The Book of Lost Names
“A fascinating, heartrending page-turner that, like the real-life forgers who inspired the novel, should never be forgotten.” —Kristina McMorris, New York Times bestselling author of Sold on a Monday
Inspired by an astonishing true story from World War II, a young woman with a talent for forgery helps hundreds of Jewish children flee the Nazis in this “sweeping and magnificent” (Fiona Davis, bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue) historical novel from the #1 international bestselling author of The Winemaker’s Wife.
Eva Traube Abrams, a semi-retired librarian in Florida, is shelving books when her eyes lock on a photograph in the New York Times. She freezes; it’s an image of a book she hasn’t seen in more than sixty years—a book she recognizes as The Book of Lost Names.
The accompanying article discusses the looting of libraries by the Nazis across Europe during World War II—an experience Eva remembers well—and the search to reunite people with the texts taken from them so long ago. The book in the photograph, an eighteenth-century religious text thought to have been taken from France in the waning days of the war, is one of the most fascinating cases. Now housed in Berlin’s Zentral- und Landesbibliothek library, it appears to contain some sort of code, but researchers don’t know where it came from—or what the code means. Only Eva holds the answer, but does she have the strength to revisit old memories?
As a graduate student in 1942, Eva was forced to flee Paris and find refuge in a small mountain town in the Free Zone, where she began forging identity documents for Jewish children fleeing to neutral Switzerland. But erasing people comes with a price, and along with a mysterious, handsome forger named Rémy, Eva decides she must find a way to preserve the real names of the children who are too young to remember who they really are. The records they keep in The Book of Lost Names will become even more vital when the resistance cell they work for is betrayed and Rémy disappears.
An engaging and evocative novel reminiscent of The Lost Girls of Paris and The Alice Network, The Book of Lost Names is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of bravery and love in the face of evil.
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Readers say *The Book of Lost Names* is a beautifully written WWII novel with strong emotional impact, meaningful themes of memory, love, and sacrific...
This was my first WWII historical fiction and while I was interested throughout the story, I have to say that there were many parts in this story where I found myself trying to rush through because a scene or interaction was going on for too long. I enjoyed going back and forth between past and present, but there were a few parts of this book that I found unbelievable and felt if this was based on a true story, there were probably many parts that were exaggerated to make the story more interesting. Which makes it feel slightly inauthentic.
This is another one for my 2025 “out of my comfort zone” challenge. War stories have never been one of my go to genres because I don’t like reading about war zones and battlefields. However, I thought a story about a Jewish librarian student hiding out in a French town, under a false name, who creates forged documents for Jewish people, sounded like a good story. It is indeed a really good story and I loved that it was based (however loosely) on a true story.,
The book summary introduces (which I believe reveals too much) the primary storyline of Ava and Remy creating the documents that saves so many Jewish children who were left orphaned when their parents were abducted by the German Nazis. Eva and Remy are soon enlisted by the Resistance, others who have banded together to help Jewish people escape to neutral Switzerland. The Resistance now provides Eva with all the materials and products she needs to make better documents and Remy is moved to the field where he travels with the children to safety.
There is also a secondary story of Eva and the fraying relationship with her mother, Mamoosa, who was grieving the capture of her husband. I felt sorry for Eva’s Mamoosa, I did. I even understood her when she was lashing out on Eva; grieving people are just in so much pain and they often lash out at those closest. She was angry that she and her family was being erased by Hitler. It was true, they were, but Eva was doing something that may prevent that from happening forever. There was also a storyline of Eva experiencing her first love, she was falling in love with Remy, who was Catholic and just one more thing for her mother to be angry about.
The story is mostly about the period of time from 1942-1944 when Eva worked in a secret church library. It's deep into the second half that the storylines begin to erupt and, as the book summary reveals, Eva and Remy are betrayed and Remy disappears. The story also flips back and forth mostly between Eva’s time working for the Resistance, and a few chapters of present day (2005), when the Book of Lost Names is discovered and Eva travels back to Germany to reclaim the book and help decipher it.
The character development for Eva, Remy and several other characters was well done. The pacing steady to fast, especially in the later part. The story was very interesting and I enjoyed it so much. The writing was wonderful too and really capturing the intensity, fear and importance of the work and the time period. So often, I found myself picking up the book to listen for a few minutes during my day, extending my morning exercise a little longer, eating lunch, making dinner, etc. I’m looking at an overall rating of 4.5 that I am going to round up to a 5star review.
The book summary introduces (which I believe reveals too much) the primary storyline of Ava and Remy creating the documents that saves so many Jewish children who were left orphaned when their parents were abducted by the German Nazis. Eva and Remy are soon enlisted by the Resistance, others who have banded together to help Jewish people escape to neutral Switzerland. The Resistance now provides Eva with all the materials and products she needs to make better documents and Remy is moved to the field where he travels with the children to safety.
There is also a secondary story of Eva and the fraying relationship with her mother, Mamoosa, who was grieving the capture of her husband. I felt sorry for Eva’s Mamoosa, I did. I even understood her when she was lashing out on Eva; grieving people are just in so much pain and they often lash out at those closest. She was angry that she and her family was being erased by Hitler. It was true, they were, but Eva was doing something that may prevent that from happening forever. There was also a storyline of Eva experiencing her first love, she was falling in love with Remy, who was Catholic and just one more thing for her mother to be angry about.
The story is mostly about the period of time from 1942-1944 when Eva worked in a secret church library. It's deep into the second half that the storylines begin to erupt and, as the book summary reveals, Eva and Remy are betrayed and Remy disappears. The story also flips back and forth mostly between Eva’s time working for the Resistance, and a few chapters of present day (2005), when the Book of Lost Names is discovered and Eva travels back to Germany to reclaim the book and help decipher it.
The character development for Eva, Remy and several other characters was well done. The pacing steady to fast, especially in the later part. The story was very interesting and I enjoyed it so much. The writing was wonderful too and really capturing the intensity, fear and importance of the work and the time period. So often, I found myself picking up the book to listen for a few minutes during my day, extending my morning exercise a little longer, eating lunch, making dinner, etc. I’m looking at an overall rating of 4.5 that I am going to round up to a 5star review.