The Forest of Vanishing Stars

February 1, 2021

USA TODAY best-selling Ackerman's Radar Girls tells the story of young Daisy Wilder, happy with her horses in Hawaii, who joins the real-life Women's Air Raid Defense after the attack on Pearl Harbor (100,000-copy first printing). Leave it to Chiaverini (e.g., Resistance Women) to write a book about The Women's March featuring three brave women who marched for the vote (200,000-copy first printing). In Three Words for Goodbye, New York Times best-selling coauthors Gaynor and Webb (Meet Me in Monaco) send estranged sisters Clara and Madeleine Sommers across 1937 Europe to deliver letters written by their dying grandmother. After the death in 1941 of the kidnapper who raised her in the Eastern European wilderness, a young German woman teaches a group of fleeing Jews how to survive in the forest while learning about the world's horrors in Harmel's The Forest of Vanishing Stars (150,000-copy first printing). A good companion to Natalie Haynes's A Thousand Ships, Pat Barker's The Women of Troy, and poet Anne Carson's graphic novel, The Trojan Women: A Comic, all 2021 titles, Heywood's Daughters of Sparta addresses the relationship between sisters Helen and Klytemnestra. In Tanabe's Woman of Intelligence, a frustrated 1950s Manhattan wife who once worked as a UN translator wrenches open her cage doors by agreeing to work as an FBI informant (60,000-copy first printing).

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May 15, 2021
An elderly Jewish mystic, Jerusza, recognizes toddler Yona, born to wealthy Germans in Beriln, her father a Nazi, as a special being and takes her to live deep in the Eastern European forest. After Jerusza's death, Yona crosses paths with Polish Jews fleeing the Nazis. Reluctantly letting down her guard, she teaches them survival skills and gradually joins the group, becoming romantically involved with their charismatic leader. But when he betrays her, she sets off on her own and comes to a German-occupied village where her past and present collide, putting her and the group in danger. Harmel's latest WWII adventure, following The Book of Lost Names (2020), was inspired by her deep research into the stories of Jews who evaded the Nazis by hiding deep in the woods. Yona and her quest to understand her origins is compelling, but the real star is Harmel's richly detailed rendering of the sheltering and sustaining forest. Recommended for fans of historical novels with a strong sense of place, such as Delia Owens' Where the Crawdads Sing (2018) and Kristin Hannah's The Great Alone (2018).

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Starred review from May 31, 2021
Harmel (The Book of Lost Names) returns with a powerful account of a young woman’s efforts during WWII to teach Jews how to survive in the forests of Eastern Europe. In 1922, Yona, born Inge Jüttner, was kidnapped at age two by Jerusza, a clairvoyant forest dweller who felt compelled to save the child from her German parents, whom Jerusza later says were “bad people.” Jerusza hides Yona in the Nalibocka Forest and, as she grows up, teaches her survival skills. In 1942, after Jerusza dies, Yona encounters a group of Jewish refugees in the woods and shows them how to evade the Nazis and survive the harsh winters. But after a romantic betrayal, Yona leaves them, and in a village she meets a group of nuns targeted for execution by the Nazis. She appeals to the Nazi leader, whose face is instantly familiar to her, to stop, then is ordered to remain with him. After Yona learns of an imminent forest raid, she escapes and rejoins the refugees, guiding them deeper into the forest. With the Nazis tracking them, the narrative culminates in a terrifying climax. Along the way, the author impresses with descriptions of how Yona and the refugees survive. Harmel’s stirring adventure will captivate readers. Agent: Holly Root, Root Literary.