Angels of the Resistance: A WWII Novel

Salazar’s second World War II novel (following The Flight Girls) begins in April 1940, as the Dutch people who thought they would escape Hitler’s Nazi war machine receive a rude awakening. Fourteen-year-old Lien Vinke, her older sister Elif, and their mother soon find their country overrun by the Germans. Lien, still carrying guilt over the death of her younger sister, begs to join her mother and Elif working for the Resistance. Perhaps the lives she saves will make up for the one that was lost and the guilt she feels. Lien and Elif become part of a cell that carries out many successful missions. Along the way, lives are lost, confidences betrayed, and Lien finds she can forgive herself and let happiness into her life again. Readers will be moved to tears by this sometimes heart-pumping, moving novel. Lien, as narrator, reveals the most, but the supporting characters are well-drawn as well. The flaw in the writing is sloppy research, mostly in the small details; if readers can overlook those, it is a fascinating look at the Netherlands during World War II.