Published March 1, 2022

Erika Robuck is the national bestselling author of The Invisible Woman,Hemingway’s Girl, Call Me Zelda,Fallen Beauty, The House of Hawthorne, and Receive Me Falling. She is a contributor to the anthology Grand Central: Postwar Stories of Love and Reunion, and to the Writer’s Digest Essay Collection, Author in Progress.

In 2014, Robuck was named Annapolis’ Author of the Year, and she resides there with her husband, three sons, and a spunky miniature schnauzer.

The Grateful Reader Review by Dorothy Schwab

COURAGE is the watchword in Erika Robuck’s Sisters of Night and Fog. This isthe spellbinding account of the women serving in World War II whose only common bond is their call to duty. The novel opens at Ravensbruck, at a remembrance ceremony for survivors of the Nazi concentration camp for women. For avid readers of WWII history this conjures a dreaded memory of the Nazi’s despicable, disgusting treatment of the female prisoners. The narrative continues with flashbacks between the “sisters” beginning in 1940, until the Allied invasion in June 1944, and the end of the war. Accounts alternate between real-life war heroes, Violette Szabo, who begins her service in the Land Army, and American, Virginia d’Albert-Lake. As Virginia says, “It’s easy to talk about the successes, the thrills, the adventures, but the consequences are another story.”

Readers of Erika Robuck’s previous novels know of her descriptions that captivate and character development and dialogue that evokes a range of emotions. Violette’s strained, intense relationship with her father is juxtaposed to the regret and uneasy feelings she experiences as a mother herself when she comprehends her own mother’s grief should Violette die. Violette uses her “inner strength to contract within herself” when she is in confinement or being tortured. Readers will expend a sigh relief when “As the night clears, an exquisite sight awaits Violette’s eyes. St. Paul’s Cathedral still stands.” Equally comforting is the happiness at helping deliver “parcels” on the Comet Line that brings Virginia and Philippe closer together. Even the warm bread and potato soup served by a farm wife to Virginia hidden in a barn soothes the readers’ nerves. As the narrative alternates, so do the emotional highs and lows. Violette’s and Virginia’s changing outlook swings readers from the mountain top of determination to the valley of despondency.

Between the angst of the Boche, double agents, missions abandoned, and captured SOE agents, readers are treated to Erika’s beautiful, soulful expressions; “stirring embers of her musical memory,” and “he dances her around the dining room to the music they can hear in the echoes of their memories.”

When Philippe and Virginia arrive at their country house north of Paris she thinks, “We have each other. We’re sheltered. We’ll just wait out the war. Nice and safe.”  That’s the end of comfortable feelings for readers. This novel will leave readers feeling grateful for the simplest luxuries of daily life and ever so humbled by the courageous women of the Resistance Erika Robuck coaxes out of the shadows of history.

Sisters of Night and Fog is the story of how these women and their love for family, call to duty, and courage helped change the world.