Lisette takes her son to hospital and they tell her to leave him, go home and come back tomorrow.
Only overnight, the Berlin Wall goes up and they are separated and divided.
Lisette's daughter Elly, goes looking for a way to save her brother. Can she really escape into the West and back again ?
Will the secrets of the past come back to haunt the future?

Absolutely fantastic book. This has a dual timeline and dual narrative set in Berlin in World War 2 and 1961. It has some really horrific scenes, but it is a stunning read

This is a remarkable book - engrossing, engaging, appalling, uplifting. A dual time line connects the lives of a mother and daughter in the Berlin of WWII and the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. Or perhaps I should say two mothers and their daughters...

As Lisette and Elly's stories unfold, we begin to understand how their experiences in traumatic times sometimes echo, sometimes contrast each other. Without giving away any spoilers, the reasons for Oma Rita's early dementia and the coldness felt by Lisette for her daughter, Elly are gradually revealed in a way that is realistic and heartbreaking. There is no simplistic resolution to their stories, but rather one born out of the triumph of love over loss, people doing their best in times of war and division.

The fictional portrayal of historic events was sensitively handled and shed light on two often forgotten periods of time - and of the way in which women pay the price for war and agressive politics.

Thoroughly recommend.

This book was powerful and shocking.
I've never really thought about families being split when the wall went up. The emotions of a mother being separated from a baby were conveyed well.
This book stayed with me after I'd finished reading, definitely recommend.

I especially enjoy historical fiction that is built around historical events that I know little about, and shockingly have never even stopped to consider what life must have been like for those caught up in events of magnitude.

In The Silence In Between Lisette is trapped on the East side of the Berlin wall when it is suddenly erected in 1961, what makes her story particularly brutal is that her baby son Axel is on the other side, in hospital in the West. Lisette stops speaking, not for the first time, she went mute at the close of WWII when the Russians invaded Germany.

The book alternates between 1945 and 1961 through Lisette's eyes and those of her teenage daughter who makes a plan to help her mother and brother in 1961. The book is moving and whilst I didn't really appreciate the relevance of each person's individual tune during the majority of the book, that mystery was cleared up at the end.

An informative book with lively characters that covers some brutal times for Lisette and her family.

A well researched historical novel, with a backstory from the 1940s taking the reader through to the building of the Berlin Wall and its eventual fall in November 1989.

Separated by the overnight construction of the Wall, a young girl braves all to travel from East to West Berlin, and then back again, to reunite her baby brother with her family. Factually correct, it’s a heartbreaking story of suffering and love that arose in East Berlin under Russian occupation. The novel is full of interesting facts and examples of the lives of East Berliners during this period, voiced through Lisette and her daughter Elly.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers Random House for this APC for which I give my personal review.

Both parts of the book are equally powerful and shocking.
How the German women were treated after the war and how quickly the Berlin Wall went up.
A book that stays with you after reading. Highly recommend.

A very moving story told from the dual perspectives of Lisette during the war years and Elly, her daughter, during and after the partition of Berlin. Elly 'hears' people's personalities through music which gives an added and fascinating dimension to the plot. At times the story is absolutely harrowing; the suffering of the German women at the hands of the Russians is well-known but until now I'd never read it as part of a novel and although it wasn't explicit it was hard to read. My only criticism is that it was sometimes difficult to differentiate between the two voices as they're both teenage girls.

When the border between east and West Berlin is closed, Lisette finds herself separated from her baby son. The Silence in Between tells the Lisette’s story and her daughter Elly’s and explains why their relationship is so fractured. It revisits Lisette’s past as a victim of the Rape of Berlin, and Elly’s present as she is determined to bring her baby brother back.

With lyrical writing and shocking histories based on true stories, this book is a hard hitter that will play on your mind long after finishing it. I have to admit that I struggled to get into it at first, finding the constant switching of time and narrator hard to adjust to, but once I did I was rapt.

A solid debut novel.

The book starts in 1961. Berlin is divided into East and West, but there is no boundary between them.
Lisette has a young baby with a heart condition that is being treated in a hospital in West Berlin. She has to go home to get more clothes for them both, intending to rush back with them. Exhausted, she falls asleep at home, waking the next morning to her anguished husband. The boundary has been closed and no one can cross back into the West.
Will she get back to her baby? Can he survive without her? How will the family cope if they cannot get him back?
As the story unfolds, we are taken back to Lisette's experiences in WW2, and how these have shaped her life since.
Through the family's history, the book graphically illustrates the struggles of people, particularly women, in Berlin when the wall was built and, in flashbacks, during and after the Second World War.
I could not put this book down - a really compelling read.

