The Ragged Edge of Night Audiobook By Olivia Hawker cover art

The Ragged Edge of Night

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The Ragged Edge of Night

By: Olivia Hawker
Narrated by: Nick Sandys, Olivia Hawker
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For fans of All the Light We Cannot See, Beneath a Scarlet Sky, and The Nightingale comes an emotionally gripping, beautifully written historical novel about extraordinary hope, redemption, and one man’s search for light during the darkest times of World War II.

Germany, 1942. Franciscan friar Anton Starzmann is stripped of his place in the world when his school is seized by the Nazis. He relocates to a small German hamlet to wed Elisabeth Herter, a widow who seeks a marriage - in name only - to a man who can help raise her three children. Anton seeks something too - atonement for failing to protect his young students from the wrath of the Nazis. But neither he nor Elisabeth expects their lives to be shaken once again by the inescapable rumble of war.

As Anton struggles to adapt to the roles of husband and father, he learns of the Red Orchestra, an underground network of resisters plotting to assassinate Hitler. Despite Elisabeth’s reservations, Anton joins this army of shadows. But when the SS discovers his schemes, Anton will embark on a final act of defiance that may cost him his life - even if it means saying goodbye to the family he has come to love more than he ever believed possible.

©2018 Libbie Hawker (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
Action & Adventure Biographical Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction War & Military Emotionally Gripping
Powerful Storytelling • Emotional Depth • Historical Accuracy • Compelling Characters • Captivating Performance
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I have read a significant number of books about the Holocaust, mostly from the point-of-view of people captured by the Nazis or helping other avoid capture and internment.

This book is very relevant to 2019: it focuses on the lives of good, everyday Germans who were caught up in life with Hitler as their leader. In other words, they didn't support him, suffered from the consequences of living in a country being ravaged, and grasped for mere survival as their worlds devolved around them.

The parallel to the current political climate in the U.S. is striking; indeed, the author says in a final note that she was inspired to write the book after the 2016 election.

The story is interesting from the start. The characters are richly developed. The historical detail is beautifully woven into the plot line.

In several sections, the main character's ruminations about religion (he is an ex-Catholic priest) get long and (to me) boring. However, this is remedied by a few fast-forwards to the places where the story picks up.

I do recommend the book and will look for others by the author.

The holocaust years from a different point-of-view

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Currently, I've become a student of history, most recent history that I see being repeated in my country, the United--now Dis-United--States of America every day in the Time of Trump. History books tell the numbers and relay the battles, but they aren't much for getting at what I believe is most important, and the only thing that can affect true change, the love, hate, or fear in the human heart. For that, I've turned to historical fiction.

This excellent work read like pure fiction, then I discovered that the basic facts of the story are true. These events of one small village in Germany from 1941 or 2 through the end of WWII, a place that for the most part was only incidentally touched by the war, affected local Germans, most of whom had no sympathy for, but a great fear of, the Nazi machine.

A few characters, the ex-friar, the village priest, a war widow doing her best to support three children through the economic hard times that war brings to non-combatants, are especially touched by the decisions and policies of the Reich. The horrors of that regime are not shown so directly as they are in Holocaust-related historical accounts. On the other hand, the darkness of Nazi-brand fascism is mostly, except for one terrible episode in the former friar's, past, inferred and reflected.

One character is a Nazi sympathizer who reports on the activity of the villagers to the Gestapo, and the villagers go to great lengths to both appease and trick him. His power is such that he, a small-town thug and womanizer, coerces many of the village women, both married and single, to have sex with him on the threat that he will report their families to the Nazis as traitors if they refuse.

His personal demons are not the iron fist of Naziism we are used to seeing in books dealing with the Third Reich, but a weaselly sort of bully/cowardice that Americans have become far too familiar with, in which a small, treacherous coward takes over a time and place and uses bullying tactics and a form of racial supremacy that encourages others with similar dark hearts to take advantage of his leadership to let their own inner bully run free.

This is what our president is doing--quite literally--to Americans with the wrong color or religion. "Immigrants" is a dog-whistle word that stands directly for ethnic Hispanics and indirectly for any group that he can't bully and thus fears. He announced a few days ago that he has begun to deport what will total about 10 million men, women, and children if he succeeds.

