The
German Wife : A Novel
Kelly
Rimmer
On Sale Date: June 28, 2022
9781525811432
Trade Paperback
$17.99 USD
464 pages
ABOUT
THE BOOK:
The enmity between two women from opposing
sides of the war culminates in a shocking event as anti-German sentiment sweeps
America, when the aristocratic wife of a German scientist must face the social
isolation, hostility and violence leveled against her and her family when
they’re forced to relocate to Alabama in the aftermath of WWII. For fans of
Beatriz Wiliams, Pam Jenoff, and Kristin Harmel.
Berlin, 1934—Ilse Meyer is the aristocratic
wife of a scientist whose post-WWI fortunes change for the better when her
husband, Jurgen, is recruited for Hitler's new rocket program. Although Ilse
and Jurgen do not share the popular political views rising in Germany, Jurgen’s
new job forces them to consider what they must sacrifice morally for their
financial security. But too late they realize the Nazi’s plans to weaponize
Jurgen’s technology as they begin to wage war against the rest of Europe.
Huntsville, Alabama, 1949—Jurgen is one of
hundreds of Nazi scientists offered pardons and taken to the US to work for the
CIA’s fledgling space program. Ilse, now the mother of four, misses Germany
terribly and struggles to fit in among the other NASA wives, who look upon her
with suspicion. In a moment of loneliness, she confesses to a neighbor, Rachel
Carlson, about Jurgen’s membership in the SS and her resentment for being
forced to live in a country that will always see her as the enemy. What she
doesn’t know is that she has trusted the wrong neighbor.
When the scandalous news about the Meyer
family’s affiliation with the Nazi party spreads, idle gossip turns to bitter
rage, and the act of violence that results will tear apart a community and a
family before the truth is finally revealed—but is it murder, revenge or
justice?
BUY
LINKS:
Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/books/the-german-wife-9781525899904/9781525899904
IndieBound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781525811432
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-german-wife-kelly-rimmer/1139609914?ean=9781525811432
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09FGT2V4F/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i4
Sneak Peek Excerpt:
1
Sofie
Huntsville,
Alabama 1950
“WAKE UP, GISELA,” I MURMURED, GENTLY SHAKing my daughter awake.
“It’s time to see Papa.”
After the better part of a day on a
stuffy, hot bus, I was so tired my eyes were burning, my skin gritty with dried
sweat from head to toe. I had one sleeping child on my lap and the other
leaning into me as she sprawled across the seat. After three long weeks of
boats and trains and buses, my long journey from Berlin to Alabama was finally
at an end.
My youngest daughter had always been
smaller than her peers, her body round and soft, with a head of auburn hair
like mine, and my husband’s bright blue eyes. Over the last few months, a
sudden growth spurt transformed her. She was now taller than me. The childhood
softness had stretched right out of her, leaving her rail thin and lanky.
Gisela stirred, then slowly pushed herself to a
sitting position. Her eyes scanned along the aisle of the bus as if she were
reorienting herself. Finally, cautiously, she turned to look out the window.
“Mama. It really doesn’t look like much…”
We were driving down
a wide main street lined with small stores and restaurants. So far, Huntsville
looked about as I’d expected it would—neat, tidy…segregated.
Minnie’s Salon. Whites Only.
Seamstress for Colored.
Ada’s Café. The Best Pancakes in Town. Whites ONLY!
When I decided to
make the journey to join my husband in America, segregation was one of a
million worries I consciously put off for later. Now, faced with the stark
reality of it, I dreaded the discussions I’d be having with my children once
we had enough rest for productive conversation. They needed to understand
exactly why those signs sent ice through my veins.
“Papa did tell us that this is a small town, remember?” I said
gently. “There are only fifteen thousand people in Huntsville and it will be
very different from Berlin, but we can build a good life here. And most
importantly, we’ll be together again.”
“Not all of us,”
Gisela muttered.
“No, not all of us,” I conceded quietly. Loss was like a shadow
to me. Every now and again, I’d get distracted and I’d forget it was there.
Then I’d turn around and feel the shock of it all over again. It was the same
for my children, especially for Gisela. Every year of her life had been
impacted by the horrors of war, or by grief and change.
I couldn’t dwell on that—not now. I was about to see
my husband for the first time in almost five years and I was every bit as
anxious as I was excited. I had second-guessed my decision to join him in the
United States a million or more times since I shepherded the children onto that
first bus in Berlin, bound for the port in Hamburg where we boarded the
cross-Atlantic steamship.
I looked down at my
son. Felix woke when I shook his sister, but was still sitting on my lap, pale
and silent. He had a head of sandy curls and his father’s curious mind. Until
now, they’d never been on the same continent.
