The Secrets We Left Behind
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 8 secondsThe Secrets We Left Behind by Soraya M. Lane is a historical fiction that raises the question, where were the women after Dunkirk and the fall of France? When World War II appeared to have been lost with a Nazi victory. Ms. Lane watched the movie Dunkirk and then researched that time and the women’s possible roles during that difficult moment in history.
She connected the evacuation at Dunkirk to the Massacre at Le Paradis, fifty miles away, to connect a British nurse and two French women whose strength helps them survive Nazi-occupied France. Three British male soldiers, two of whom survived the massacre and one who escaped Dunkirk, have secondary roles in the novel.
The Secrets We Left Behind is the story of the three strong women and their efforts to survive the occupation while hiding the three soldiers. This focus on the role of women has been long overdue in history. Ms. Lane, who studied to be a lawyer, has found a career as a writer. The Secrets We Left Behind is the first book I have read, but it will not be the last one by Ms. Lane that I read.
I strongly recommend this book!
The Goodreads synopsis provides an overview of the novel.
How far will they go for family, friendship, and love? Occupied France, 1940. When the staff at a field hospital draw straws to find out who will join the evacuation from Dunkirk, Nurse Cate is left behind. But when the Nazis arrive to claim prisoners of war, she takes her chance and flees into the night, taking one patient with her.
Fifty miles away, the surrendering soldiers of the Royal Norfolk Regiment are shot dead by the advancing Germans. Beneath the pile of bodies, two men survive, crawling to the safety of a nearby farmhouse, where sisters Elise and Adelaide risk their lives to take them in. When Cate, too, arrives at their door with her injured soldier, the pressure mounts.
The sisters are risking everything to keep their visitors safe. But with the Nazis coming ever closer and relationships in the farmhouse intensifying, they must all question the sacrifices they are willing to make for the lives of others. How far will they go for family, friendship, and love?
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