Seven years after the marriage equality referendum, Boyne says talk of a LGBTQ+ community today “seems exclusionary to me, as if all LGBTQ are on one side of a fence, holding the same beliefs and the same political and ideological positions”. This is a fiction story and I am always aware when reading historical fiction stories that I may not get an extensive or satisfying portrayal of events in the past but that is fine as I have read a vast amount of non fiction books on the War and that is where I get my facts and information from. Clear your calendar. Get All the Broken Places and just don’t make any plans, other than to read and read and read.” Following the kidnapping, Gretel relocates to London, where she finds work at Selfridges. She falls for a coworker, David, initially unaware he’s Jewish until his friend Edgar tells her so. Nevertheless, she begins a romantic relationship with him. However, after attending a showing of a film about the Holocaust and seeing footage of her family in the film, Gretel runs out of the theatre and jumps in front of a bus in an unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide. In the hospital, Edgar informs her about David’s past; how he was born in Prague and escaped with his grandparents after the occupation, and that parents and sister were delayed and disappeared, ultimately being murdered in Treblinka extermination camp. Gretel also learns in hospital that she is pregnant with David's child. After being discharged, she comes clean and tell David the story of her life. He is disgusted and abandons her despite that she is carrying his child. Eventually, Gretel marries Edgar and gives up her and David’s daughter (whom she names Heidi) for adoption. Writing about the Holocaust is a fraught business and any novelist approaching it takes on an enormous burden of responsibility,” Boyne writes in his author’s note. “Not the burden of education, which is the task of non-fiction, but the burden of exploring emotional truths and authentic human experiences while remembering that the story of every person who died in the Holocaust is one that is worth telling.” Mia Levitin

This prompted the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum to warn that the book “should be avoided by anyone who studies or teaches the history of the Holocaust”.Mr Richardson and I had enjoyed the perfect neighbourly relationship in that we had not exchanged a single word since 2008.”

and….(just my own preferences)….but his WWII and post-affects of WWII novels are not my ‘very’ favorites…..(even though I respect his passion and interest),

All The Broken Places

She loves her son, but she has all the advantages of a wonderful location plus only a few neighbours. Boyne introduces us to Gretel at ninety-one, living in a very comfortable flat in Mayfair, London, which her son, Caden, is anxious to sell (to tap into his inheritance) and move his mother into a nice retirement village. Gretel loves her home.