The Berlin Letters by Katherine Reay (Austenprose PR Book Tour)

 

Title:  The Berlin Letters

Author:  Katherine Reay

Narrated by:  Saskia Maaleveld, Anne Marie Gideon, P.J. Ochlan

Publisher: Harper Muse

Length: Approximately 11 hours and 48 minutes

Source: Audiobook review copy from NetGalley.  Thank-you Harper Muse and Austenprose for the review copy of the physical book.

Do you like to send or receive letters? I love to send letters. My best friend and I still write letters to each other, although sometimes I am slow on getting my letters out!

The Berlin Letters is a compelling novel about the Cold War. In 1961, as the Berlin wall was going up, Monica Voekler threw her young daughter Luisa over the barbed wire to her parents on the west side. She was unable to cross herself. Luisa grew up in America, believing that that her parents died in a car accident. She works at the CIA cracking codes in secret. After her grandfather’s death, she finds a secret stash of letters from her father. Reading them, she discovers that her grandfather and father had been sending each other coded letters. Her father is still alive, and she will stop at nothing to rescue him.

My thoughts on this novel:

·       The first chapter was gripping and pulled me right into the novel. I never thought about how sudden the wall went up and how families could be separated forever. 

·       This was a page turner and I kept wanting to read/listen to this book to find out how it would all end.

·       The story kept me engaged throughout.  I liked the narrative with the chapters alternating between Luisa in the present, and Haris (her father) in the past leading up to the present (1989).

·       This story had everything – mystery, suspense, family drama, codes to crack, spies and even a bit of romance.

·       The characters were all compelling and I particularly identified with Luisa and her story.

·       I thought it was remarkably interesting to read about how the communists were very unhappy when John Paul II became the pope as they had spies in the Vatican before that time. 

·       Also interesting was a tidbit that the Soviet Union was on the verge of invading Poland until President Reagen was shot and the United States put itself on alert. The Soviets decided to back down at that point.

·       I always find it so strange how different east and west Berlin were from each other.  Haris has a time where he is walking the streets looking at buildings that were bombed out during World War II and how they still are not repaired after almost forty years.  He thinks about how there are certain areas that tourists are allowed and how they are kept looking nice.

·       Speaking of the present, I was a child of the eighties and felt old remembering the events of 1989 and 1990 in this historical fiction novel.

·       As I have been doing with a lot of books this month, I started this one as a physical book and then switched to the audiobook as I have had a lot of driving time to listen to audiobooks.  I really liked the different narrators in this book to narrate. I especially liked P.J. Ochlan’s accent as Haris Voekler.

·       I enjoyed the author’s note at the end of the novel that detailed her research into this time period.

·       There are also terrific book club discussion questions at the end of the book.  I think this would provide a book club plenty of good tidbits to discuss at a group meeting.

·       I would love to see this book made into a movie.

Overall, The Berlin Letters is a fascinating historical fiction book on the Cold War.  The story of father and daughter, Haris and Luisa put a face on the heartbreak that so many people had to endure during that time period.

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Bestselling author Katherine Reay returns with an unforgettable tale of the Cold War and a CIA code breaker who risks everything to free her father from an East German prison.

From the time she was a young girl, Luisa Voekler has loved solving puzzles and cracking codes. Brilliant and logical, she’s expected to quickly climb the career ladder at the CIA. But while her coworkers have moved on to thrilling Cold War assignments—especially in the exhilarating era of the late 1980s—Luisa’s work remains stuck in the past decoding messages from World War II.

Journalist Haris Voekler grew up a proud East Berliner. But as his eyes open to the realities of postwar East Germany, he realizes that the Soviet promises of a better future are not coming to fruition. After the Berlin Wall goes up, Haris finds himself separated from his young daughter and all alone after his wife dies. There’s only one way to reach his family—by sending coded letters to his father-in-law who lives on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

When Luisa Voekler discovers a secret cache of letters written by the father she has long presumed dead, she learns the truth about her grandfather’s work, her father’s identity, and why she has never progressed in her career. With little more than a rudimentary plan and hope, she journeys to Berlin and risks everything to free her father and get him out of East Berlin alive.