The first thing I noticed was that Jürgen looked different. It
was almost summer and warm out, but he was wearing a light blue suit with a
white shirt and a dark blue bow tie. Back home, he never wore a suit that color
and he never would have opted for a bow tie. And instead of his customary
silver-framed glasses, he was wearing a pair with thick black plastic frames.
They were modern and suited him. Of course he had new glasses—five years had
passed. Why was I so bothered by those frames?
I couldn’t blame him if he reinvented himself, but what if this
new version of Jürgen didn’t love me, or was someone I couldn’t continue to
love?
He took a step forward as we shuffled off the bus but didn’t
even manage a second before Gisela ran to him and threw her arms around his
neck.
“Treasure,” he said, voice thick with emotion. “You’ve grown up
so much.”
There was a faint but noticeable American twang in his German
words, which was as jarring as the new glasses.
Jürgen’s gaze settled on Felix, who was holding my
hand with a grip so tight my fingers throbbed. I felt anxious for both children
but I was scared for Felix. We’d moved halfway across the world to a country I
feared would be wary of us at best, maybe even hostile toward us. For Gisela
and me, a reunion with Jürgen was enough reason to take that risk. But Felix
was nervous around strangers at the best of times, and he knew his father only
through anecdotes and photographs.
“Felix,” Jürgen said, keeping one arm around Gisela as he
started to walk toward us. I could see that he was trying to remain composed,
but his eyes shone. “Son…”
Felix gave a whimper of alarm and hid behind my legs.
“Give him time,” I said quietly, reaching behind myself to touch
Felix’s hair. “He’s tired and this is a lot to take in.”
“He looks just like—” Jürgen’s voice broke. I knew the struggle
well. It hurt to name our grief, but it was important to do so anyway. Our son
Georg should have been twenty years old, living out the best days of his life.
Instead, he was another casualty of a war that the world would never make sense
of. But I came to realize that Georg would always be a part of our family, and
every time I found the strength to speak his name, he was brought to life, at
least in my memories.
“I know,” I said. “Felix looks just like Georg.” It was fitting
that I’d chosen Georg for Felix’s middle name, a nod to the brother he’d never
know.
Jürgen raised his gaze to mine and I saw the depth of my grief
reflected in his. No one would ever understand my loss like he did.
I realized that our years apart meant unfathomable changes in
the world and in each of us, but my connection with Jürgen would never change.
It already survived the impossible. At this thought, I rushed to close the
distance between us.
Gisela was gently shuffled to the side and Jürgen’s arms were
finally around me again. I thought I’d be dignified and cautious when we reunited,
but the minute we touched, my eyes filled with tears as relief and joy washed
over me in cascading waves.
I was on the wrong side of the world in a country I
did not trust, but I was also back in Jürgen’s arms, and I was instantly at
home.
“My God,” Jürgen whispered roughly, his body trembling against
mine. “You are a sight for sore eyes, Sofie von Meyer Rhodes.”
“Promise me you’ll never let me go again.”
Jürgen was a scientist—endlessly literal, at least under normal circumstances. Once upon a time, he’d have pointed out all the reasons why such a promise could not be made in good faith—but now his arms contracted around me and he whispered into my hair, “It would kill me to do so, Sofie. If there’s one thing I want for the rest of my life, it’s to spend every day of it with you.”
“Many of our neighbors are Germans—most have just arrived in
Huntsville in the last few weeks or months, so you will all be settling in
together. There’s a party for us tomorrow at the base where I work, so you’ll
meet most of them then,” Jürgen told me as he drove us through the town in his
sleek black 1949 Ford. He glanced at the children in the rearview mirror, his
expression one of wonder, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. “You’ll like it
here, I promise.”
We’d be living in a leafy, quiet suburb called Maple Hill, on a
small block the Americans nicknamed “Sauerkraut Hill” because it was now home
to a cluster of German families. I translated the street signs for the children
and they chuckled at the unfamiliar style. Our new street, Beetle Avenue,
amused Gisela the most.
“Is there an insect plague we should worry about?” she chuckled.
“I really hope so,” Felix whispered, so quietly I had to strain
to hear him. “I like beetles.”
As Jürgen pulled the car into the driveway, I
couldn’t help but compare the simple house to the palatial homes I’d grown up
in. This was a single-story dwelling, with a small porch leading to the front
door, one window on either side. The house was clad in horizontal paneling, its
white paint peeling. There were garden beds in front of the house, but they
were overgrown with weeds. There was no lawn to speak of, only patchy grass in
places, and the concrete path from the road to the porch was cracked and
uneven.
I felt Jürgen’s eyes
on my face as I stared out through the windshield, taking it all in.
“It needs a little
work,” he conceded, suddenly uncertain. “It’s been so busy since I moved here,
I haven’t had time to make it nice for you the way I hoped.”
