REVIEW - THREE SISTERS BY HEATHER MORRIS

From international bestselling author Heather Morris comes the breathtaking conclusion to The Tattooist of Auschwitz trilogy.

 

 

 

Rich in vivid detail, and beautifully told, Three Sisters will break your heart, but leave you amazed and uplifted by the courage and fierce love of three sisters, whose promise to each other kept them alive. Two of the sisters are in Israel today, surrounded by family and friends. They have chosen Heather Morris to 

re-imagine their story in her astonishing new novel, Three Sisters. 

Title: Three Sisters
Author: Heather Morris
Publisher: Zaffre Books
Genre: General Adult Fiction, Historical Fiction
Release Date: 14th October 2021

BLURB from Goodreads
A promise to stay together.
An unbreakable bond.
A fierce will to survive.

When they are girls, Cibi, Magda and Livia make a promise to their father - that they will stay together, no matter what.

Years later, at just 15 years old, Livia is ordered to Auschwitz by the Nazis. Cibi, only 19 herself, remembers their promise and follows Livia, determined to protect her sister, or die with her.

In their hometown in Slovakia, 17-year-old Magda hides, desperate to evade the barbaric Nazi forces. But it is not long before she is captured and condemned to Auschwitz.

In the horror of the death camp, these three beautiful sisters are reunited. Though traumatised by their experiences, they are together.

They make another promise: that they will live. Their fight for survival takes them from the hell of Auschwitz, to a death march across war-torn Europe and eventually home to Slovakia, now under iron Communist rule. Determined to begin again, they embark on a voyage of renewal, to the new Jewish homeland, Israel. 

 

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REVIEW
As soon as I read online that this author was doing a book about three sisters and their time in Auschwitz, I knew I had to read it. Initially I preferred the cover that features the three sisters, hand in hand running in a field, but the cover with stripes that continue the theme with The Tattooist o Auschwitz and Cilka’s Journey has grown on me and I guess it makes all three books tie in as they are a trilogy. I would imagine they are a striking sight on a book shelf and certainly eye catching in a book store.

I approached reading this book with conflicted, mixed feelings. I feel interest, wanting to learn about the three sisters, as their story needs to be told, remembered and passed on. On the other hand, I feel dread at the inevitable horrors and treatment these girls will suffer.

The book begins with the three sisters, Cibi, Magda & Livi making a promise to their father, Menachem Meller. Menachem is due to go in for an operation and he has a strong feeling he will not survive it. Cibi, the eldest sister is 7 years old, Magda is 5 years old and littlest sister Livi is only 3 years old. Both older sisters Cibi and Magda know they are making an important promise to their father, where as Livi needs a little prompting to understand and say she promises too. It is the eldest sister Cibi that has Livi’s face in her hands, turning her head to look into her eyes. Instructing ‘Livi , say “promise”. Say “I promise”.’ Livi studies her sister. Cibi is nodding, encouraging her to say the words. ‘I pwomise,’ pronounces Livi. ‘Now say it to Father, Cibi encourages Livi repeating “I promise” to Father,’ Livi turns to her father and says ‘I pwomise, Father. Livi pwomises. Neither the sisters nor their father could possibly have known how important that promise would become, nor the difficulties and hardships they would suffer trying to keep it.

Sadly, Menachem’s feeling of foreboding is realised as he dies whilst on the operating table. Leaving his wife, Chaya to care for their three girls with the help of his elderly father Yitzchak. The first time the girls are ever really separated is when Cibi is away at a Hachshara training camp with the hope of emigrating to Palestine. Then Dr says Magda has to go to hospital, it is his way of trying to remove her from her home and avoid her being caught up in the lists of young people being rounded up to go work for the Germans. He explains to Chaya and Yitzchak she will be safer is the hospital for a few days, and they agree. Cibi will be at camp, Magda in the hospital and Livi is too young to be taken, or that’s what thy hope for.

Unfortunately, it seems the Dr wasn’t privy to the changing rules and criteria for rounding up the young people as the Hinkla, local police come with instructions for Livi to report to the synagogue at five o’clock to be sent to work for the Germans. Livi naively tries to comfort her mother and grandfather saying, its okay she will go away, work for the Germans, then come back to them. Sadly, Livi really doesn’t grasp the seriousness of the situation she is now in. When Cibi comes home from her training and is told the news she simply states that she will go with Livi. That’s how the eldest sister, Cibi and youngest sister Livi end up being transported to Auschwitz. Cibi is 19 years old and is tattooed with the number 4558 and as the sisters had stayed clinging to each other and Livi, aged just 15 years old is branded with the number 4559. The two girls try to keep their heads down and go about the work they are given without being noticed, because to be noticed is not good, it usually means a beating or even death. Their Kapo, Ingrid takes them under her wing, and though it is never revealed it is suggested that young Livi reminds her of someone who was in her life before Auschwitz. Ingrid saves the girls and steers them towards better jobs on more than one occasion,

It is quite some time later when the rest of the family are rounded up that Magda finds herself back with her sisters in the midst of the horror in Auschwitz. First it is Cibi & Livi that refer to the promise and keep each other going on every horror filled, hazardous day. They often refer to the promise they made to their father all those years ago. Once again Cibi’s quick thinking and daring results in Magda being with them in their bunk house.

