Our Narrow Hiding Places by Kristopher Jansma ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts

An elderly woman recounts her Dutch family’s survival during the final years of Nazi occupation, shedding new light on old secrets that rippled through subsequent generations. 

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free book was provided for an honest review.

August 2024; Ecco; 978-0063352896
audio, ebook, print (272 pages); historical fiction

Our Narrow Hiding Places is a well-written story of World War II in the Netherlands.  It's a dual-timeline story told by an 80-year-old woman who is looking back on her life as she answers her grandson's questions about the war.  As with many dual timeline novels - it's easy to like one time period more than the other and I enjoyed the WWII sections more than the present day but they are both well written and interesting.

Mieke Geborn is 80 years old and living a quiet life at her home in New Jersey.  She's been widowed for many years but has friends and stays busy.  When her grandson comes to visit with his wife, she senses that there is trouble in their marriage.  Will is also troubled because his father left when he was very young and that it seemed to be the cause of his current life spiraling out of control.  As he tries to find out more about the family history, he has a lot of questions for his grandmother about her life as a child during the War.  Mieke tells him about the invasion of Holland by the Nazis.  It was a big change but she was a child and was more interested in riding her bike and spending time with her cousin and family.  As the war continued,  she began to realize how treacherous life was.  She really grew up during the Hunger Winter of 1944-5 when there was a famine because Germany cut off food and fuel shipments.  She and her cousin did what they could to steal food and find wood to burn to keep them warm but it was a terrible time for everyone.  Thinking about it years later was a reminder of the terrible cost of war.

This is a book about family and survival during a war and of a modern-day family fighting with trauma that was inherited through the generations since the war.  Mieke was a wonderful main character.  As a child, she was happy and carefree until the war took her happiness away and she had to struggle to survive.  As an adult, she was aware of how the war changed her life and she was very interested in her grandson and wanted to help him keep his life on track.

I had read about the Hunger Winter but it was very interesting to see it through the eyes of a child - a child who had to grow up very fast to help her family survive.  The characters - especially Mieke - were well -written and I cared what happened to them.  If you enjoy WWII fiction, give this one a try.  It's different than many of the WWII books that are popular but it's just as important and in some ways an even better look at life during this time.

Buy Our Narrow Hiding Places at Amazon

Susan Roberts grew up in Michigan but loves the laid-back life at her home in the Piedmont area of North Carolina where she is two hours from the beach to the east and the mountains in the west.  She reads almost anything but her favorite genres are Southern Fiction and Historical Fiction.   

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