As Luisa and Haris take turns telling their stories, events speed toward one of the twentieth century’s most dramatic moments—the fall of the Berlin Wall and that night’s promise of freedom, truth, and reconciliation for those who lived, for twenty-eight years, behind the bleak shadow of the Iron Curtain’s most iconic symbol.

AUTHOR BIO

Katherine Reay is a national bestselling and award-winning author who has enjoyed a lifelong affair with books. She publishes both fiction and nonfiction, holds a BA and MS from Northwestern University, and currently lives outside Chicago, Illinois, with her husband and three children. You can meet her at katherinereay.com.

COVER REVEAL - The Berlin Letters by Katherine Reay

I have wonderful news to share today.  Author Katherine Reay has a great new historical fiction novel, The Berlin Letters:  A Cold War Novel,  ready to be published on March 5, 2024.  I'm happy to share all that I know about this new novel and reveal the beautiful cover. I have greatly enjoyed Katherine Reay's novels in the past, just recently A Shadow in Moscow.

More information about the novel follow below.

QUICK FACTS

·       Title: The Berlin Letters: A Cold War Novel

·       Author: Katherine Reay

·       Genre: Historical Fiction, Espionage Thrillers, Inspirational Fiction

·       Publisher: ‎Harper Muse (March 5, 2024)

·       Length: (384) pages

·       Format: Trade paperback, eBook, & audiobook 

·       ISBN: 978-1400243068

·       Cover Reveal Book Blast: July 21-27, 2023

 

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Near the end of the Cold War, a CIA code breaker discovers a symbol she recognizes from her childhood, which launches her across the world to the heart of Berlin just before the wall comes tumbling down.

November 1989—After finding a secret cache of letters with intelligence buried in the text, CIA cryptographer Luisa Voekler learns that not only is her father alive, but he is languishing in an East German Stasi jail. After piecing together the letters with a series of articles her grandfather saved, Luisa seeks out journalists Bran Bishop and Daniel Rudd. They send her to the CIA, to Andrew Cademan—her boss.

Luisa confronts Cademan and learns that nothing is a coincidence, but he will not help her free her father. So, she takes matters into her own hands, empties her bank account, and flies to West Berlin. As the adrenaline wears off and she recognizes she has no idea how to proceed, Luisa is both relieved and surprised when a friend shows up with contacts and a rudimentary plan to sneak her across the wall.

Alternating storylines between Luisa and her father, The Berlin Letters shows the tumultuous early days of the wall, bringing Berlin, the epicenter of the Cold War, to life while also sharing one family’s journey through secrets, lies, and division to love, freedom, and reconciliation

PURCHASE LINKS

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOKSHOP | GOODREADS

AND THE BEAUTIFUL NEW COVER 

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS COVER?

AUTHOR MESSAGE

Dear Readers,

Thank you so much for your extraordinary support for my current novel, A Shadow in Moscow. I am still on tour right now sharing the story with libraries and bookstores, and I am beyond grateful each day as I see your reviews and support on social media. So, again, thank you!

I want you all to be the first to see the cover for my new novel, The Berlin Letters, which will be released March 5^th, 2024. After A Shadow in Moscow, it was the book I had to write. While Ingrid’s and Anya’s stories were sometimes difficult, they were also fascinating and took me to places I had not anticipated. The ideas of sacrifice, freedom, courage, love, hiddenness, and the shadows between perception and reality, rose within that novel and wouldn’t let me go. 

While still pondering a lot of those themes, I came across these photographs and many more. They are of the very early days — even the first day — of the Berlin Wall in 1961. I read stories of mothers passing their children over the barbed wire. I read of one East German soldier jumping over it himself. I began to envision what might happen… To the mother. To the father. To the child passed over the Wall on that August morning in 1961. 

Luisa Voekler, the story’s leading character, is that young girl and she doesn’t know of this past until the Wall’s final week in 1989. Then, like me, she can’t let it go. She starts a search. She plots a rescue mission. And in the process, she finds her father and she finds herself. 

Like A Shadow in Moscow, this is a split-time story. One POV will take you behind the Wall with Haris Voekler, Luisa’s father, while Luisa will tell you her own story and carry readers from Washington DC to Berlin. There are, of course, a whole host of other characters as well — some you’ll love, some you’ll question, and others you’ll simply worry about. You’ll worry because The Berlin Letters is a race, a chase, a spy novel, and a love story. And, I must say, there’s an old friend who comes to Luisa’s aid I developed a little crush on — you might find yourself sighing and swooning over Daniel too. 

