Finished: The Nightingale (Hannah) A haunting WWII story about two French sisters, both brave women, who battle the German forces in occupied France, each making a huge impact, and each suffering unspeakable losses and hardships during those war years. The book opens in 1995 as an elderly woman, who has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer, makes her way up to her attic to look through her old steamer trunk. Her son will be moving her to a caring facility soon, and she wants to reminisce. She picks up an identity card with the name Juliette Gervaise on it, and suddenly she is thrust back into the year 1939...right before the Germans invaded France in WWII. We then begin the story of the two sisters, and throughout the whole book, we wonder which of the sisters became the elderly woman. After their mother's death, Vianne and Isabelle Rossignol are dumped by their grieving father, a WWI survivor, on the doorstep of the housekeeper of their family home in Carriveau, France. Isabelle is nearly ten years younger than the 14 year old Vianne, and a crying handful. Both girls feel abandoned by their father, who, already deeply changed from WWI, cannot handle the young girls...does not WANT to handle them, and therefore, leaves them. Vianne, the more level-headed, almost instantly falls for Antoine, who will become her husband. Being a young girl herself, she doesn't know how to mother Isabelle, so doesn't fight hard to keep her there when she is shipped off to boarding school. Flash forward to Isabelle at age 18, and she's been kicked out of several boarding schools for speaking her mind and  being rebellious. She has made her way back to Paris to try and live with her father, only to be rejected by him and put into another school. Vianne, meanwhile, has married Antoine and after three devastating miscarriages, has an 8 year old daughter, Sophie. They live a happy life in their family home, the old housekeeper long gone. They have picnics and sing together, laugh together. Antoine is a mailman and Vianne a teacher at Sophie's school. Vianne's best friend since she arrived in Carriveau, Rachel, lives next door with her own husband, 8 year old daughter, Sarah, and 1 year old son, Ari. They have a happy life. Vianne doesn't think much about her sister, sadly, especially since she spent years grieving her miscarriages. Meanwhile, Isabelle is kicked out of her latest boarding school, and once again heads back home to Paris. She tells her father she wants to do something important, but he is heavy into drinking and doesn't want her around. He lets her stay there for a few days, but insists she must go to live with her sister in Carriveau. The year by now is 1939 and suddenly all their lives are about to change. Antoine, and Rachel's husband, Marc, both get called into the French military, along with most of the other men in Carriveau, and throughout France, to go and fight the approaching Germans. The French are quite confident and believe in their government when they say they can hold off the Germans. While Isabelle is at her father's, however, it becomes clear that the French soldiers have NOT held off the approaching Germans, as they see battered French soldiers retreating for their lives through Paris. Monsieur Rossignol arranges for a fleeing friend and his family to take Isabelle along with them in their car and drop her at Carriveau. Isabelle is devastated by this. She doesn't want to be rejected by her father again AND she wants to do something to actually help the French win this new war instead of running away. On the road to Carriveau, the masses of fleeing, mostly women, children and elderly men, are mercilessly gunned down by German airplanes. Isabelle is spared, however, and meets up with a French resistance fighter named Gaetan. He instantly likes her spirit, her bravery and her willingness to help. They fall in love, but he will not admit it. He tells her they will stop by her sister's on their way to fight together however they can. They spend one last night together out in the open near Vianne's house, and finally share their first kiss. When Isabelle awakens the next morning, there is a note pinned to her dress. Gaetan has gone on without her. He doesn't want her to risk her life. Isabelle is heartbroken, but goes to live with Vianne and Sophie. The sisters, never close, remain at odds because Vianne is trying to fly under the radar and do as she's told, mostly to protect her daughter...and Isabelle is still outspoken and stubborn. This does not sit well when a German officer comes to "billet" at Vianne's house, as was commonly done during the war. Captain Beck takes over the bottom bedroom of the home and is actually not one of the evil ones. He has his own family back home and he respects Vianne, her sister and her daughter while he is in the house. He still goes off to his day job as a Nazi, however. At least whenever he is there for dinner, they get more food than their meager, long-lined rations allow. Vianne is guiltily thankful for this, while Isabelle finds it hard to hold her tongue! Isabelle secretly gets involved with the local French resistance group and begins delivering flyers to local French people, giving them news of the French resistance. As she gets more involved, Vianne thinks the worst of her and thinks she's sneaking off every night to meet a man. When the resistance group decides to take on helping downed British airmen by hiding them and figuring out how to get them back across the border so they can once again fight the Germans, Isabelle becomes the go to girl. She finds out that Gaetan has been part of the group all along and watching out for her. He has also recommended her for this job. She asks Captain Beck if he can get her a pass to go to Paris because their father is