates the tragedy of thousands into one snapshot on a very personal level. We have a sensitive and hopelessly romantically inclined young man finding his first true love enmeshed in a love affair with a beautiful woman who, for reasons beyond their control, they are doomed to never find true and permanent happiness and fulfilment. The role played by the father of Jean and Josephine is also perhaps emblematic of a sizeable proportion of his class and background at the time, an orthodox, traditional and highly aspirational member of the bourgeoise who comes to harbour certain pro-Nazi sympathies [particularly anti-Semitism] which will in time lead him to betray his own son in the misguided belief that he is assisting him.
And then there is the narrator - Josephine the loving and doting sister. Again, through no fault of her own, she finds herself trapped like a fly in amber and sinking into an seemingly inevitable route that leads her increasingly into a panicked twilight world leading to actual resistance of the German regime. Unlike the angry reaction of Jean and his friends, who make an active decision to fight and seek revenge, Josephine finds herself, from her first act of defiance and then through her association with the courageous and indomitable Priest, Father Faucher, unable to make a safe and moral exit. At all points, Josephine is an extremely likeable and thoughtful and caring individual.
Almost immediately after the war Josephine is recruited by the French Red Cross, principally in working with displaced refugees. With the help of a particular patient she is able to piece together the ultimate fate of Annette Zaber, the love of her brother's young life. She never tells her American husband the full story of her experiences in the war. She does, however, open up to her son Christopher, who reminds her so much of her own brother, on their trip to Paris:
''I told him the whole story without sparing any detail. He listened quietly, not once looking at me without sympathy or disdain. He laughed when I laughed and I could see a sadness cross his face when I felt grief come over me.....'' With her son Christopher, Josephine realises that ''I had achieved the one thing that I had never known living with my parents and Jean: unequivocal love, regardless of who I was or what I had done....Now as I looked back at my life and the people I was touched by, I realised that I did have a purpose in life - we all did. My job wasn't to be a fighter or a spy. My purpose was more important than that. I was to share the stories, the lives of people who had been taken too soon. I was the one who told the world about Jean and Annette and what their lives stood for.''
Josephine, it seems, has at last found peace and serenity, and Rachel R Heil has recounted a tragic story with sensitivity and real flair.
*****
“Love and Betrayal in the City of Lights” by Rachel R. Heil receives five stars and the “Highly Recommended” award of excellence by The Historical Fiction Company
Award:
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