It’s a real pleasure today – as it always is – to be joining Bookouture‘s Books-on-tour and sharing my review of The Lost Diary by Rose Alexander. Published on 31st August, it’s now available via Amazon for kindle and in paperback, and also as an audiobook in the UK and US (if you’d like to listen to a sample, you can do that here). My thanks to Bookouture for inviting me to join the tour and for my advance reading e-copy (provided via netgalley), and to Sarah Hardy for her ongoing support.
I suspect that Rose may be a new name to many – and I was so delighted when I heard that she was joining Bookouture – but she’s been firmly on my favourite authors’ list ever since I read her second novel, Under an Amber Sky, back in 2017. It was a particularly compelling and wonderfully written dual time story, a slice of hidden Montenegran wartime history – you’ll find my review here. Her next book, Along the Endless River (published by Canelo) was absolutely stunning – set in the Victorian era with a vividly drawn Amazon rainforest backdrop, such strong female characters, and one of those rare books that I found quite impossible to set aside until I’d reached its entirely perfect end (you’ll find my review here). And then, in June 2021, came Out of the Mountain’s Shadow – Albania this time, and an extraordinary story of courage and bravery, of passion and loyalty, a tribute to the experience of a people about whom I knew very little, and storytelling of the highest order (you’ll find my review of that one here). And now, at last, we have her first book with Bookouture – and this was one I was very much looking forward to…
A wartime secret. A heartbreaking choice. A promise that cost her everything…
German-occupied territory, 1945. Tearing open the envelope, Katja studies every line and letter on the map. She wills herself to memorise it, copying every detail onto scraps of paper in the flickering candlelight. She’d nearly been caught delivering the letters by the SS that afternoon. Picturing Karl’s handsome face, her chest tightens. They’re in this together. But if she’s caught, what will happen to the baby?
London, present day. Jo is at a crossroads in her own life in her cosy bungalow on the edge of beautiful Hampstead Heath. Clearing out her mother, Katja’s, empty home, Jo’s world is turned upside down when she discovers a small, dog-eared diary stuffed into the back of a tiny kitchen cupboard. And tucked within its pages is a ripped, yellowed envelope with an unfamiliar, faded postmark. As she scans the scrawled handwriting, Jo can scarcely believe her eyes…
What really happened to that tiny baby all those years ago? And will this long-lost diary finally give Jo the answers to everything she’s been searching for?
Based on an incredible true story, The Lost Diary is a gripping and unforgettable tale about forbidden love and family secrets in World War Two. Fans of The Letter, The Nightingale and We Were the Lucky Ones will be utterly swept away.
To my shame, there are times when I’ve felt I might be tiring of reading about wartime experiences – however harrowing and moving the stories, they do begin to blend into each other, and sometimes fail to have the individual impact they deserve. And then a book like this one comes along – based on the true stories of family members, a perspective that was so totally different, beautifully written, and unlike anything I’ve ever read before. It’s a substantial read, but entirely consumed me from beginning to end – its focus on the shame and secrets of the individuals at the story’s heart, the harrowing emotional content, the heart-breaking episodes so vividly and sensitively described, and the acceptance and need for forgiveness that wraps it all together.
1994, and Jo is in the midst of a difficult divorce, facing the possible loss of her home – but also caring for mother Katja who is recuperating after an operation, while the builders make some long overdue improvements to her flat. Their relationship has never been a particularly warm one – and although she knows her mother and father met in Berlin soon after the end of WW2, the detail about her life before then is something her mother has never shared. With the fiftieth anniversary of VE day approaching, a journalist is looking for people’s stories about their wartime experience, with an exhibition planned at the Imperial War Museum – and Jo’s daughter suggests, to help them pass their time together, that she asks Katja about her story. But what particularly drives Jo’s interest is a discovery behind the fireplace removed by the builders – a withered flower wrapped in a scrap of paper, with a German inscription of the words “For her”.
Reluctantly at first, Katja does share her story – of finding herself a young widow with a new baby in 1943 Berlin, fleeing with a compassionate neighbour to the relative safety of Sudetenland, where she found work at a home for injured German officers. Her story is one of survival – at first a naive young mother caught up in activities she doesn’t fully understand, with an edge of considerable danger, only eclipsed by the brutality of the Russian advance. The decision follows that Germans in Sudetenland must make the difficult journey home, in Katja’s case to a Berlin now being heavily bombarded by the Allies. But this book isn’t only Katja’s story – the builders also unearth a diary, written by Jo’s English father Lou, a prisoner of war at Sagan, forced to evacuate the camp as the Russians advanced and to undertake the horror of the Long March across Germany.
Both their stories are immensely powerful, laced with hardship and brutality, with moments that become very difficult to read – heartbreaking, quite wonderfully told, following the lives of individuals enduring the most horrendous experiences. It was so unusual to have the privilege of seeing wartime from the perspective of the German people – and to be reminded that many were not Nazis but ordinary people just trying to live their lives. While many of the atrocities within their accounts were painfully familiar, there was a lot about their experiences – particularly the forced mass migration – that I was shamefully unaware of. I found that the expulsion from Sudetenland and the PoWs’ Long March are both well documented – I really had to do some of my own research too – but the strength of this book is the way the author follows the personal stories and makes the reader part of the individuals’ lives. Based on real experiences, this is also, of course, a work of fiction – and within Katja’s story, there are a number of long hidden secrets slowly revealed, making this an even more intensely moving and compelling read.
And I must say a word about the book’s construction, which I particularly enjoyed. A certain proportion of the story is Jo’s own – her daughter’s impending marriage, the issues around her home and divorce, a possible change of personal direction – and I did think at first that it might rather slow the pace. But it really doesn’t – it provides a necessary framework for the two unfolding wartime stories (and the change of voice does provide some welcome breathing space when things get a little too much). And I really liked the way the stories were brought together at the end – with a greater self-knowledge and understanding, and an uplifting note for the future.
This is such an important book, and an exceptional piece of writing – it might well be one of my books of the year. Stunning, and quite unforgettable – and highly recommended to all.
About the author
Rose Alexander has had more careers than she cares to mention and is currently a secondary school English teacher. She writes in the holidays, weekends and evenings, whenever she has a chance, although with three children, a husband, a lodger and a cat, this isn’t always as often as she’d like. She’s a keen sewist and is on a mission to make all her own clothes.
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This sounds so good Anne.