For those of us that read and loved Erik Larson’s latest work of non-fiction, In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin, comes a new fictional account by David Gillham of what it was like to live in Berlin towards the end of the war. Beautiful and haunting, this risqué love story, City of Women, is an absolutely consuming first novel. Gillham brings Berlin during the end of World War II to life, with lead character, Sigrid Schröder, seeming to fall into situations as if by accident. She wanders through the book slightly dazed by the events transpiring around her. While her husband is at war she must carry on living with her mother-in-law while the population has less and less to live on and endures regular bombings from England. The amount of subtle historical detail simply adds to the contour of the city life in a way I’ve never read from a historical fiction. Real events, spiced with German words and concepts give a full picture of these gripping events. This book is highly recommended for the historical literary fan. – Dusty
