From the back cover: It is September 8, 1943, and fourteen-year-old Claudette Blum and her father are among the thousands of Jewish refugees scrambling over the Alps toward Italy, where they hope to find safety now that the Italians have broken from Germany and made a separate peace with the Allies. The Blums will soon discover that Italy is anything but peaceful, as it quickly becomes an open battleground for the Nazis, the Allies, Resistance fighters, Jews in hiding, and ordinary Italian civilians trying to survive.

Tracing the lives of a handful of fascinating characters -- a charismatic Italian Resistance leader, a priest, an Italian rabbi's family, a disillusioned German doctor -- Russell tells the little-known story of the vast underground effort by Italian citizens who saved the lives of 43,000 Jews during the final phase of World War II.
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Very different from her earlier works The Sparrow and Children of God, this book explores many similar themes of human nature, the nature of good and evil, and the presence of grace in the world, even in the midst of the horrors of war.

Claudette/Claudia and her father are the catalysts of the story, but it is not only their story. It is the story of a people, the story of people trying to do their best for a variety of reasons and in difficult circumstances. Renzo -- an Italian Jew -- remains determinedly apolitical as he suffers from earlier war wounds, unrequited love, and self-hatred. Yet he continues to risk his own well-being for people on all sides, including the German doctor Schramm. Schramm finds himself rescued and ministered to by the very people he had slaughtered in unreal numbers, which lends him some compassion but perhaps not enough courage. Renzo's mother becomes part of the resistance for love of her son and a sense of wanting to reclaim her homeland. Rabbi Iacopo attempts to tend his flock, leaving his wife Mirella feeling neglected. Yet, through the course of the story, she finds herself in hiding, tending her own flock of misfits.

Unexpected friendships are formed, trust is tested, and individuals and their communities are stretched almost beyond recognition and endurance. Yet, they do endure. The courtship of Claudia and her homely soldier made me weep, it was such a sign of love and hope in the midst of terror. She remains an example of shining and surprising strength during her endless ordeal. The spirit of the Italian people prevails and even triumphs.

I wanted the story to end differently; I wanted to safeguard all these people, all those they represented; I wanted to rage and weep that this story encompassed only a handful of the stories that were lived out in World War II -- and that continue to be lived out in other guises today and throughout the world's history.

This story was inspired by the true events in Europe and Italy during the 1940s, though the characters are all Russell's own inventions. The following is an inscription from a memorial erected in 1998 by the Jews in honor of the people of Valle Stura and Valle Gesso:
When racial hatred raged in Europe,
Jewish refugees, uncertain of their fate,
coming from distant countries
-- Austria, Belgium, Germany, Poland --
found hospitality and safety in these valleys.
Hidden in isolated cottages,
protected by the population,
they waited with trust and hope,
through two interminable winters,
for the return of liberty.
In homage to and in memory of those who helped them, those refugees and their descendants
embrace the noble inhabitants of these valleys in brotherhood.

RELEASE NOTES:

Another Convention release