"'Elaine Stock's The Last Secret Kept is a captivating and profoundly moving book that explores complex and universal themes such as guilt, forgiveness, and human nature.' —The Historical Fiction Company
From the author of the Amazon bestseller of the Resilient Women of WWII trilogy.
If love is the only true gift, why doesn't everyone grab hold and never let go?
Fanny may be a small-town defense attorney in upstate New York, but it's 1961 with growing opportunities for women. She's not about to listen to naysayers who encourage her to marry and to stay at home and raise a family. Fanny meets Gina, whose husband Kenny is pinned by society as a lesser man because of his limited intelligence. When Kenny is accused of murder, Fanny takes on the case. Gina hopes for her grandmother's support, but a hidden act of betrayal during the WWII years when Gina and her grandmother lived in Berlin, Germany, threatens to unsettle Gina and destabilize the case Fanny is building on behalf of Kenny.
Set against the backdrop of the construction of the Berlin Wall, The Last Secret Kept explores the beauty of individualism while demolishing the invisible walls built between ourselves and our loved ones."
"1943: When a safe house in Nazi-occupied the Netherlands becomes too dangerous for Edith, she flees. Injured, she meets Erich who promises to take her to his family's home for medical attention. En route she awakens to discover that they've entered Nazi Germany—the last place she wants to be as a Jew.
In need of concealing her faith, and with limited choices, Edith becomes the private teacher to Erich's young brothers. Her roommate is a Roma with a tragic past and also hides from the Nazis in plain sight. When the new friends learn that Erich's father is a senior member of the Nazi party, they know it is time to escape. Yet, Nazi patrols complicate their travels. Then, the last person imagined supplies a means to not only leave the house but from the Reich, altogether, though their safety is at risk as they cross several national borders.
Following We Shall Not Shatter and Our Daughters' Last Hope, the new friends, brought together by a common enemy, must courageously look into the eyes of evil and begin a gutsy journey to search for their families they've left behind during the war, and to help others through these dark times of prejudice and hatred."
"Brzeziny, Poland, 1939. Zofia's comfortable lifestyle overturns when her husband, Jabez, who monitors Nazi activity, has gone missing. Rather than fleeing the country with her young son, as she had promised Jabez who is fearing retaliation, she decides to stay. She cannot possibly leave her friend, Aanya. Since their childhood they have amazed fellow Brzeziners that it does not matter that Aanya is Jewish and deaf, and that Zofia is Catholic and hearing. Now, more than ever with war looming, Zofia will do whatever is necessary to protect her family and Aanya.
As both love and war approach their Polish town, Zofia and Aanya must make choices that will change the meaning of family, home, and their precious friendship. The journey, decisions, and the no-going-back consequences the women face will either help them to survive—or not—as Hitler's Third Reich revs up its control of the world.
Inspired by the author's paternal heritage from Brzeziny, this is a heartbreaking yet beautiful story of two women who are determined to remain united in friendship and to live freely despite the odds."