“It’s perfect,” I
said. I could easily picture the house with a fresh coat of paint, gardens
bursting to life, Gisela and Felix running around, happy and safe and free as
they made friends with the neighborhood children.
Just then, a woman emerged from the house to the left of ours,
wearing a dress not unlike mine, her long hair in a thick braid, just like
mine.
“Welcome, neighbors!” she called in German, beaming.
“This is Claudia Schmidt,” Jürgen said quietly as he reached to
open his car door. “She’s married to Klaus, a chemical engineer. Klaus has
been at Fort Bliss with me for a few years, but Claudia arrived from Frankfurt
a few days ago.”
Sudden, sickening anxiety washed over me.
“Did you know him—”
“No,” Jürgen interrupted me, reading my distress. “He worked in
a plant at Frankfurt and our paths never crossed. We will talk later, I
promise,” he said, dropping his voice as he nodded toward the children. I
reluctantly nodded, as my heart continued to race.
There was so much Jürgen and I needed to discuss,
including just how he came to be a free man in America. Phone calls from Europe
to America were not available to the general public, so Jürgen and I planned
the move via letters—a slow-motion, careful conversation that took almost two
years to finalize. We assumed everything we wrote down would be read by a
government official, so I hadn’t asked and he hadn’t offered an explanation
about how this unlikely arrangement in America came to be.
I couldn’t get answers yet, not with the children in earshot, so
it would have to be enough reassurance for me to know our neighbors were
probably not privy to the worst aspects of our past.
Jürgen left the car and walked over to greet Claudia, and I
climbed out my side. As I walked around the car to follow him, I noticed a man
walking along the opposite side of the street, watching us. He was tall and
broad, and dressed in a nondescript, light brown uniform that was at least a
size or two too small. I offered him a wave, assuming him to be a German
neighbor, but he scoffed and shook his head in disgust and looked away.
I’d been prepared for some hostility, but the man’s reaction
stung more than I’d expected it to. I took a breath, calming myself. One
unfriendly pedestrian was not going to ruin my first day in our new home—my
first day reunited with Jürgen—so I forced a bright smile and rounded the car
to meet Claudia.
“I’m Sofie.”
She nodded enthusiastically. “Since we arrived last week, you
are all I’ve heard about from your husband! He has been so excited for you to
come.”
“I sure have.” Jürgen grinned.
“Are you and the children coming to the party tomorrow?” Claudia
asked.
“We are,” I said, and she beamed again. I liked her
immediately. It was a relief to think I might have a friend to help me navigate
our new life.
“Us too,” Claudia said, but then her face fell a little and she
pressed her palms against her abdomen, as if soothing a tender stomach. “I am
so nervous. I know two English words—hello and soda.”
“That’s a start,” I offered, laughing softly.
“I’ve only met a few of the other wives, but they’re all in the
same boat. How on earth is this party going to work? Will we have to stay by
our husbands’ sides so they can translate for us?”
“I speak English,” I told her. I was fluent as a child, taking
lessons with British nannies, then honing my skills on business trips with my
parents. Into my adulthood, I grew rusty from lack of speaking it, but the
influx of American soldiers in Berlin after the war gave me endless
opportunities for practice. Claudia’s expression lifted again and now she
clapped her hands in front of her chest.
“You can help us learn.”
“Do you have children? I want Gisela and Felix to learn as
quickly as they can. Perhaps we could do some lessons all together.”
“Three,” she told me. “They are inside watching television.”
“You have a television?” I said, eyebrows lifting.
“We have a television too,” Jürgen told us. “I bought it as a
housewarming gift for you all.” Gisela gasped, and he laughed and extended his
hand to her. I wasn’t surprised when she immediately tugged him toward the
front door. She’d long dreamed of owning a television set, but such a luxury
was out of reach for us in Berlin.
I waved goodbye to Claudia and followed my family,
but I was distracted, thinking about the look of disgust in the eyes of that
passing man.
Excerpted from The German
Wife by Kelly Rimmer, Copyright © 2022 by Lantana Management Pty, Ltd. Published by Graydon House
Books.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR:
Kelly Rimmer is the worldwide, New York Times
and USA Today bestselling author of Before I Let You Go, The Things We Cannot
Say, and Truths I Never Told You. She lives in rural Australia with her
husband, two children and fantastically naughty dogs, Sully and Basil. Her
novels have been translated into more than twenty languages. Please visit her
at https://www.kellyrimmer.com/
SOCIAL
LINKS:
Author website: https://www.kellyrimmer.com/
Facebook: @Kellymrimmer
Twitter: @KelRimmerWrites
Instagram: @kelrimmerwrites
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