The Silence In Between is a well written and well researched debut novel. It's an emotional and enthralling read told from 2 points of view, over two timelines, WW2 in Berlin and the aftermath of the building of the Berlin Wall. Loosely based on a true story, but including factual happenings, it's heartbreaking and thought provoking. Lisette and her daughter Elly's stories will linger with you long after you finish reading the last page. Thank you to the author, publisher and netgalley for sharing this book with me.

This, the author’s debut novel, tells the story of the women of Berlin, through two devastating historic events: the Second World War and the construction of the Wall: on the morning of the 13th of August 1961, Berliner’s in the east awoke to find themselves imprisoned behind it. It does not reveal anything with which anyone already, above a certain age, is unlikely to be familiar. In this sense it could almost, therefore, through the prism of one woman’s agony, be regarded as a case study in the misery and suffering endured by German females of all ages at the hands of the Soviet occupiers.

The woman in question is Lisette Lange, who we first meet on 12th August 1961 in a hospital waiting room, her five-week-old son, Axel, cradled in her arms. The hospital is situated in what will become, officially, West Berlin. The doctor tells her there is something he needs to check on, a ‘few more tests’ to run, but that he doesn’t think the slight issue with the baby’s low oxygen levels are a major concern. After much persuading, she agrees to leave her child, get some sleep, and return to collect him the next day.

Tragically, the wall now separates her from her son and there appears little she can do about it. We now begin to get insights into Lisette’s history, with flashbacks to the War: eventually, also, we are introduced to Elly, Lisette’s fifteen-year-old daughter, who is largely ignored by her mother, consumed as she is with grief at the loss of her baby. But though it is Lisette’s story to begin with, Elly becomes, increasingly, the focus of the narrative.

The novel is well written, the flashback device mostly works, and the character development is assured. There are times, however, when it teeters on the edge of cliché, although, of course, the difficulty of rendering, novel, anything to do with the Nazis, the Soviets, and the Cold War, all of which are so firmly imprinted on the modern psyche must be acknowledged, and the story kept my interest till the end.

Nevertheless, I would not say it gripped me and I think this may have been due to the frequent switches of narrative focus between Lisette and Elly, who both told their own stories in the first-person. Perhaps a more straightforward omniscient third-person narration would have served the story better.

I really don’t feel like my review can do this book justice but I will try my best..

This book is moving, painful and extremely powerful.

Written in duel perspectives of Lisette and her daughter Elly. Lisette’s story is predominantly set in 1940’s Berlin during the war and the subsequent Battle of Berlin in 1945. Lisette’s story is painful and truly heartbreaking in parts. Elly’s story set in 1960’s during the start of Berlin Wall Era and tells a story of strength and resilience.

Lisette’s baby Axel is in hospital on the west side of Berlin when the wall is put up and the border closes, with the family living on the east, Elly makes it her personal mission to bring Axel home where he belongs, despite the odds being stacked against her.

Although being fiction, the book is largely based on true events and it is harrowing to read what the women went through during what is known as “the rape of Berlin”. I knew little about this war and even less about the wall of Berlin so it has absolutely opened my eyes to another awful time that really wasn’t that long ago.

I recommend this book to everyone, it is a compelling read to say the least!

I don't often give 5* for a debut novel, however this is such a wonderful story and so well written. The book is told from a mother and daughter's pov and in dual time frames. It is loosely based on a true story and so poignantly crafted that it brought tears to my eyes at points of it. The author highlights not only the brutality that war brings but also the resilience that as humans we have. It was interesting to read about what happened to these German women in the latter days of the war as it is not something commonly spoken about. The book left me speechless. Well done to Josie for writing this.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC to review.

I was totally engrossed by this meticulously researched book which taught me a lot about Berlin's history during WW2 and about the events of 1961 when the Wall was built.

It concerns a mother and daughter living through terrible times, and really brought home to me the terrible abuse heaped on women in times of conflict. Their fear was palpable. Their ability to endure and to survive was incredible.