ill. Once there, she meets up with her father once again and finds out that he has actually also been working with the French resistance as a forger! He creates a new identity for Isabelle so they can put their plan in action. She is now Juliette Gervaise. Isabelle begins the daunting task of taking the downed airmen in small groups up to a herding cabin in the Pyrenees mountains that border on Spain. She meets with the herdsman who will guide them up and over the mountain, then across the river that separates Spain and France, through the border guards, and into Spain. Once there, Isabelle alone will take the men to their embassies, where they will make it home. Then Isabelle will take the train back to occupied France, and start all over again. Her code name is the Nightingale, which is what Rossignal means in French. The treks over the mountains are brutal and freezing and dangerous, yet Isabelle never flinches. In all, she makes 27 trips over three years before she is caught and arrested. (This is actually based on the true story of an Austrian woman who bravely took downed airmen over the border during WWII.) Meanwhile, the Germans have started cracking down on the Jewish people...beginning by refusing them jobs, then making them wear the yellow stars, then carting off first the non-French born Jews. It gets more and more alarming, especially for Vianne because her best friend, Rachel, and her children are Jewish! Rachel has already lost her job as a teacher. One evening, Captain Beck comes home and tells Vianne that she needs to hide Rachel, Sarah and Ari the next day. He can't say why, but she needs to trust him. Vianne convinces Rachel to hide with their children in the hidden cellar in their barn. At a risk of being caught himself, Beck has also brought home documents that should see Rachel, Sarah and Ari safe across the nearest border crossing into unoccupied France if they can make it through what is going to happen the next day. Rachel says she would rather try going across the border now than hiding the next day. So, Vianne takes Rachel, Sarah and Ari to the border and watches from the woods as they approach the checkpoint in the slow moving line. Just as they are about to make it through, Germans pull up and just randomly open fire at all the people. Rachel runs with her children back to the woods, but little Sarah is shot. :-( Vianne runs with Rachel and the children and gets them to the barn. They finally stop to look at Sarah and she is riddled with bullets. She takes a last breath and dies. :-( :-( Devastated, but with no time, Vianne convinces Rachel to hide with Ari in the cellar. After hiding out in the cellar all the next day while Vianne buries Sarah, and no sign of any Germans coming to their home, Vianne and Rachel both think they are safe to bring her out, and suddenly the Germans come to Rachel's home! Rachel thrusts Ari at Vianne and is taken away. It is punishable by death for Vianne to harbor a Jewish child, but Captain Beck brings her blank identity papers and looks away while Vianne turns Ari into her own "dead cousin's son", Daniel. As the situation grows worse in Carriveau, there is less and less food to be found, and even worse, now all Jews are being loaded onto buses and separated from their young children who will be eventually taken somewhere else and dumped. Another Jewish friend thrusts her 5 year old son at Vianne one day and Vianne takes him to the orphanage at the Catholic church she belongs to. She begs the Mother Superior to take the boy in, and the Mother does and then asks...how many more Jewish children can we help? Thus begins Vianne's contribution to the war. In three years time, she becomes responsible for saving 19 Jewish children. She keeps a hidden list of their real names as she forges new identities for them with papers supplied by Isabelle's French resistance friends. Vianne still has no idea that Isabelle is risking her life trekking over the mountains with Allied airmen. Both women do their part, though, even though at times they are scared out of their minds. One day, when she is sneaking back to Carriveau to meet with her resistance friends, Isabelle sees an airmen shot down right near Vianne's house! She can hear the Germans coming after him and she rushes him into the secret barn cellar. Vianne hears the ruckus and goes to the barn and finds Isabelle with the airman. She is furious with Isabelle for endangering Sophie's life by bringing the wounded soldier to her home. She can't believe how irresponsible she is. She can't stop for one minute to hear what Isabelle has been doing in the war. She tells Isabelle to be gone by that night and tells her never to come back. :-( When Captain Beck comes home that night he is furious and his own life is on the line because right there in his own territory there is a downed enemy somewhere and someone is hiding him. He sees a strange look on Vianne's face and realizes she knows something. He looks throughout the house and then goes to the barn. For the first time, he spies the trap door to the cellar and draws his gun and opens it. Vianne picks up a shovel to hit him. She can't let him hurt her sister. As he shoots into the cellar, Isabelle fires a shot at him and Vianne hits him in the head with the shovel. Needless to say, they kill him. Meanwhile, the downed soldier has died from his wounds. Isabelle comes up the steps and passes out. She has been shot! Right then, Gaetan and the resistance friends show up. They clean up everything, get rid of the two bodies, and Gaetan takes Isabelle from Vianne. He tells her he will take care of Isabelle, and Vianne realizes that this is the man from long ago who left the note on Isabelle's dress and that he loves her. Gaetan takes Isabelle across the border into unoccupied France and nurses her back to health for a couple of weeks. Finally, Gaetan and Isabelle consummate their relationship, but both know that their time is fleeting. They must both go separately back to what they were doing to help the war effort. They part ways assuming they may never see each other again. Then, things get even bleaker. Isabelle is finally captured on one of her Nightingale missions. The Germans beat her mercilessly, wanting information on who The Nightingale is. They can't believe it could be a woman, but think she knows who it is. Her father, goes to see Vianne one last time. He tells her of his regrets and that he loves her, and then he goes and turns himself in and claims to be The Nightingale. Isabelle screams no, but her father is taken and executed in the courtyard. She watches him die trying to save her.  :-( Isabelle is not released, though. She is taken to a horrible women's only concentration camp in Germany. Vianne, having been told by her father where Isabelle is, is able to make it to the prison just in time to see her being loaded on a bus. She is able to at least tell Isabelle that she knows what she was doing so bravely and that she loves her. Isabelle suffers horrific treatment, frozen conditions, and all the atrocities that we know  that the Jewish people were subjected to as a prisoner of war. She spends over a year in the camp, and by the time the Allies free them, she has survived but barely...she is terribly ill with typhus. Meanwhile in Carriveau, an evil German officer has taken the place of Captain Beck in Vianne's home. Sophie is now a young teenager and "Daniel" is 5. To protect her daughter from any wrongdoing, Vianne doesn't fight back when the new officer rapes her over and over, most nights. Thankfully, it is not long before the Germans pick up and move away because the Allies are making their way through France, freeing occupied towns! However, not before Vianne discovers she is pregnant with the evil officer's child. She is barely pregnant, when one day, who should come walking wearily down the path but Antoine!!! He had been a prisoner of war and has finally escaped. Vianne and Sophie are both thrilled to see him, but they have all changed physically and emotionally. Sophie tells her mother privately that she can never tell her father that she is pregnant by the German soldier...she will need to pretend it is her father's. It will be their secret for the rest of their lives. As they try to put the pieces of their life back together, Vianne, Antoine, Sophie and Daniel, who they now consider their son..and who doesn't even remember his real mother, wait for the birth of the new baby. As Vianne nears her due date, they finally have a family moment of happiness when Sophie and Daniel put on a little song for Vianne on a wooden stage built by Antoine. They are a family trying to find their happiness when a car drives up and two Jewish men get out. They are there for Daniel. By Vianne's own doing, with her list, they are there to reunite Ari with his family in America. Sadly, they inform her, Rachel died only one month after she was taken away, and her husband died in the prisoner of war camp. However, Rachel has a first cousin in America who wants to take Ari and raise him with her family and in his own religion. Sadly, Vianne and Antoine agree that it is best, and heatrbreakingly, little Ari is driven away screaming for his maman, Vianne. :-( That drama is short-lived when Vianne finds out that Isabelle is alive and has been freed from her concentration camp. She is coming home! When she meets her at the train, though, Vianne can tell that Isabelle is critically ill. She takes her back to their home and bathes her, feeds her and lies with her. Together they read the last letter from their father which he had left with Vianne. He tells them both that he's sorry for abandoning them and wants them to know he's proud of them both and that he loves them, as much as he was capable. They cry together. As the very pregnant Vianne and the very ill Isabelle sit outside the next week, who should appear shakily walking across the field but Gaetan! He has also survived the war! He looks about as good as Isabelle, but neither of them care as they fall into each other's arms, call each other beautiful, and then murmur that they love each other. Then, Isabelle dies in his arms. :-( :-( So, we now know that the elderly woman who has survived in America is Vianne! She has also decided that she will accept an invitation to appear at an event to honor all the people who helped the French resistance during the war. She has never spoken of the war to her son, Julien, who is the son of the German officer, and named after her father, Julien Rossignol. She has never even let him go to France to explore his roots, and now she is setting off on her own to attend the event. When she phones him to let him know, he scurries around and arrives at the airport to go with her. He insists that she tell him what is going on, and finally tell him about her life which she has never shared...and she says she will...soon. At the event, Vianne discovers that the posthumous guest of honor is actually her sister, Isabelle "The Nightingale". She realizes that all the people in the audience are family members of all the downed airmen she risked her life for, and eventually died for. She speaks a few words, as Julien looks on, dumbstruck. And, at the end, as she makes her way to find Julien, she is stopped by a man who she instantly recognizes as Ari! He embraces her and tells her he never forgot her. Sigh. This was such a good book, though extremely heartbreaking and brutal, but sadly a reality for so many, many people. It was suggested to me by a young friend of mine, Amanda, and she was so right...I could hardly put it down!