Cradles of the Reich

All I can say is WOW! I mean just WOW! Talk about an emotional story that will just suck you right in from the beginning. Honestly, absorbing doesn’t even begin to describe this book.

Jennifer Cobern has written an eye-opening must-read book for the ages. She has tackled an ugly and horrific part of history dealing with the Nazi Lebensborn Society maternity homes and eugenics programs. I truly applaud her ability to write real and complex characters true to the time and include all their ugliness and warped perceptions.

Overall, Cradles of the Reich is a remarkable, powerful, heartbreaking, and moving story that I just couldn’t put down. I’m so glad I was able to read and discuss this story with @keepingyouonread @reader_mama and @bookishly_overdue and boy did we have thoughts and opinions about the characters as we read.

Synopsis: At Heim Hochland, a Nazi breeding home in Bavaria, three women's fates are irrevocably intertwined. Gundi is a pregnant university student from Berlin. An Aryan beauty, she's secretly a member of a resistance group. Hilde, only eighteen, is a true believer in the cause and is thrilled to carry a Nazi official's child. And Irma, a 44-year-old nurse, is desperate to build a new life for herself after personal devastation. All three have everything to lose.

Based on untold historical events, this novel brings us intimately inside the Lebensborn Society maternity homes that actually existed in several countries during World War II, where thousands of "racially fit" babies were bred and taken from their mothers to be raised as part of the new Germany. But it proves that in a dark period of history, the connections women forge can carry us through, even driving us to heroism we didn't know we had within us.

Thank you, SourceBook Landmark, for this gifted copy in exchange for my honest review.