More Deeply Than Love - Paperback

HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO SAVE YOUR BEST FRIEND?

It's Germany, 1938: A nation on fire with rampant nationalism and virulent antisemitism. Forced to follow a mandatory decree, 15 year old orphan Kat Mueller must leave the remote farm where she was raised and report to the local Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM) camp, the female version of the Hitlerjugen Hitler Youth. An awkward, naive outsider, Kat is befriended by another outsider, 16 year old Marta, a world-wise trouble-maker whose flirtatious and devil-may-care facade conceals a dark secret. The two immediately bond and Marta introduces Kat to the ways of the world with lesson number one being how to catch a boyfriend. It will be a handy skill to have as their all-female BDM division prepares to march to the forest in support of a logging operation crowded with the young men of the Hitler Youth.

But even as Kat and Marta experience the joys and pains of first love, they cannot remain insulated from the violent forces at work in the outside world. Despite the lessons of indoctrination by the ubiquitous Nazi Party, Kat begins to realize the dark truth of what is happening to the country she loves and is sickened by the antisemitism she sees around her. Kat is also dogged by questions about the father who abandoned her. Marta offers to help find out what she can and the two break into Marta's father's office to search for clues. Here they each find startling revelations about the other: Kat discovers that Marta's father is Gestapo, while Marta learns that Kat's father was a member of the Jewish resistance that disappeared into the Night and Fog.

At first, it appears that the girls' friendship will prevail, and their dangerous secrets will remain an unexploded grenade - until something as prosaic as jealousy over a boy pulls the pin. Caught in one of the darkest maelstroms in human history, these two young women must face the life and death consequences of making mistakes in wartime.