Thank you so much for sharing the cover of this new story — I love it! You see Luisa front and center, in the exact outfit she wears during a scene in East Berlin, and you see her resting on a Trabant, just about the only car East Berliner’s could purchase at the time. I love the fact that the car is yellow too! And doesn’t that font just scream 1980s? 

And while the themes within this story focus upon many of the questions in our hearts, there is so much lightness and fun as well. And, once it’s out in the world, I hope you each will close that final page with a smile, a sigh, and a deep sense of hope. 

All the best to you!

Katherine 

 

AUTHOR BIO

Katherine Reay is a national bestselling and award-winning author of several novels and one work of nonfiction.

For her fiction, Katherine writes love letters to books, and her novels are saturated with what she calls the “world of books.” They are character driven stories that examine the past as a way to find one’s best way forward. In the words of The Bronte Plot’s Lucy Alling, Katherine writes of “that time when you don’t know where you’ll be, but you can’t stay as you are.”

 

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A Shadow in Moscow by Katherine Reay (Austenprose PR Book Tour)

 

What is your favorite book, movie, or TV show about a spy?

A Shadow in Moscow is an intriguing and unique cold war historical fiction novel.  It is a dual story told in both the 1940s/50s and 1980s.  In Vienna, Ingrid loses her family and everything she loves during WWII.  After the war, she marries a Soviet Embassy worker and follows him to Moscow.  She finds herself reaching out to her mother’s home country of England with information about the communist regime. 

Anya is a young Russian girl going to college in 1980.  She grows to respect the United States as she finishes her degree at Georgetown and also finds that she has fallen in love with an American, Scott.  She has to return to the USSR for her safety and her family’s safety.  After the KGB murders a good friend, Anya becomes a spy sending top secret information from a military research center to the CIA in hopes of ending the arms race.  Will either Ingrid or Anya be caught?

I have not read too many historical fiction novels set during the cold war and I really enjoyed this novel.  I enjoyed both stories equally, which is important in a dual narrative novel.  Both Ingrid and Anya are strong female leads with intriguing back stories.  I have enjoyed Katherine Reay’s novels in the past and this one did not disappoint with great characters and an riveting plot.  The plot and romance were both slow burn as the novel set up the story, but I was intrigued and couldn’t stop reading once the story got revved up.  I love a good spy story with all of the feels!

This novel has a great author’s note and discussion questions at the end.  I feel like I learned a lot about the Cold War in this novel.

Book Source: Review Copy from HarperMuse.   Thank-you! I received a complimentary copy of this book as part of the Austenprose PR Book Tour. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

QUICK FACTS

·       Title: A Shadow in Moscow: A Cold War Novel

·       Author: Katherine Reay

·       Genre: Historical Fiction, Espionage Thrillers, Inspirational Fiction

·       Publisher: ‎Harper Muse (June 13, 2023)

·       Length: (384) pages

·       Format: Trade paperback, eBook, & audiobook 

·       ISBN: 978-1400243037

·       Tour Dates: June 5-19, 2023

 

BOOK DESCRIPTION

In the thick of the Cold War, a betrayal at the highest level risks the lives of two courageous female spies: MI6’s best Soviet agent and the CIA’s newest Moscow recruit.

Vienna, 1954

After losing everyone she loves in the final days of World War II, Ingrid Bauer agrees to a hasty marriage with a gentle Soviet embassy worker and follows him home to Moscow. But nothing within the Soviet Union’s totalitarian regime is what it seems, including her new husband, whom Ingrid suspects works for the KGB. Inspired by her daughter’s birth, Ingrid risks everything and reaches out in hope to the one country she understands and trusts—Britain, the country of her mother’s birth. She begins passing intelligence to MI6, navigating a world of secrets and lies, light and shadow.

Moscow, 1980

A student in the Foreign Studies Initiative, Anya Kadinova finishes her degree at Georgetown University and boards a flight home to Moscow, leaving behind the man she loves and a country she’s grown to respect. Though raised by dedicated and loyal Soviet parents, Anya soon questions an increasingly oppressive and paranoid regime at the height of the Cold War. Then the KGB murders her best friend and Anya chooses her side. Working in a military research lab, she relays Soviet plans and schematics to the CIA in an effort to end the 1980s arms race.

