From Sand and Ash

It's been such a joy to discover Amy's books. She has the uncanny ability to grip hard human strengths and weaknesses. Breaking them down to simpler verbs and nouns, she spins a tale so fearsome and fearless, it fills you with dread and yet doesn't dim the light of hope. I was mesmerized by her skillful prose, emotional dialogues, and honest truths, it was as if she became instrument of God Almighty to bring such a wondrous story to fruition. I fell in love with her first book and my mission is to read all her books and keep hope alive that I shall meet her one day. It's a harrowing and tragic tale of forbidden love surrounded by death and danger. Two kindred spirits, childhood sweethearts standing in the rubble of devastation with their world exploding around them Angelo Bianco and Eva Batsheva Roselli are doomed from the start lovers, or wannabe livers, separated by sense of duty and Law. Church and Synagogue. Catholic and Jew. It's like the odds were always stacked against them and kept getting higher and higher. My name is Batsheva Rosselli, not Eva Bianco, and I am a Jew. Angelo Bianco is not my brother but a priest who wanted only to protect me from the very place I now find myself. This story is about wars and battles. Raging inside human beings and outside in the world in the tragic 1930's and 40's. World has gone crazy, Hitler is on a usurping spree, his greed and appetite growing by the second, his disillusionment and dementia reaching sky and he is racing to achieve Judenrien a Jew-free world. Blinded by rage, ordering elimination of an entire race, his ego crushes any person daring to think about raising any opposition against him or his Fascist party. History shall remember this as the blackest chapter in the history of the world (sounds familiar!) It's like the Panzer tanks, the SS, Reichswaffe, the Gestapo all rolled right through my heart, leaving deep imprints. My whole being just trembled as I read the atrocities committed by the Nazis, lying and playing with Jews as cat plays with mouse. Their chokehold restrictions, stripping Jews from their culture, dignity,banning them from education, jobs,literally wiping out their identities (sounds familiar!) And amidst of it all, a Jew girl falls in love with a Catholic boy and it's the most difficult of a love story as it can possibly be. She tries to hide in her music like her Uncle Felix does and "Babbo" Camille encourages. Music is a door, and the soul escapes through the melody. Even if it’s only for a few minutes. And everyone who listens is freed. Everyone who listens is elevated. Though affluent, Rosellis are in danger. War didn't spare any Jew in Italy in that era. The Jewish people have been stripped of choice. They have been stripped of liberty. They have been stripped of dignity. And they cannot save themselves.” They try and fold unto themselves trying to make themselves invisible and integrate in Italian culture but neighbours turn on neighbours, friends turn friends over and greed overshadows relationships. And churches become safe havens and portals to hide and distribute Jews in safer locations. The church was now in the business of hide-and-seek, and Angelo was the eyes and ears, a young priest with a limp and an affinity for languages, with a special understanding of the Jewish people.he was just another cog in the wheel of clergy who had begun the enormous task of trying to hide the hunted. One legged Priest limping around Rome, trying to save people, bartering for scraps, haggling & negotiating for supplies, food and hiding spaces. In closets, under ground, in crypt, basements, holes in the floors. It was a long way to Rome for a crippled man with a broken heart. This disgusted my senses, how could the world watch just mutely while a Hopping Mad Dictator was going around stomping on people, their culture and race, trying his best to wipe their traces from humankind !!!(SOUNDS FAMILIAR !!). His cronies & Bloodthirsty Sycophants all gathering around him , trying to come up with a Final Solution, herding people into cattle cars and driving them to gas chambers....i wanted to tear up in frustration at every unfortunate soul that perished, every piece of history that was wiped out and I'm jot even a JEW !- India wasn't even effected by Nazis. "It is one thing to kill someone. It is another to degrade and humiliate, to strip away a person’s dignity like stripping away flesh. One made a man a murderer. The other made him a monster. " Even though I've read many many books on WW2, Nazis, the Third Reich. (I was a history major and this was my research paper) I've been obsessed with this historical era ever since I read EXODUS by Léon Uris in 7th grade. This subject still fascinates me. The sheer scale of genocide, the astounding neglect from the rest of the world and then the Allied initiative to oppose it has been a topic of millions of books, movies, documentaries. Like Amy Harmon herself wishes My prayer is that the people of today will know the past so they won’t repeat it. Amen ! A sensitive and yet brutal tale of persistent and tenacious love, threatened and endangered by vicious times, is the most heartbreaking and heartwrenching love story I've read in recent years. The underlying theme of not ignoring your fellow world citizen's hardships ever again, has been poignantly penned by Amy. She's a very sensitive and dexterous writer. Words play in her hands and are brought to life as if it's God's mission. It was her calling to tell the story. HE chose Amy to highlight the sacrifices of Rabbis like Nathan Cassuto, Vatican Monsignors, Jake Priors and many many priests and churches that were instrumental in keeping a race alive. The Third Reich highlights the brutality of unnecessary wars to satisfy an egomaniac lust and let this be a lesson for all in present times, as to what it can lead to. Loss of life, resources,art, history, culture, environment and peace. At such times neutrality is a curse and compliance and cowardice. One cannot and must not stay as a silent spectator. Choose a right side and fight, oppose, rebel, revolt or history will never forgive you and you WILL have to pay the price of being an aider and abetter of Crimes Against Humanity by sheer dissasociation . This war isn’t about two equal but opposing forces who disagree. This war is about right and wrong, good and evil. And evil must be stopped. It will be stopped. And people like you will be caught in the cross fire when that happens.” I'm officially drained and exhausted and I don't want to pick up any other book for a while. THANK YOU Amy for enriching us with such a soulful and heroic book. It must've taken a huge toll on you too, so thank you for your tears, for our tears and tears shed for every victim of Nazi atrocity and racial bias. I loved the fact that it wasn't highly politicised and militarized, but the language was simple and broken down at people level. Even though there's gore and dread, it also has tenacity and resilience. pain and endurance go hand in hand. Hopelessness and hopefulness are juxtaposed. Role reversals of friends and does are miraculous and life saving. Bravery and survivalist Human spirit is celebrated with joy. Death and birth are balancing on thin line of chaos and safety. I loved that though God is silent, HE is definitely not quiet and Miracles DO exist ! . Our immortality comes through our children and their children. Through our roots and our branches. The family is immortality. And Hitler has destroyed not just branches and roots, but entire family trees, forests! All of them, gone. Eva was the only Rosselli left, the only Adler left. As Shoshanna and David Cassuto wrote we were 3 when we arrived in Israel and now we have 82 descendants. Children grandchildren and great-grandchildren. THIS is our answer to those who wanted to destroy us. Our story is a wondrous story of revival of a Nation on it's Land. Tell this story to your kids and tell them to pass it on,generations to generations. This history lesson shouldn't be trapped in pages of books, we should not forget those who perished.

