An international award-winning novel of World War II, the Holocaust,
and first love, set in the snowy streets of Oslo.
It's October 1942, in Oslo, Norway. Fifteen-year-old Ilse Stern is
waiting to meet boy-next-door Hermann Rod for their first date. She was
beginning to think he'd never ask her; she's had a crush on him for as
long as she can remember.
But Hermann won't be able to make it tonight. What Ilse doesn't know is
that Hermann is secretly working in the Resistance, helping Norwegian
Jews flee the country to escape the Nazis. The work is exhausting and
unpredictable, full of late nights and code words and lies to Hermann's
parents, to his boss... to Ilse.
And as life under German occupation becomes even more difficult,
particularly for Jewish families like the Sterns, the choices made
become more important by the hour: To speak up or to look away? To stay
or to flee? To act now or wait one more day?
In this internationally acclaimed debut, Marianne Kaurin recreates the
atmosphere of secrecy and uncertainty in World War II Norway in a moving
story of sorrow, chance, and first love.