Two Fatherlands
(A Reschen Valley Novel Part 4)
By Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger
It's a dangerous time to be a dissident...
1938. Northern Italy. Since saving Angelo Grimani's life 18 years earlier, Katharina is grappling with how their lives have since been entwined. Construction on the Reschen Lake reservoir begins and the Reschen Valley community is torn apart into two fronts - those who want to stay no matter what comes, and those who hold out hope that Hitler will bring Tyrol back into the fold.
Back in Bolzano, Angelo finds one fascist politician who may have the power to help Katharina and her community, but there is a group of corrupt players eager to have a piece of him. When they realise that Angelo and Katharina are joining forces, they turn to a strategy of conquering and dividing to weaken both the community and Angelo's efforts.
Meanwhile, the daughter Angelo shares with Katharina - Annamarie - has fled to Austria to pursue her acting career but the past she is running away from lands her directly into the arms of a new adversary: the Nazis. She goes as far as Berlin, and as far as Goebbels, to pursue her dreams, only to realise that Germany is darker than any place she's been before.
Angelo puts aside his prejudices and seeks alliances with old enemies; Katharina finds ingenious ways to preserve what is left of her community, and Annamarie wrests herself from the black forces of Nazism with plans to return home. But when Hitler and Mussolini present the Tyroleans with “The Option”, the residents are forced to choose between Italian and German nationhood with no guarantee that they will be able to stay in Tyrol at all!
Out of the ruins of war, will they be able to find their way back to one another and pick up the pieces?
This blockbuster finale will keep readers glued to the pages. Early readers are calling it, "...engrossing", "...enlightening" and "...both a heartbreaking and uplifting end to this incredible series!"
Publisher: Inktreks/Lucyk-Berger
Page Length: 636 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction (WW2)
MY THOUGHTS
Progress? Is that a good enough excuse to evict people from their homes? It has been decided that the Reschen Valley is to be turned into a new reservoir. Katharina is determined to stop the dam from being built and thus flooding their homes.
In Austria, Katharina's daughter, Annamarie, is desperately chasing her dreams. She longs to become to an actress, acting in films or on stage. She has friends, people she believes she can trust, but her life takes a turn when she is offered a job with the Bund Deutsher Mädel (BDM). She would make money, enough to fund her acting lessons, and she willingly registers as a party member. Her dreams are in sight, and she is unaware of where such a path will lead.
There is one tie remaining between Katharina and Angelo Grimani, and that is Annamarie, their daughter. Despite Katharina's husband, Florian, raising Annamarie as his own, there is no denying her true parentage. His daughter's existence and his abandonment of Katharina all those years ago is what gives him the incentive, or rather what gives Katharina a truth to hold him to, to help the inhabitants of the Reschen Valley.
With the carabinieri making any excuse to arrest people, bring them in for questioning, or to destroy some aspect of someone's life, and her eldest son causing trouble, Katharina has a right to be concerned. Her youngest son, Manuel, may be just like her, but Bernd attracts trouble, or rather he goes searching for it. Getting involved with the carabinieri one too many times will be his downfall if he is not careful, yet he refuses to listen to his parents or learn from his actions. His stubborn trait, not to mention falling in with the wrong kind of people who encourage the behaviour that Katharina tries so hard to discourage, means it is near on impossible to make him listen. Katharina's frustration is understandable, but she is determined to keep trying, to not give up on him. If she could only teach him, get him to realise the errors of his ways, he would realise that violence is not always the answer. If she could just make him see, then maybe her son will stay out of trouble, and his life will be less likely to end in bloodshed or in a cell.
Annamarie's perspective shows the Nazi Party's persuasive techniques and how they could manipulate a person's viewpoint. Annamari has her dreams, and she will do what she can to achieve them, but she still has morals. When she joins the BDM, she needs papers from her parents to prove her lineage, but she refuses to speak to them. She asks, instead, through a relative, and when the papers do not arrive, she can only assume that her mother is withholding them from her to be spiteful, to stubbornly prove her own point. Annamarie's friends are a mixed group of people, but the ideology of the Nazi Party begins to cloud her mind. Annamarie is so wrapped up in the thought of achieving her dreams that she fails to grasp the significance of what is happening around her.
Angelo is another conflicted character. He wants to divorce from his wife — he has been asking for one for a very long time. And now his son refuses to speak to him. He is trapped. And he also feels duty-bound to keep his promise to Katharina. But that is proving easier said than done.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and cannot wait to get my hands on the previous books in this series to read how this story started now that I know how it ends.
I always love reading your reviews!
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