The Book of Names

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Adolfo Kaminsky, a former member of the French Resistance, specializing in the forgery of identity documents. Each story has a bit of a quirky ending, making THE BOOK OF NAMES a pretty good read if you are into the weird! This sudden turn of events forces Eva and her mother to flee to the French countryside seeking shelter from the expanding Nazi forces. This is discussed by the author in her notes at the end to put the imagined story in context with the history. The ties to her family and to her cause pull her in opposing directions, and she must make life changing decisions.I’d say if you come across this book give it a hard pass but do read The Nightingale, Lilac Girls or even The Alice Network or The Huntress.

In the final analysis, I would recommend this for readers who have not read much WWII fiction and who are fans of romance novels. Horatio Winthrop, a founding member of the Sons of Adam Lodge, also pursued the spell book, even resorting to stealing several pages from it before it was lost in the fire of 1833, which resulted in him being banished from the Lodge. Instead, I got a half-baked story with a protagonist who refused to share information with the reader about anything other than a crush she has on the hot Catholic boy working with her with a side of boo-hoo-the-poor-Jewish-children and oh this one Nazi is actually a good guy don't be so judgmental Eva. From months of the year, colours, flowers, food and gemstones, Julia has seamlessly grouped together a charming selection of children's names and woven them together in her unmistakable rhyming style.

There is a huge amount of exposition explaining the Jewish and Kabbalistic mysticism that the plot is based on and while I normally enjoy that kind of thing, my eyes started to glaze over after a while.