When Twilight Breaks is set in 1938 Munich, Germany. Each chapter starts with the day and date, which gave the novel a sense of urgency, as though it was all leading up to some fateful day in history (but which day? I couldn’t remember, and that helped with the suspense).
Evelyn Brand is an American journalist working in Germany as a foreign correspondent.
That was two pluses in her favour: she was a professional woman, and her profession was why she was in Hitler’s Germany.
(This is important, as many years ago I read another novel about an American novel in Hitler’s Germany which made no sense, because the character had no compelling reason to be there. The result was I didn’t much care whether she succeeded in escaping or not).
Evelyn sees the dark underbelly of fascism and wants to report that to her American readers. However, that leaves her having to find the narrow line between telling the truth and not telling so much of the truth that the Germans will find out and expel her from the country … or worse.
Unfortunately, as the sole female in her news office, she’s often given the ‘softball’ assignments. One of these introduces her to Peter Lang, an American professor at the nearby university who is pursuing his PhD.
Peter admires what Hitler has done for the German people. He reduced unemployment and brought prosperity back to a country suffering from the losses of World War I and the subsequent global depression. He wishes America were the same.
In hindsight, we all know Hitler’s Germany was evil.
The Nazi regime killed undesirables—the ‘work shy’, the disabled, the Jews, anyone who spoke out against the government. So it’s interesting to see Peter’s early perspective, and see how he has been deceived by outward appearance. At the same time, he’s obviously the hero, which means he has to change his mind …
Peter was not alone in his views. I heard a podcast interview with Sarah Sundin where she commented that those Americans who travelled to Germany in the 1930s expecting to find a successful society found one, and those who expected to find a facade with a sordid underbelly found that. It shows the importance of looking at both sides of an issue, and how politics is often more grey than black and white.
Free speech is an issue Evelyn and Peter debate:
This highlights a current issue: where do we draw the line? What is the difference between free speech and hate speech? Do we allow hate speech as part of our effort to protect free speech? And what happens when hateful speech leads to hateful action and people die?
Yes, When Twilight Breaks asks big questions, questions that don’t have easy answers. That made for a fascinating read.
However, I did find he last quarter slow going. I don’t want to give spoilers, but it felt like the story petered (sorry!) out at around the 75% mark. An earlier minor conflict was reintroduced, and it felt like it was added and magnified in an attempt to drag the story out. The last quarter wasn’t bad. It just didn’t match the strength and pace of the first three-quarters of the novel.
But I still recommend When Twilight Breaks, both as an excellent Christian historical romance, and as a thought-provoking metaphor for our modern world. May we learn from the lessons of the past and not repeat them.
Thanks to Revell and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.
About Sarah Sundin
Sarah Sundin is the author of The Sea Before Us and The Sky Above Us, as well as the Waves of Freedom, Wings of the Nightingale, and Wings of Glory series. Her novels have received starred reviews from Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. Her popular Through Waters Deep was a Carol Award finalist, and both Through Waters Deep and When Tides Turn were named on Booklist‘s “101 Best Romance Novels of the Last 10 Years.” Sarah lives in Northern California.
Find Sarah Sundin online at:
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About When Twilight Breaks
Munich, 1938. Evelyn Brand is an American foreign correspondent as determined to prove her worth in a male-dominated profession as she is to expose the growing tyranny in Nazi Germany. To do so, she must walk a thin line. If she offends the government, she could be expelled from the country–or worse. If she fails to truthfully report on major stories, she’ll never be able to give a voice to the oppressed–and wake up the folks back home.
In another part of the city, American graduate student Peter Lang is working on his PhD in German. Disillusioned with the chaos in the world due to the Great Depression, he is impressed with the prosperity and order of German society. But when the brutality of the regime hits close, he discovers a far better way to use his contacts within the Nazi party–to feed information to the shrewd reporter he can’t get off his mind.
This electric standalone novel from fan-favorite Sarah Sundin puts you right at the intersection of pulse-pounding suspense and heart-stopping romance.
Find When Twilight Breaks online at:
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