BERLIN 2019.
A young writer is brutally attacked in her home and left for dead. For her sister Nina Bergmann, it's the beginning of a nightmare that will threaten to destroy her marriage, her job and ultimately her life. As she sets out to unravel the truth about what really happened to her sister, Nina comes face-to-face with inner demons she believed long since banished and discovers that her sister's past and that of the once-divided city are intertwined in unimaginable ways. The Wall may be gone, but its legacy still haunts Berlin...
Superb storytelling! Strongly drawn characters quickly demand attention, and empathy." SARAH MAINE, on The Lives Before Us
A sweeping story of survival, community and friendship in defiance of the worst threat to humanity the world has ever faced. From the author of the extraordinary The Uncommon Life of Alfred Warner in Six Days, The Lives Before Us will particularly resonate with readers of Heather Morris (The Tattooist of Auschwitz), and Costa-winner Bart van Es (The Cut Out Girl).
It's April 1939 and, with their lives in Berlin and Vienna under threat, Esther and Kitty - two very different women - are forced to make the same brutal choice. Flee Europe, or face the ghetto, incarceration, death. Shanghai is a haven - and so they secure passage to the other side of the world. What they find is a city of extremes - wealth, poverty, decadence and disease - and of deep political instability. Then the Japanese military enters the fray and violence mounts. As Kitty's dreams of escape are dashed, and Esther's relationship becomes tainted, the two women are thrown together in the city's most desperate times.
Approaching 80, frail and alone, a remarkable man makes the journey from his sheltered home in England to Berlin to meet his granddaughter. He has six days left to live and must relate his life story before he dies... His life has been rich and full. He has witnessed firsthand the rise of the Nazis, experienced heartrending family tragedy, fought in the German army, been interred in a POW camp in Scotland and faced violent persecution in peacetime Britain. But he has also touched many lives, fallen deeply in love, raised a family and survived triumphantly at the limits of human endurance. He carries within him an astonishing family secret that he must share before he dies... a story that will mean someone else's salvation. Welcome to the moving, heart-warming and uncommon life of Alfred Warner.
