She only recently began talking about Karolina and the twins and he alleges they are imaginary and that Lena is delusional. And there is a mystery and a reveal along the way as we learn about our main character, Lena, her pain going backward and forward, her loved ones, and her devotion to finding children. The current portion of the book involves the fight of a mother to retain her independence against her son’s attempts to control the family estate. Chrzanow, Poland was her birthplace (1924), the earlier years of loving familial covenant are in place and the story develops with fervor as Germany invades Poland in 1939.

Just then the door opened and a tall woman in a camel coat, knitted scarf and soft brown pillbox hat entered the office. Karolina was vivacious and beautiful, athletic and charismatic, and Lena has cherished the memory of their friendship her whole life.

Ronald Balson wrote about a difficult topic---the Holocaust---and made it very real through Lena's voice. The family was Polish speaking rather than Yiddish speaking, and was very much integrated into Polish society.

Lena Woodward, a holocaust survivor asks Catherine and Liam Taggart to help her find two twins that her best friend lost during the war. So definitely read this for the story, it deserves to be known and you might be able to put out of your mind the parts I couldn't. Lena Woodard made a promise to her friend 70 years ago, and now at the age of 89 decided to tell her story and to try to find Karolina's children that sadly had to be abandoned because of the situation they were in.What took this novel a few notches above others for me, is that it isn’t just a great fictional story; it was inspired by a real Auschwitz survivor, Fay Scharf Waldman, who passed away last year at the age of 89 and who shared her story with the author. f I could rate just this, it would be an unequivocal four stars but I just can't dismiss the parts I found lacking. Lena Woodward, an elderly woman, enlists the help of both lawyer Catherine Lockhart and private investigator Liam Taggart to appraise the story of her harrowing past in Nazi occupied Poland. By the end of the story, I was pretty well invested in all the characters both historical and present day.