4.5 stars. I've read a lot of historical fiction set during WWII. The locations of some of those books have included England, France, Poland, Germany, and America, but I've never read a book set in Italy. For some reason, this made an old story fresh again. I didn't know what happened in Italy during the war, so the uncertainty as I read this tale was fresh. As law after law was passed and compromise after compromise came, I felt the insidiousness of WWII all over again. When the characters weren't sure whether to flee to Rome or Florence, I didn't know which city was safer. That not knowing made the journey of Eva and Angelo so much more poignant and real. Harmon's writing style in this book is excellent. All of her books have an almost lyrical nature and explore themes of love, fear, faith, hope, forgiveness and friendship in unique ways. This book, though, felt like one of her best. I highlighted so many sentences in this book because they were just so beautifully written. I appreciated the respectful way Harmon explored the Jewish and Catholic faiths through her main characters. There was beauty in them both, and I was awed to read the story of what the Italian Catholic church did during WWII in Italy. They saved 80% of the Jewish population through the bravery of their people. So amazing & humbling. There is a love story here between Eva and Angelo, but I didn't really feel like it was the focus of the book. I thought war and faith were the focus, and Harmon made the war more personal by creating two characters who loved each other and faced unique struggles during the war. The beginning was a little choppy for me as we jumped between years, but it quickly smoothed out and became a wonderful story. I would highly recommend this one.

I rarely reread books, but not because I don't want to, but because my TBR list is km-long and I have not enough time 🤷🏻‍♀️ But I bought my favorite book in Polish and I couldn't resist reading this book again. Yes, this is the third time I read this it 🤷🏻‍♀️ After the first time I read "From Sand and Ash" it took me days to get out of my emotional melancholy and start another book. I loved this book so much, that I talked about it to everyone and everywhere 🤭 My friends were so desperate that they read it, just so I stop talking about it 😂 And you know what, they loved it almost as much as I did 😍 Amy Harmon has the amazing gift of drawing people into the story and the protagonists lives. You feel like you know them and you are living, crying and laughing with them. From Sand and Ash is a story that takes place in World War II and the events in the war are of course terrible and hard to take or even understand, for us now. But it's the story behind the story that's makes this book even more heartbreaking and so damn emotional. A forbidden love story, between two people who have sacrificed everything for other people, from whom War has taken everything, who didn't believe that in the end they could been together and still fought with everything that they had for others lives. I recommend this book to all of you, who is not afraid to have an ugly cry for at least 50% of this book and other half mental breakdowns 🤭. Sorry, I can't help myself. I love this book so much ❤ So please read this book and enjoy! I loved every second of it (and cried not only the first time I read it) ❣

One of the best books I have ever read

Amo i romanzi di Amy Harmon. Le storie che racconta, i personaggi che descrive, le emozioni che trasmette e che suscita, a prescindere dalle ere, circostanze o luoghi raccontati. Questo romanzo è stato difficile. Ho dovuto spesso fermarmi,asciugarmi gli occhi, ricompormi e ricominciare a leggere. Sono italiana. Queste sono le storie dei “miei nonni” quelle mia dimenticate ma di rado raccontate, perché troppo dolorose, troppo vivide e presenti in un futuro che sembra voler sempre voltare le spalle alla storia. Una lettura meravigliosa, che racconta di un’Italia in uno dei suoi momenti peggiori senza togliere la bellezza ai posti, alle persone e alle atmosfere. Bellissimo.

In world war II 90% Italian Jew survived, but 90% European Jew killed. That is the fact and that is tree in which story moved from branch to branch. In the darkness of war love bloom, love generally always bloom beautifully when darkness become too deep to see. In the desperation of Vatican, sadness of christian world thousand of priest ready to give their life to help Jew. It is so painful that German forget that Christ was also Jew, but many priest never forget that. May be Angelo grow up with Eva as brother and sister, may be Angelo became priest, but love could't stop by building a thousand feet wall around you. May be they did't want to see their love, their attraction, but love is always showed more and that was why we wanted to see less. Story was excellent with lots of real life reference, but just one thing I had disappointed. I don't like happy ending, I always enjoy tragic end, but I believe that was my problem. In hopelessness of killing, destroying and devastation END should be happy, at least some people should find their loved one, should create a dream world out of darkness, should love till aged.

Loved it!! Go get it you won't regret it one tiny bit! Amy Harmon did an excellent work!! My heart feels broken hut so full at the same time!