The Girl from Berlin, Ronald H. Balson
The Girl from Berlin, Ronald H. Balson
8 Rating(s)
List: $28.99 | Sale: $20.29
Club: $14.49

The Girl from Berlin
A Novel

Author: Ronald H. Balson

Narrator: Fred Berman

Unabridged: 13 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/09/2018


Synopsis

In internationally-bestselling author Ronald H. Balson's newest audiobook, The Girl from Berlin, Liam and Catherine come to the aid of an old friend and are drawn into a property dispute in Tuscany that unearths long-buried secrets.

An old friend calls Catherine Lockhart and Liam Taggart to his famous Italian restaurant to enlist their help. His aunt is being evicted from her home in the Tuscan hills by a powerful corporation claiming they own the deeds, even though she can produce her own set of deeds to her land. Catherine and Liam’s only clue is a bound handwritten manuscript, entirely in German, and hidden in its pages is a story long-forgotten…

Ada Baumgarten was born in Berlin in 1918, at the end of the war. The daughter of an accomplished first-chair violinist in the prestigious Berlin Philharmonic, and herself a violin prodigy, Ada’s life was full of the rich culture of Berlin’s interwar society. She formed a deep attachment to her childhood friend Kurt, but they were torn apart by the growing unrest as her Jewish family came under suspicion. As the tides of history turned, it was her extraordinary talent that would carry her through an unraveling society turned to war, and make her a target even as it saved her, allowing her to move to Bologna—though Italy was not the haven her family had hoped, and further heartache awaited.

What became of Ada? How is she connected to the conflicting land deeds of a small Italian villa? As they dig through the layers of lies, corruption, and human evil, Catherine and Liam uncover an unfinished story of heart, redemption, and hope—the ending of which is yet to be written.

About Ronald H. Balson

RONALD H. BALSON is an attorney, professor, and writer. His novel The Girl From Berlin won the National Jewish Book Award and was the Illinois Reading Council's adult fiction selection for their Illinois Reads program. He is also the author of The Righteous, An Affair of Spies, Defending Britta Stein, Eli’s Promise, Karolina's Twins, The Trust, Saving Sophie, and the international bestseller Once We Were Brothers. He has appeared on many television and radio programs and has lectured nationally and internationally on his writing. He lives in Chicago.

About Fred Berman

Fred Berman is a five-time winner of the AudioFile Earphone Award for Audiobook Narration and the recipient of the 2013 Audie Award for narration in Spy the Lie. He has read a number of audiobooks for young listeners, including Judy Blume’s Soupy Saturdays with The Pain & The Great One and Andrew Clements’s The Last Holiday Concert. He has also narrated the audiobooks for Robert Kirkman’s popular series, The Walking Dead.Berman is an accomplished actor of both the stage and screen as well, performing on Broadway as Timon in The Lion King and off-Broadway in Hamlet, Twelfth Night, and King Lear. On television, Berman has had roles on NBC’s hit series Smash as well as All My Children and Law and Order. He lives in New York City.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Elizabeth of Silver's Reviews on October 08, 2018

We travel from present-day Italy and back to the 1930’s during Hitler’s regime in Germany. In Nazi Germany, we are introduced to Ada as she masterfully plays her violin solos. In Italy we come across a land dispute that may or may not have Ada Baumgaurten, famous violinist in the Berlin Philharmonic......more

Goodreads review by Pam on December 11, 2018

Balson has written a number of powerful novels set during the war in recent years and his latest does not disappoint. It juxtaposes a modern tale about a fight to save an elderly woman's home in Tuscany with the story of Ada, a young woman struggling to survive during the war. I loved Ada's story, f......more

Goodreads review by Meg - A Bookish Affair on October 16, 2018

"The Girl from Berlin" is the fifth book in Ronald H. Balson's Liam Taggart and Catherine Lockhart series. It is a story told in dual times. One takes place in the present day as Liam and Catherine are trying to solve the mystery and help a friend in Italy. The other takes place as the Nazis are con......more

Goodreads review by Toni on January 18, 2019

This is a relative review in some ways. Relative in that I’ve read Balsom’s Karolina’s Twins and Once We Were Brothers and it’s hard not to hold those past books up as a marker of sorts. I gave high marks to both books, especially the former. So when I went into this book I expected all the excellen......more