When Twilight Breaks - Sarah Sundin

In Munich in 1938 Evelyn Brand is working as an American foreign correspondent.  She is careful to report in a balanced way, wanting to tell the truth of the bad and worrying things she is seeing in Nazi Germany as well as the good, but her boss George Norwood dislikes her and edits her pieces in a way which makes her seem supportive of the very things she loathes.  Meanwhile Peter Lang, also American, is working on his PhD and teaching in another part of the city.  He is impressed by the structure, order and prosperity of the Germany he sees – until everything he thought he knew is overturned.  When he meets Evelyn, sparks fly of more than one kind, not least because of his love of order and her passionate desire for freedom above all else.  Peter begins to feed her information she can use in her reporting, but life is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous for them both: and soon they must join forces to escape.

I’ve been a big fan of Sarah Sundin’s wartime stories for a long time now but this book is by far the most heart-pounding of her stories.  The tension rises and rises as the story progresses and there’s a real sense of dread at several points.  Because the reader knows what happened to Jews in Nazi Germany, the worry about the Jewish characters in the book increases, and even when you think you’ve reached a point where you can pause for breath – you can’t!  

Sarah doesn’t write ‘perfect characters’ and this makes her books more real and edgy.  Peter has a past which has coloured – quite understandably – his view of his present.  Evelyn has to fight her way through the man’s world she works in – and at times she’s a bit annoying as she displays her frustration about this although I liked her determination.  I also felt she was far too casual about her conversations about being Jewish, despite the fact she would certainly have known this was not something to talk openly about.  However, it is a major factor in the plot…

When Twilight Breaks shows how good people can become subsumed by evil things, and how that can destroy both friendships and lives.  It also shows how reporting influences people’s views at personal and much wider levels.  On this front it raises many questions, even in terms of modern-day social media, where at present I have taken a serious reduction in my exposure due to the enormous amount of negative input to the situation which the global community faces as I write (in January 2021) with the Coronavirus pandemic.

There are one or two spots where I thought ‘?’ but this is Sarah’s best book yet in terms of the storytelling.  Powerful, involved,  and compelling, with wonderful characterisation across the board and a fabulous – and tragic – sense of place, particularly of Munich in 1938.

An out an out 5* read.  

9780800736361, Revell

For transparency, I was sent an advance copy of this book, but I was not required to write any specific or favourable review. All views herein are my own.