All The Lights above us by M B Henry

This was quite an arresting read. Five women across Europe all very different in age and occupation enact a very important day not just in their lives but in the world. The repercussions of this day echo in their own little world but also very much in the country in which the stories were set. June 6th 1944 was D Day not just for the Allied Forces. It was a disastrous day for Nazi Germany occupied France. The Nazis were determined to hold out and murder as many as they could before they gave up to the Allies and these five stories told in alternating chapters effectively describe what took place on both sides of the divide. From the Resistance worker Flora to Adelaide who just kept her head down, boarded young German men and who could be viewed as a collaborator but who wasnt, she was just a survivor. Then we have Midge the young American who bound herself with Nazi Max and would always be thought of as a traitor, Theda the young English nurse trainee whose sights unlike those of her colleagues was set on a career and not just enticing a young man into marriage and Emilia the young German woman who is seeking to escape one German prison of Lebensborn for a career with a Nazi high up, hoping one day she can escape it all. The book covers not just the work and lives of five very different women, but the effort of meticulous planning and implementation for the success of 6th June. The carnage, the destruction that preceeded it and that which followed it was brutal but matter of fact. As usual a WWII book from so many different perspectives, and a very good account of history. Sent by Alcove Press for an unbiased review, courtesy of Netgalley.