REVIEW: My book club just read and discussed The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer. What a beautiful story she wrote for us! I devoured this book. It is almost 400 pages and I read it in two days. Well…I lead the discussion so, I had to get it done. Let me tell you though I would have read it in two days anyway. It was that spellbinding! 

The story takes place in two time periods. Modern day and World War II in Poland. I have read several books on WWII but never anything in Poland. I like stories that take place in different countries because you learn what their life was like and how the War affected their daily life and how they survived. 

I enjoyed her characters because she took time to flesh them out so we were reading about what seemed to be real people. She even gave you enough about the minor characters so you felt tied to them also. I think most of us would like these folks as family. They had principles and morals. They cared for and love one another. 

When I finished the story, I found myself hugging my tablet and sighing. It was that good! I can’t recommend this book strongly enough. I can’t wait for her next novel The Warsaw Orphan. It promises to be just as good.

SYNOPSIS: Now a New York Times bestseller!

In 1942, Europe remains in the relentless grip of war. Just beyond the tents of the Russian refugee camp she calls home, a young woman speaks her wedding vows. It’s a decision that will alter her destiny…and it’s a lie that will remain buried until the next century.

Since she was nine years old, Alina Dziak knew she would marry her best friend, Tomasz. Now fifteen and engaged, Alina is unconcerned by reports of Nazi soldiers at the Polish border, believing her neighbors that they pose no real threat, and dreams instead of the day Tomasz returns from college in Warsaw so they can be married. But little by little, injustice by brutal injustice, the Nazi occupation takes hold, and Alina’s tiny rural village, its families, are divided by fear and hate.

Then, as the fabric of their lives is slowly picked apart, Tomasz disappears. Where Alina used to measure time between visits from her beloved, now she measures the spaces between hope and despair, waiting for word from Tomasz and avoiding the attentions of the soldiers who patrol her parents’ farm. But for now, even deafening silence is preferable to grief.

Slipping between Nazi-occupied Poland and the frenetic pace of modern life, Kelly Rimmer creates an emotional and finely wrought narrative. The Things We Cannot Say is an unshakable reminder of the devastation when truth is silenced…and how it can take a lifetime to find our voice before we learn to trust it.

Don’t miss Kelly Rimmer’s new and unforgettable novel, The Warsaw Orphan.