All God's Children

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY JUL 22, 2013

In this first installment of the Peacemakers trilogy, Schmidt introduces protagonist Beth Bridgewater. An American Quaker, Beth is a pacifist, as are the aunt and uncle she lives with in Nazi Germany in the early 1940s. Beth's uncle, a professor at the university in Munich, opens up the family's attic room to a former student, Josef Buch. Josef, the son of a high-ranking Gestapo agent, has returned from the front to finish his medical studies, but the family questions his reasons for wanting to live with them. As Uncle Franz and Beth begin to trust Josef, the three become involved in antigovernment covert activities that, while solidifying Beth and Josef's relationship, endanger the entire family. The activities of the White Rose resistance group, as well as the prisoner uprising at the Sobibor concentration camp, are more than simple historical context. Schmidt seamlessly integrates these actual events, and the courageous real-life individuals who fought against Hitler's regime, with her fictional characters and their story, to produce a strong tale of hope and love in the face of insurmountable obstacles.