His plan seems impossible, and Margarete is terrified they might be found out, not to mention worried about what Wilhelm might want in return. But as the Nazis start rounding up Jews in Paris and the Résistance steps up its activities, putting everyone who opposes the regime in peril, she realizes staying hidden in plain sight may be her only chance of survival… Vojnové knihy u mňa nie sú žiadnou novinkou. Keď ma anotácia zaujme, veľmi rada (aj keď to pri vojnových knihách znie divne) ale naozaj rada si niečo nové na túto tému prečítam na knižnom trhu. I fell in love with Marion Kummerow's writing style with "Not Without My Sister". While her stories are set within a much written about time period, the concepts with which she portrays them are so unique and wholly original. They are not your usual run-of-the-mill tales re-telling the plight of the Jews. The premise of A LIGHT IN THE WINDOW was certainly an intriguing one that promised a fascinating tale to be told.

ETA 2023: I think I paid more attention this time to Father Tim and Cynthia's love story. Each of them was afraid (in different ways) to fall in love. She, because she had been hurt big time when her then-husband had a series of affairs. He, because he had been single all his life and was afraid of sharing his heart and his inner life with someone else. I could identify with both. The older we get, the more difficult (for me at least) it looks to share life with another person. I've been divorced for 22 years, and lived alone for 12. I can't imagine how it would be to try to integrate another person into my life, or me into theirs. And having been abused and severely hurt during my marriage, I don't think I have enough trust to allow someone else to know me again. So it was with understanding that I watched these two characters struggle to give up their fears and take a chance on love again.

Success!

Book II: In A Light in the Window, Father Tim is in love and running scared. Cynthia has won his heart, but he is set in his ways and afraid of letting go. To complicate things, a wealthy and powerful widow pursues Father Tim, plying him with crab cobbler and old sherry. In the ensuing comedy of errors, he just can’t set his foot right. Somehow the antidote to this confusion rests in the history of his oldest and dearest parishioner, Miss Sadie, and the discovery of family she didn’t know she had. June became friendly with a woman living long term in this home who had become institutionalized and just never left after having her own baby there. So much tragic wasting of peoples lives and all for nothing.

That's the worst of it, maybe, but it's also the tip of the iceberg. Goulding rapidly realised that nursing at the convent was going to bear little resemblance to the standards of care she was used to. The sister in charge had the final say, and her focus was punishment. That meant: insufficient rations, and hard physical labour while acutely pregnant, and no painkillers, and no stitches no matter how badly a women tore during birth, and no calling the doctor, and on and on it goes. I found there to be a lot of repetition initially as to how Margarete felt about the decision she had made. Literally the same thing was said over and over with just a few words changed. I felt it had been said once it didn’t need to be repeated again and again and it was like it was being used as a filler in of sorts. But once this stopped I found the flow of the story to be excellent and I existed in a constant state of fear for Margarete. She became a pawn in a disgusting game and even though she knows she is slightly better off in her new found situation rather than facing harassment, brutality and abuse in a camp still her conscience constantly plays at her as to whether she made the right decision? She was a strong, brave and admirable character but when her feelings begin to change you lose some respect for her but at the same time I did see where she was coming from considering how well pivotal male character had been written. Even I began to feel the way she did.It cannot be unfair to describe June Goulding as trenchant. Compassionate she may be, especially on the evidence of her recently-published book The Light in the Window, but somehow trenchant is the word that comes to mind as she refers, for example, to Pope Pius XII. nebudem prezrádzať, ale viem s istotou napísať, že som nič podobné nečítala. Príbeh sa čítal sám a celý čas som bola v napätí, či sa Margarete zachráni, čo sa s ňou stane. Bude jej dopriata sloboda? Láska? Prežije niečo z toho? Pocíti úľavu? Veľa otázok mi vírilo v hlave počas čítania a postupne som dostala na všetko odpoveď. Záver ma prekvapil, nečakala som to… prekvapil, ale zároveň aj upokojil…

An unscrupulous woman who, while did not paint herself as some pioneering hero in this book, was as much a part of this vile regime as any of those about whom she complains so heartily. Jan Karon says there are Mitfords all over the country. Do you live in one? If so, why do you think your community is like Mitford? Is Mitford necessarily a small town? Discuss whether it might also be a close neighborhood in a large city. While Jan Karon has a huge following, no doubt composed in part of little old ladies, these stories are anything but what they appear to be on the outside. While the excitement is of a far more subtle sort, it is extremely human... as well as Christian. Without preaching, it successfully delivers the method of the utmost simplicity, something of which I think our Father would approve. It takes a while to become used to reading these, especially when you are expecting something exciting and dangerous, but what you end up with is that people are real and they solve their issues in very real ways. Was one person's life worth more than another one's? And who got to decide which person was allowed to live?" They were so vulnerable and alone and without hope. This was the worst aspect of this place. It was all tears and toil and no help or hope and then the final amputation between mother and child, and the mothers never ever knowing where their beloved children went.”This is the true account of nurse June Goulding who took a position as a newly qualified midwife for a year between 1951-1952 in an Irish “home for unmarried mothers”.