"Told with compassion and insight into how guilt and sorrow from the past follows Greta throughout her life."
This beautifully written sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, takes us right back to the time of the Holocaust, told with compassion and insight into how guilt and sorrow from the past follows Greta throughout her life.
We first met Greta in the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas as the 12 year old daughter of Auschwitz commandant. We now meet Greta as a 91 year old widow, living a solitary life in London, she shies away from meeting her new neighbours including 9 year old Henry. Something stirs in her as she gets to know Henry, his frightened mother and abusive father.
There is nothing Greta can do to change the past and the loss of her brother, but is there something she can do to change the life of 9 year old Henry?
The dramatic twist at the end of this superb novel, expresses Love, loss and family in its startling conclusion.
| Primary Genre | Family Drama |
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From the author of the globally bestselling, multi-million-copy classic, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, comes its astonishing and powerful sequel.
Ninety-one-year-old Gretel Fernsby has lived in the same mansion block in London for decades. She leads a comfortable, quiet life, despite her dark and disturbing past.
She doesn't talk about her escape from Germany over seventy years before. She doesn't talk about the post-war years in France with her mother. Most of all, she doesn't talk about her father, the commandant of one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps.
Then, a young family moves into the apartment below her. In spite of herself, Gretel can't help but begin a friendship with the little boy, Henry, though his presence brings back memories she would rather forget.
One night, she witnesses a violent argument between Henry's mother and his domineering father, one that threatens Gretel's hard-won, self-contained existence.
Gretel is faced with a chance to expiate her guilt, grief and remorse and act to save a young boy - for the second time in her life. But to do so, she will be forced to reveal her true identity to the world. Will she make a different choice this time, whatever the cost to herself?
All the Broken Places is a devastating, beautiful story about a woman who must confront the sins of her past and a present in which it is never too late for bravery.
All The Broken Places features in the following genres: Family Drama, Historical Fiction, Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Fiction, General Fiction, Books of the Month, Recommendations
All The Broken Places is available in Paperback, Ebook, Hardback
All The Broken Places was written by John Boyne and published by Doubleday an imprint of Transworld Publishers Ltd
All The Broken Places has 373 pages
