"I'm asking you to quit acting like a tulip covered in snow. Don't hide in this house until the Allies free you. They may not come for awhile."
Cornelia de Vries know quite a bit about the sacrifices required from being involved in the war. She has lost not only her husband Hans within the first 24 hours of being married and then widowed in the same day. Now she is struggling to keep her brother Johan Kooistra alive when the call of war is beckoning at his door. Being a onderduiker, a under-diver, a Dutch man hiding to avoid being sent away to a German work detail, he hides in a secret place when the Gestapo arrives for unexpected raids looking for men. But when he discovers a group of Dutch resistance workers taken down to the canal to be executed, he knows he can no longer sit by and just hide.
No one has survived his own execution. The Nazi's weren't that sloppy. But somehow that is the prayer that was answered as Gerrit Laninga faced down the barrel of a gun. Now if he could only pretend he was dead long enough for them to leave, he might just get that second chance at life. He is discovered by Johan who went to see if he knew any of the Dutch men who were executed and takes him back home to tend to his injuries. Surviving a bullet wound is no easy task considering that there are countless people who would turn him in rather than face making the German soldiers suspicious. Now if he can only convince his sister Cornelia to help.
In as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Is that what someone might have offered to Hans if they found him laying wounded? How can she turn away a man clearly in need of help. Despite Hilter's pledge to respect the Netherlands neutrality, he invaded anyway. This war had a way of turning everything upside down, like a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces didn't fit together. They had lost so much. Too much. What could they do now?
I received Snow on the Tulips by Liz Tolsma compliments of Thomas Nelson Publishers and Litfuse Publicity for my honest review. I did not receive any monetary compensation for a favorable review and the opinions expressed in this review are my own. Being a huge lover of historical WWII fiction, I was immediately drawn to this story. It had me wondering just what I would have done in the same situation that Cornelia faced. Would she turn away a wanted man and risk her own safety as well as her brothers? She knew that once the soldiers discovered that one of the men they had executed was missing, they would come looking and they wouldn't stop until they discovered him. Their own army was no match for the German soldiers and faced with food shortages and raids at any hour of the day as well as bombings from the allied planes, life for Cornelia was anything but normal. This story was based on the true story of the author's family which she does an incredible job at drawing the reader in and making them feel a part of the action. I easily give this one a 5 out of 5 stars. There is a great discussion guide included as well as a sneak peek into the next novel Daisies Last Forever from Liz Tolsma, one I will definitely be picking up!
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- Paperback: 336 pages
- Publisher: Thomas Nelson (August 6, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1401689108
- ISBN-13: 978-1401689100
- Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1 inches
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