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The Woman Upstairs
Claire MessudClaire Messud 9780307596901

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The Baker's Daughter

by Sarah Mccoy

ISBN13: 9780307460189
ISBN10: 0307460185
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

In 1945, Elsie Schmidt is a naive teenager, as eager for her first sip of champagne as she is for her first kiss. She and her family have been protected from the worst of the terror and desperation overtaking her country by a high-ranking Nazi who wishes to marry her. So when an escaped Jewish boy arrives on Elsie’s doorstep in the dead of night on Christmas Eve, Elsie understands that opening the door would put all she loves in danger.

Sixty years later, in El Paso, Texas, Reba Adams is trying to file a feel-good Christmas piece for the local magazine. Reba is perpetually on the run from memories of a turbulent childhood, but she’s been in El Paso long enough to get a full-time job and a fiancé, Riki Chavez. Riki, an agent with the U.S. Border Patrol, finds comfort in strict rules and regulations, whereas Reba feels that lines are often blurred.

Reba’s latest assignment has brought her to the shop of an elderly baker across town. The interview should take a few hours at most, but the owner of Elsie’s German Bakery is no easy subject. Reba finds herself returning to the bakery again and again, anxious to find the heart of the story. For Elsie, Reba’s questions are a stinging reminder of darker times: her life in Germany during that last bleak year of WWII. And as Elsie, Reba, and Riki’s lives become more intertwined, all are forced to confront the uncomfortable truths of the past and seek out the courage to forgive.

About the Author

SARAH McCOY is author of the novel The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico. She has taught at Old Dominion University and at the University of Texas at El Paso. The daughter of an Army officer, McCoy spent her childhood in Germany. She currently lives with her husband in El Paso, Texas.

Visit her at SarahMcCoy.com

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:

: ZBaker, November 23, 2012 (view all comments by ZBaker)
From the past to the present and back again, this is a tale of a young German woman's life in Nazi-occupied Germany. Elsie works with her parents making baked goods, and it is soon apparent that bakery work is the only routine Elsie has in her eventful life. McCoy engages the reader with amazing scenes of startling descriptions on a personal level of the characters in Elsie's life: the Nazi officer who courts her; the other Nazi officer who covets her; and the customers of the bakery with fears and secrets of their own. Just when you think you can't stand the suspense or the unnamed terrors any longer, McCoy takes us to the present, where Elsie, now an old woman, is once again working in a bakery, but now in the United States. We read of Elsie's long-ago past through current and long-lost letters, then we boomerang back to 1945 Germany again, all the while wondering how in the world she came to be where she is today from such adversity. The Baker's Daughter rings true in the riveting accounts of Elsie and her family in Germany. The present day scenes have their own charm as journalist Reba tries to find her way, and Elsie’s bakery provides respite from her troubles. McCoy manages to have us care so much about the sympathetic characters that the heart can break. Well worth the read for the German citizens’ perspective and effect on their daily lives.
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Product Details

ISBN:: 9780307460189
Author:: Mccoy, Sarah
Publisher:: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
Author:: McCoy, Sarah
Subject:: Literary
Subject:: Literature-A to Z
Subject:: Historical
Publication Date:: 20120131
Binding:: HARDCOVER
Language:: English
Pages:: 304
Dimensions:: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.1 in 1.1375 lb

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