The prose is impeccable. I would point out just one error. The term 'early onset dementia' did not come into being until 2000. Previously it was called 'presenile dementia'. Apologies for being pedantic but it jarred.

Very emotional read set in an interesting time when the Berlin Wall was erected and a baby was separated from its mother. Time lines and perspectives change throughout and it’s a gripping and horrifying read in parts. Learnt a lot and this was mostly within my lifetime.

Lisette's baby is unwell, her motherly instinct tells her to stay with him at the hospital, but she is just weeks post partum and the doctor insists that she must go home and rest. Her baby will be safe there he insists.

She does as instructed and intends to return to the hospital after a few hours, but she lies down next to her sleeping husband and unintentionally falls into a deep slumber herself, exhausted after the hours of waiting at the hospital.

She wakes to the devastating news that she can no longer cross the border between East and West berlin. It has been closed overnight, and now she is trapped with her daughter, husband and elderly mother in the East, with her new baby son unreachable in the West.

Elly, Lisette's teenage daughter sees how distressed her Mother is, and wonders if she can do something to help bring her baby brother back.

No one ever talks about the war, but Elly knows that they shouldn't be still being punished for whatever happened all these decades later. Especially not her generation.

Driven by a sense of injustice for her generation and the usual teenage action without thought about the consequences to follow, Elly quickly finds herself in danger. Her life is saved by someone who risks his own life and career to help her, and Elly realises for the first time that perhaps life is more complicated than she first thought.

When Lisette finds the note Elly has left for her, detailing her plan to find her baby brother, she is distraught, for now she has lost two children. Can Elly find her Brother and bring him home, or will Lisette lose everything all over again?

On the 13th of August 1961, the border between East and West Berlin is closed overnight, devastatingly separating Lisette from her baby Axel.
Her older daughter Elli, who’s rarely felt any love or warmth from her mother, decides to daringly cross the border to bring her brother back.
We are then transported back to WW2 where we follow the war through the eyes of Lisette.
The book goes back and forth between these 2 timelines and we discover why they have such a strained relationship.
I’ve only read a few WW2 books from a German perspective. How so many were fearful to speak out against the Nazis and how they turned a blind eye to what was happening to Jewish people as they feared repercussions. When the Russians invaded Berlin after the war, the aftermath was horrifying, particularly for the women.
A very emotional read, with music interwoven throughout. With thanks to Netgalley and the published for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a wonderful debut novel that is informative as well as emotional and well-written! It tells a story that isn’t often told, and I certainly learnt a lot through reading.

It focuses on both the rape of Berlin at the end of the Second World War and the Berlin Wall in 1961. There are two timelines followed, Lisette, who was an older teenager when the war started, and her daughter Elly who is a teen in 1961. In the latter POV, Elly embarks on a dangerous mission to travel to West Berlin and back to rescue her baby brother, who was alone in a hospital the night the Berlin Wall was formed. It was shocking to read that situations such as this actually happened, and children were separated from their parents for years. I also didn’t know the horrors civilians faced in East Berlin after the War had ended. It was interesting to read a story based on something so rarely focused on. I also appreciated that it was written in a sensitive way, which also acknowledged the horrors of the Holocaust.

I don’t always enjoy stories that flash back into the past and span across multiple timelines as it can get confusing, but in this case, I found it really interesting to find out more about Lisette’s upbringing and what made her the way she is. She has a very distanced relationship with Elly and I found that I understood her more through reading about her past. I also liked Elly as a character and found her relatable in many ways.

The dialogue was good and all characters felt unique and well-developed, which is really important to me when reading a novel. I thought the pacing was appropriate and I was never bored. I would definitely read future books by this author!

Absolutely gripping story with the women of Berlin again it's heart and centre. The author has expertly drawn characters that really draw you in. Music is a central theme throughout, whilst Elly's music that she 'hears' from the other characters is an interesting idea I'm not sure it was exploited to the full. She decides to trust Andrei based on his music but it is barely mentioned when she is deciding to trust others or in relationship with family members other than her mother.

That said the story has stayed with me and was beautifully written and well researched. I have a German degree and have reseached a lot about the downfall of Berlin and the work is definitely historically accurate and presents a realistic view of the experience of women during this time.

I'd definitely read more from this author.