10 million is the estimated number of human beings cast out of Nazi Germany by way of the gas chambers and crematoria. At least we are not there--yet--so far as we know. However, many immigrant children have disappeared with the administration refusing to account for them. This echoes one of the sub-plots of the book, the T4 program to dispose of "useless mouths," the disabled who were unable to work for the glory of Germany and the Aryan race,

I hope that the editors at Audible will allow this review to stand. I understand that much of what I've written is quite political and not directly a review of the book. It is very much in the spirit of the book, however, as the work goes into great detail concerning the darkness--and eventual light in most cases--that lives in the human heart as it faces desperate times and horrific choices. I wish I'd read the author's afterward before listening to the book itself, as I might have listened more closely to that very theme.

Fewer and fewer Americans show the strength of character that these men and women demonstrated in opposing the wrongs of their leaders. We are not the brave and compassionate Americans who, at the end of WWII, dropped candy to the children of Berlin, scarred by years of Hitler and war, to imbue them with hope for the future. Our current regime is not like Eisenhower and others who used the Marshall Plan to rebuild the nations we bombed into rubble. Can you imagine Donald Trump and his cohorts, like "proud" neo-Nazi Stephen Miller and imaginary Christian Mike Pence, offering to rebuild countries we've destroyed? Putting a criminal puppet regime on a throne who will use corruption to amass a personal fortune at the expense of his own people is NOT rebuilding it.

It's still an excellent story, with great pacing, character development, and everything else that makes up a solid work of fiction--or, as it turns out, fictionalized history. But as the author, living in America in the late 20-teens points out, fascism rises out of the damage or evil that can lurk in the human heart. Thus the conditions for its rise to national policy and the shameful actions that weak, fearful, and occasionally evil people do in its name, is never far from the surface. As Edmund Burke said, much more than 100 years ago: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil was that good men should do nothing.”

Truly a Book for These Times

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This book was wonderful. I read and listened. The narration was superb. The story is about a German Friar, a music teacher, who witnesses his disabled and developmentally slow children taken by the SS. He knows what happens to them. He is conscripted into the German military and trained as a paratrooper. During his first jump he fakes his back injury and is discharged. This is his first act of resistance. He reads in one of his Catholic Newsletters that a widow in a very small village near Stuttgart is looking for a husband to help her with her 3 children. He goes for an interview and they ultimately marry and live in the village. He becomes instrumental in the resistance by teaching music lessons and creating a band for the children. His music helps keep the children from being forced into joining the Hitler Youth Club. It is a well written and well narrated story of how one man can resist the forces of evil simply by doing what is right. At the end, the author explains that the man in the story, Anton, is her husband’s grandfather. It is a true story. The interesting part of her ‘notes’ is that she only decided to write the novel after 2016. I recommend this book to everyone who likes WW2 stories and especially those who appreciate when good can rise above evil.

Heartwarming Story About WW2–And A True One

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Absolutely wonderful. To hear a story based on a simple man with a hurting heart and a mighty will against impossible odds. More of this, more of this publishers!!

Great job Libby and Nick. 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

Oh Heart! And Fantastic!

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I really enjoyed the story. Too bad the accent of the narrator was distractingly Irish/English sounding.
The author's politics and religious views were completely unneeded and unnecessary and unwanted. Too bad she couldn't just let the story carry it's own truth.

Story- great - Author's pontificating - unneeded

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I could not wait for opportunities to listen. Wonderfully read. A great story of survival

Wonderful story of hope, resilience and love

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Wonderful story based on a true story. Interesting characters, well written. It was hard to put down.

Good Read.

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this is a troubling story. there was such strength and courage. we must never forget.

well written gripping story

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If it wasn’t compared to All the Light We Could not See and The Nightingale, possibly I would have liked it a bit more. I read a lot of WWII historical fiction. I brace myself for the horror because of the redemption of the human condition that most often follows.

The writing is good this being her first publication. But given the weighty topic of WWII, one would expect some scenes to remind us of the real danger the characters are putting themselves in. It is based on a true story, and there is an opportunity to provide a deeper understanding of the struggles of the main character.

I hope the writer will continue to write. I’m looking forward to her development.

Too bad it is compared to two of the best WWII historical fiction books.

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This is really a wonderful story of faith, love and courage told against the backdrop of Hitler's Germany. The characters are rich and well drawn and the plot keeps moving with intensity.

A great read

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