The German Wife: A Novel

by Kelly Rimmer

Overview

“Skillfully researched and powerfully written, The German Wife will capture you from the first page.” —Madeline Martin, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Bookshop in London

The New York Times bestselling author of The Warsaw Orphan returns with a gripping novel inspired by the true story of Operation Paperclip: a controversial secret US intelligence program that employed former Nazis after WWII.

Berlin, 1930—When a wave of change sweeps a radical political party to power, Sofie von Meyer Rhodes’s academic husband benefits from the ambitions of its newly elected chancellor. Although Sofie and Jürgen do not share the social views growing popular in Hitler’s Germany, Jürgen’s position with its burgeoning rocket program changes their diminishing fortunes for the better. But as Sofie watches helplessly, her beloved Berlin begins to transform, forcing her to consider what they must sacrifice morally for their young family’s security, and what the price for their neutrality will be.

Twenty years later, Jürgen is one of the many German scientists offered pardons for their part in the war, and taken to America to work for its fledgling space program. For Sofie, this is the chance to exorcise the ghosts that have followed her across the ocean, and make a fresh start in her adopted country. But her neighbors aren’t as welcoming or as understanding as she had hoped. When scandalous rumors about the Rhodes family’s affiliation with Hitler’s regime spreads, idle gossip turns to bitter rage, and the act of violence that results will tear apart Sofie’s community and her family before the truth is finally revealed.


“An unforgettable novel that explores important questions highly relevant to the world today.” —Christine Wells, author of Sisters of the Resistance

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781525811432
Publisher:	Graydon House Books
Publication date:	06/28/2022
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	464
Sales rank:	4,410
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Kelly Rimmer is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of ten novels, including The Secret Daughter and The Things We Cannot Say. Her books have sold more than one million copies, and have been translated into more than 20 languages worldwide. Kelly lives in rural Australia with her family and fantastically naughty dogs, Sully and Basil.

Editorial Reviews

01/01/2022

The Edgar-nominated Bayard follows up Courting Mr. Lincoln with Jackie & Me, which reimagines Jacqueline Bouvier meeting Jack Kennedy and, as they approach marriage, slowly realizing that she's being polished as the perfect political wife. The New York Times best-selling, multi-award-winning Belfer introduces us to disappointed academic Hannah Larson, who travels to historic Ashton Hall to tend a relative and begins reconstructing events there during the Elizabethan era after her neurodivegent young son, Nicky, discovers a skeleton in the walls. Drawing on ancient texts and modern archaeology to unearth a trans woman's story beneath The Iliad, Deane's Wrath Goddess Sing reveals an Achilles living as a woman with the transgender priestesses of Great Mother Aphrodite and refusing Odysseus's call to fight until given the body of a woman by Athena and heading into battle to confront an immortal, viciously implacable Helen. From Ford, the author of the mega-best-selling Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, The Many Daughters of Afong May tells the story of Dorothy Moy, who turns her often painful dissociative mental-health crises into art; when her daughter begins revealing similar tendencies, Dorothy seeks to waylay the consequences of inherited trauma by engaging in a radical therapy that connects her with brave women ancestors (125,000-copy first printing). In debuter Pook's Moonlight and the Pearler's Daughter, set in late 1800s Australia, young Englishwoman Eliza Brightwell sets off to find her eccentric father when the pearl-fishing boat he captains returns to port without him (60,000-copy first printing). In Pulley's Cold War-set The Half-Life of Valery K, when former nuclear specialist Valery Kolkhanov is removed from the Gulag and asked to study the effects of radiation in a mysterious town housing nuclear reactors, he's truly worried about how much radiation there is (60,000-copy first printing). In New York Times best-selling author Rimmer's latest, The German Wife of a Nazi scientist pardoned and put to work in the start-up U.S. space program doesn't feel at home among the other NASA wives and confides her husband's SS past to exactly the wrong person (200,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing).

Library Journal

Skillfully researched and powerfully written, The German Wife will capture you from the first page and stay with you forever. Set in the frightening reality of Nazi-controlled Germany, amid the dusty fields of a failed farm during the depression and after the war in a community facing prejudice and segregation, this is a story of what happens when choices are stripped away and the painful sacrifices made for loved ones exact a high price. Kelly Rimmer always delivers a poignant story with real characters who lodge themselves in your heart—this book is no exception.” —Madeline Martin, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Bookshop in London

“Once again, Kelly Rimmer has turned my emotions upside down. With every book of hers I read, I become a more thoughtful and empathetic person, but The German Wife is, without a doubt, the jewel in her crown.” —Sally Hepworth, New York Times bestselling author of The Younger Wife



“The German Wife is a heart-wrenching, uplifting story about love and family and the choices people make in impossible situations. Kelly Rimmer writes with deep compassion for human flaws and frailty, bringing us insight into the rise of Nazism through the eyes of her protagonist, Sofie, the wife of a German rocket scientist who is forced to make a new life after the war in an American community that is hostile to her presence. An unforgettable historical novel that explores important questions highly relevant to the world today.” —Christine Wells, author of Sisters of the Resistance


“In an intensely compelling story about what it means to be a family in the worst circumstances and with the darkest secrets, The German Wife is powerful novel for our time... If you love the work of Kristin Harmel and Pam Jenoff, you have found your next read.” –Patti Callahan, New York Times bestselling author of Once Upon a Wardrobe


“Rimmer is masterful at combining rich detail and emotional resonance to create immersive, gripping historical fiction. The German Wife moves beyond the better-known stories to uncover the hidden horrors of the Second World War and what it was like for the women—and the men they loved—during that time. A must-read.” —Jane Cockram, author of The Way From Here


"The phenomenal Kelly Rimmer does it again! The German Wife is the extraordinary tale of two women on different sides in World War II. By telling us the story through alternating viewpoints and shifting time periods, Rimmer slowly peels back the layers to show us the formation of two women who might appear, at first glance, to simply be a Nazi wife in hiding and a hostile American standing up for her country. But everyone is more than they seem, and the beauty of Rimmer's enthralling novel is in the characters' slowly-earned realization that when we paint an entire people with a broad brush, we are always wrong. The secondary characters—a dear Jewish friend who has to flee for her life; an American soldier permanently scarred by his devastating experiences, an elderly woman who risks her life to undermine Hitler—just add to the heartbreaking beauty of this book. A fascinating, absorbing, and vivid tale of love, loss, and the choices we make to protect our families. Fast-paced, emotional, and utterly riveting, The German Wife is a must-read for all historical fiction lovers." —New York Times bestselling author Kristin Harmel

From the Publisher