THE ORPHAN’S TALE by Pam Jenoff

Note: I am not a paid reviewer, and I have purchased this title to read for my personal enjoyment.

Astrid, a happily married middle-aged woman, is dumped by her husband during WW2 in accordance with a Nazi directive that German officers must immediately divorce their Jewish wives. She returns to her small German village and resumes her previous occupation as a circus aerialist. Meanwhile, sixteen-year-old Noa saves a Jewish baby from freezing on a railcar heading east towards the concentration camps, partly motivated by her need to replace the baby taken away from her after an SS soldier impregnated her. Their paths converge when Astrid trains Noa as an aerialist so that Noa and the baby can take refuge with the circus. Astrid and Noa are alternating first-person narrators as suspense builds in many types of perils: the war and its resultant totalitarian society; Nazi persecution of the Jews; inherent dangers of the flying trapeze and aerial tricks; a destitute existence; the cold of winter; secrets and impossible romances. Clear, efficiently declarative prose brings Astrid and Noa and their quests for survival to vivid life.