Reviewed: “Finding Rebecca” by Eoin Dempsey

Eoin Dempsey’s historical novel FINDING REBECCA is the sort of book you really want to be real. You want to have some confidence that a real human being somewhere in time did the things that the character he’s created did in the time and place he put them. But even knowing that Dempsey’s creation is fictional, that these things are products of imagination put into a series of real events – this is enough to remind you that life isn’t always cut and dry and still, in the end, sometimes the good guys come out on top.

World War II fiction can be tricky. Authors run the risk of seeming too careless with some of the darkest moments in human history. Novels that aren’t researched are easy to spot by anyone who pays attention. Dempsey is neither careless nor uninformed.

Yes, it seems a little extreme that a German-born boy on of the isle of Jersey might fall in love with a Jewish girl just as the Nazi rise to power. Yes, it seems a little extreme that the German boy might join the SS with the sole purpose of finding the Jewish girl who had been sent to the concentration camps. Other things happen that seem a little less extreme, not actual facts but just things that might stretch the imagination of someone who knows the history.

But World War II was an extreme time.

FINDING REBECCA starts like a love story and it stays a love story.

It’s not easy to read. You question the motives of the people. You question what you would do if you were them. You judge the people for what they do and you wonder if it’s all worth it in the end. You realize that maybe the trick of it all is being able to live with yourself in the end.

FINDING REBECCA is available for purchase now. 

(I received a copy of FINDING REBECCA through NetGalley in exchange for an honest & original review. This review is cross-posted on my blog and NetGalley & Goodreads accounts.)