The past catches up to the present when an unprecedented act of treachery threatens all agents operating within Eastern Europe, and both Ingrid and Anya find themselves in a race for their lives against time and the KGB.

 

PRAISE FOR A SHADOW IN MOSCOW

• “In her nail-biting latest . . . Reay builds an immersive world behind the Iron Curtain, full of competing loyalties and a constant, chilling sense of paranoia. Readers will be enthralled.”— Publishers Weekly
• ”Rich with fascinating historical detail and unforgettable characters!”— Kristy Woodson Harvey, New York Times Bestselling author of The Wedding Veil

·       “…intrigue, twists and turns, acts of bravery and sacrificial love, and an unforgettable cold war setting with clever daring women at the helm.”— Susan Meissner, USA Today Bestselling author of The Nature of Fragile Things

 

PURCHASE LINKS

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOKSHOP | GOODREADS | BOOKBUB

 

AUTHOR BIO

Katherine Reay is a national bestselling and award-winning author who has enjoyed a lifelong affair with books. She publishes both fiction and nonfiction, holds a BA and MS from Northwestern University, and currently lives outside Chicago, Illinois, with her husband and three children.

WEBSITE | TWITTER | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | PINTEREST | GOODREADS

 

The London House by Katherine Reay (Austenprose Book Tour)

What would you do if you learned a family member may have been a Nazi sympathizer?

 Caroline Payne is shocked to learn that a great-aunt she thought died of polio as a child may have run off with her German lover during World War II. Bound and determined to clear her name, Caroline travels to her family home in England, the London House. There she sorts through her grandmother’s journals and letters from her great aunt to try to piece together the story of what happened to her aunt.  With the help of her old flame, journalist Mat Hammond, she is determined to clear her family name.  What really happened to her great-aunt and why did it remain secret?

 The London House was a very engaging novel.  I really liked how the dual timeline involved the story being told in a contemporary setting and the flashbacks to World War II being told through the journal entries and letters.   I wanted to solve the mystery of Aunt Caro!!  I love learning more about Aunt Caro, her fraught relationship with her sister Margo, and the love triangle that ensued.  I couldn’t put this book down.  I also loved the contemporary story as Caroline tries to figure out a path forward with her parents, Mat, and her own pain on the premature death of her sister.

 I’ve read and enjoyed The Austen Escape and The Printed Letter Bookshop by Katherine Reay in the past.  The London House dove more into historical fiction than those two and I enjoyed it as well for its differences.  It also made me think about how we may have mistaken impressions of our own ancestors from stories that have been passed down or not told. 

 Favorite Quote:

 “There are very few of us who have heart enough to really be in love without encouragement.”

 Overall, The London House was an engrossing read and I highly recommend it!

 Book Source:  Review Copy from author Katherine Reay as part of the Austenprose Book Tour.  Thank-you!

QUICK FACTS

·       Title: The London House: A Novel

·       Author: Katherine Reay

·       Genre: Historical Fiction, Women’s Fiction

·       Publisher: Harper Muse (November 2, 2021)

·       Length: (368) pages

·       Format: Trade paperback, eBook, & audiobook 

·       Tour Dates: November 1-28, 2021

 

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Uncovering a dark family secret sends one woman through the history of Britain’s World War II spy network and glamorous 1930s Paris to save her family’s reputation.

Caroline Payne thinks it’s just another day of work until she receives a call from Mat Hammond, an old college friend and historian. But pleasantries are cut short. Mat has uncovered a scandalous secret kept buried for decades: In World War II, Caroline’s British great-aunt betrayed family and country to marry her German lover.

Determined to find answers and save her family’s reputation, Caroline flies to her family’s ancestral home in London. She and Mat discover diaries and letters that reveal her grandmother and great-aunt were known as the “Waite sisters.” Popular and witty, they came of age during the interwar years, a time of peace and luxury filled with dances, jazz clubs, and romance. The buoyant tone of the correspondence soon yields to sadder revelations as the sisters grow apart, and one leaves home for the glittering fashion scene of Paris, despite rumblings of a coming world war.

