Kristin Hannah has explored war and its consequences before, in her 2012 novel HOME FRONT. In that case, the war in question was in Iraq in 2005, and the book explored the evolving relationship between a helicopter pilot and her increasingly distant husband who is left behind to care for their family. In THE NIGHTINGALE, Hannah once again explores the domestic side of war. This time, though, she turns her attention farther back in the past --- to World War II --- and to the courage and strength of French women trying to keep their lives together in the face of Nazi occupation.

Hannah has written poignantly about sisters in novels like TRUE COLORS, and she again explores the complicated bond between them in THE NIGHTINGALE. Vianne is a decade older than her sister, Isabelle. After their mother died when both were quite young and their grief-stricken, shell-shocked father abandoned them, Vianne took on the maternal role for Isabelle. But when Vianne falls in love as a teenager, gets pregnant and then miscarries, her own grief causes her to withdraw from Isabelle, who now feels doubly abandoned.

"The novel is suspenseful and romantic at the same time, and offers readers a very personal portrait of life in wartime and of the kind of bravery harbored by even seemingly ordinary people."

When the novel opens in 1940 (after a brief present-day glimpse of an old woman trying to reconnect with remnants of her past), Vianne and Isabelle are estranged. Vianne has suffered several miscarriages during her marriage with Antoine, but they do have a daughter, Sophie. Vianne is a teacher at the local school in their small town in France's Loire Valley. Meanwhile, 18-year-old Isabelle is about to be kicked out of yet another boarding school; her irrepressible nature and lack of respect for authority has been part of her personality from an early age. And as the Nazis approach Paris, her unwillingness to accept the occupation may lead her into dangerous territory.

After Isabelle comes to live with Vianne and Sophie, who are struggling to manage the household after Antoine is sent to fight, she bristles against the presence of the Nazi soldiers who have occupied the town. Almost without intending to do so, she winds up taking on increasingly risky missions as a member of the resistance movement. Meanwhile, Vianne, who has reluctantly billeted a German soldier in her home, has her own quieter but no less courageous role to play.

Readers unfamiliar with the role France played in World War II may be surprised to read of the atrocities great and small perpetuated by the Nazi occupiers on the French people. Even those who know that story will be drawn in by Hannah's absorbing storytelling and her strength at writing about relationships. The novel is suspenseful and romantic at the same time, and offers readers a very personal portrait of life in wartime and of the kind of bravery harbored by even seemingly ordinary people. In a letter from the author included in the book, she states, "I did everything I could not to write this novel," citing the emotional difficulty of writing about these subjects. Readers will consider themselves fortunate that Hannah did feel compelled to pen THE NIGHTINGALE after all.