Lana’s War: A Novel

Paris, 1943. After losing her husband to Nazi cruelty and her unborn child to the shock of witnessing his murder, Lana Antanova may as well be lost to herself. For a few months, she works in a convent until a man approaches her, offering her something she can do with her life: fight back against the men who killed her husband. She will infiltrate a group of Russians sympathetic to or actively supporting the Nazi regime, and from there she will do whatever she can to save Jews from certain death.

The description of the plot thrilled me — women at war! espionage! Russians! — but the execution didn’t impress me as much as I had hoped it would. The contrast between the glitz and glamor of the Riviera and the horrors of the French occupation often errs too much on the side of the former, leaving the author to remind the readers at least once per chapter that Lana is desperately worried about the plight of the French Jews.

Lana’s War was an enjoyable book, but all the same, I couldn’t help hoping for more from it. It never quite reached the heights I hoped for it.