Each letter brings more questions. Was Caroline’s great-aunt actually a traitor and Nazi collaborator, or is there a more complex truth buried in the past? Together, Caroline and Mat uncover stories of spies and secrets, love and heartbreak, and the events of one fateful evening in 1941 that changed everything.

In this rich historical novel from award-winning author Katherine Reay, a young woman is tasked with writing the next chapter of her family’s story. But Caroline must choose whether to embrace a love of her own and proceed with caution if her family’s decades-old wounds are to heal without tearing them even further apart.

ADVANCE PRAISE

“Carefully researched, emotionally hewn, and written with a sure hand, The London House is a tantalizing tale of deeply held secrets, heartbreak, redemption, and the enduring way that family can both hurt and heal us. I enjoyed it thoroughly.”— Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author of The Forest of Vanishing Stars and The Book of Lost Names

“An expertly researched and marvelously paced treatise on the many variants of courage and loyalty . . . Arresting historical fiction destined to thrill fans of Erica Roebuck and Pam Jenoff.”— Rachel McMillan, author of The London Restoration and The Mozart Code

“Reay’s fast-paced foray into the past cleverly reveals a family’s secrets and how a pivotal moment shaped future generations. Readers who enjoy engrossing family mystery should take note.”— Publisher’s Weekly

AUTHOR BIO

Katherine Reay is the national bestselling and award-winning author of Dear Mr. Knightley, Lizzy and Jane, The Brontë Plot, A Portrait of Emily Price, The Austen Escape, and The Printed Letter Bookshop. All Katherine’s novels are contemporary stories with a bit of classical flair. Katherine holds a BA and MS from Northwestern University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and is a wife, mother, former marketer, and avid chocolate consumer. After living all across the country and a few stops in Europe, Katherine now happily resides outside Chicago, IL.

 

WEBSITE | TWITTER | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | PINTEREST | GOODREADS | BOOKBUB

 

PURCHASE LINKS

 

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOK DEPOSITORY | BOOKSHOP | GOODREADS | BOOKBUB

The Printed Letter Bookshop by Katherine Reay (TLC Book Tour)

The death of a beloved aunt and friend, Maddie Carter, brings together three unforgettable characters at one special book shop.  Maddie has run this Northeastern Illinois bookstore for years and is a fixture of the community.  After her death, who will run the store?  Will this important part of the community survive?

Madeline Cullen loved her Aunt Maddie, but after a family rift twenty years before, she has not spent much time with her.  Her busy career as a lawyer trying to make partner in downtown Chicago has left her with zero time for anything outside of work.  Will Madeline make partner?  Is her career the most important part of her life?

Claire is a mother, who is experiencing empty nest syndrome with her teenage kids no longer needing her and her husband always at work. She gave up a successful career to stay home with her kids, but after a marriage filled with constant moves, Claire feels like she no longer knows herself. When she gets a job at the Printed Letter Bookshop, Claire feels like she has a purpose again.  Will Claire be able to reconnect with her family?  What will the future hold with the store in peril?

Janet lost everything when she cheated on her husband which led to her divorce.  She has strained relations with her adult children and her friends are gone.  Her brusque personality did not fool Maddie Carter and Janet started to work at the book shop.  How can she put the pieces of her life back together?  Will the artist within her be able to shine through?

I loved how all three women were able to not only work on saving the store, but also found themselves in this novel. The novel was about friendship, but also about forgiving others and working through problems.  What fulfills you in life and makes you happy?  I loved that Maddie left each women a letter with book recommendations that helped her on her journey.  I loved the discussion of books and many of my favorites were discussed. There is a great list of all of the books mentioned at the end of the novel.

I really loved that Claire’s previous career had been in math.  It’s nice to see math and technical careers represented for ladies in literature.

Basically, this book is my fantasy - giving up a high-powered career path to own a beloved local bookstore.  I loved it.

Favorite Quotes:

“Crazy meant bold, daring, fearless.  It was a radiant word filled with virtue and supernatural strength.”

“But anger can be as irrational as it is visceral.”

Overall, The Printed Letter Bookshop is a wonderful book filled with great characters who all experience a life changing journey and its also filled with talk about great books.  I can’t beat that!

Book Source:  Review Copy as part of the TLC Book Tour.  Thank-you!  For more stops on this tour and information about this book, check out this link.