Our Darkest Night

Trigger warnings: violence, antisemitism, animal cruelty, murder, attempted rape, concentration camps

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A Jewish woman pretends to be the wife of a Christian farmer to survive World War II.

I was excited to see another Jennifer Robson book coming out, as I enjoyed her last book The Gown about the women who made Queen Elizabeth II's wedding dress.

Atonina Mazin leaves her Jewish parents in Venice for farm life in the Italian countryside. She poses as Niccolo Gerardi's new wife to protect her from the Nazis' persecution. As the daughter of a doctor, she is handy with stitches and sewing, but the hard work on the farm is daunting. She changes her name to Nina and pretends to be from Padua instead of Venice.

Living off of the land could have been peaceful, but frequent visits from Nazi soldiers make the Gerardis' lives extremely hard. One Nazi in particular is fixated on Nina and Niccolo because he knew Nico from seminary school. His attentions make their lives increasingly hard because they are also periodically hiding refugees at the farm.

Nina and Nico grow to love each other over the course of the war, and their love increases their fear of being separated or killed. Their story is both hopeful and heartbreaking as the Nazis strengthen their hold on Italy.

Marisa Calin is a good narrator and masters several accents and vocal pitches to distinguish characters. She pronounces words in other languages like a native speaker, which can be hard to tell people's names or place names for English listeners.

Recommended for fans of World War II fiction.

Jennifer Robson earned her doctorate in British economic and social history from Oxford. She is a former editor and full-time writer residing in Toronto.

Publisher: William Morrow (print); HarperAudio

Narrator: Marisa Calin

Running Time: 9 hours, 56 minutes

Length: 400 pages

Release Date: January 5, 2021

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I received an electronic galley copy of this title from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I also received a digital audio recording of this title from the publisher through Libro.fm as a librarian review copy. I listened to the latter edition for this review. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.