It really illustrates how former friends and neighbours were pitted against each other. One of the two Hinkla guards that deliver the instructions for Livi to go work for Germany, is quite well known to the family, a local boy called Visik. Yet at the same time there is also the kindness and bravery of friends and neighbours evident too. Such as when an older lady who lives nearby to Magda and her family continues to let Magda hide in her loft space when the Hinkla guards come to search her home again and again. Even within the boundaries of Auschwitz small acts of kindness still exist, for example Kapo Ingrid finding a coat for Livi, and the other favours she does for the Meller girls.

To say I enjoyed reading this book seems so very wrong on multiple levels. The book is an honest, powerful, at times hard hitting recollection of what the Meller family went through. Once again Heather has taken the dreadful memories of Auschwitz survivors and created another amazing book. The more I read of the book, the more I wanted to learn what happened to these sisters and their family. There is a certain point in the book when going to the fence and leaving or dying on your own terms is mentioned. Who could blame anyone for choosing to end their time in such a horrific, torturous place!

There were times in the book that I found myself wanting to scream and shout at Chaya, the girl’s mother to do something, to hide Cibi & Livi away from the Hinkla, but how could she? The family had no money to use to flee the country. Also, at the time people genuinely thought their youngsters were going away to work for the Germans for a few months at the most and then that they would be returned home safely to their family. No one truly knew the horrors happening at Auschwitz until it was too late and they were in the midst of the system that was impossible to escape.

Life at Auschwitz, or perhaps a better description would be existence at Auschwitz consisted of being constantly being attacked be it physically, through the back breaking work, and physical beatings given out by the both male and female guards. The mental abuse of seeing train loads of people arrive and head to the gas chambers and being unable to warn or help them. Surviving mentally when you no longer have a name as the Germans give you a number tattooed on your arm and that’s how you are identified. That whole process to de-humanise their prisoners.

You really go through a range of emotions whilst reading this book, and the three sister’s journey. As well as the horrors of surviving Auschwitz the sisters then deal with the survivor’s guilt that they made it through when other didn’t. They each have their specific lowest moment that torments them as well as repeated nightmares when they go to sleep at night. Magda in particular reveals she feels guilty she wasn’t with the sisters from the beginning, but Cibi & Livi explain to her it was the thoughts of her being at home with their mother and grandfather that kept them going some days.

I recently read a dispute online in a “book chat” about what sort of person Cilka “really” was. Cilka, in fact any one person can be described, remembered differently dependent on different peoples’ memories and situations they were in with her. Saying Cilka was harsh and hardened, wouldn’t anyone appear this way whilst existing in Auschwitz? Perhaps she had to put a “hard face persona” on to survive what she was going through. Some people in the chat were pointing out the portrayal of her was romanticised. However, I think there is a place for both writing styles, of the “romanticised” or perhaps a softened telling of a story as opposed to a brutal, blunt, hard-hitting type of telling. I believe that there is a place for both as both are getting the message out about how awful it was, how we should always remember and never forget, and most of all never, ever let it happen again.

I did thoroughly enjoy the descriptions of Heather meeting up with the sisters, who had what I can only describe as a gallows humour, sort of matter of fact, saying which one of them will die first.

My immediate thoughts upon finishing this story were, Wow! That it was an extremely emotional story of three sisters who made a promise to their father when they were very young. Little could know how hard that promise was going to be able to keep. They were quite literally ripped from a loving family home and transported to a place that became a living hell for them.

To sum up I had mixed feelings unsurprisingly emotional, and I aren’t ashamed to admit teary too. The way Heather writes these stories you feel like you have been on a journey and as you read you are almost an eye witness to the atrocities survivors had to endure. It’s sad about the trilogy ending as I would certainly read other survivors stories written by Heather Morris, but I can understand that perhaps this is the last survivor story from Auschwitz that she may write. I will certainly keep an eye out for any other books by the author.

Link to my review of The Tattooist of Auschwitz
Link to my review of Cilka's Journey
Link to my review of Stories of Hope

 

 

 

 

BLOG TOUR - THE KEEPER OF NIGHT - THE KEEPER OF NIGHT DUOLOGY BY KYLIE LEE BAKER

  

Described as Julie Kagawa meets Scythe in this captivating and evocative journey into Death’s domain as one soul collector seeks her place in the underworld of 1890s Japan. Book 1 of a planned duology.

Title: The Keeper Of Night
Series: The Keeper Of Night
Author: Kylie Lee Baker
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Paranormal
Release Date: 12th October 2021

BLURB supplied by Harlequin Trade
Death is her destiny.

Half British Reaper, half Japanese Shinigami, Ren Scarborough yearns for the acceptance she has never found among the Reapers who raised her. When the Shinigami powers she can no longer hide force her to flee for her life, Ren and her younger brother—the only being on earth to care for her—travel to Japan and the dark underworld of Yomi, where Ren hopes to claim her place among the Shinigami and finally belong.

But the Goddess of Death is no more welcoming than the Reapers who raised her, and Ren finds herself set on an impossible task—find and kill three yokai demons, and maybe, just maybe, she can earn a place in Death’s service. With only her brother and an untrustworthy new ally by her side, Ren will learn how far she’ll go to win the acceptance she craves, and whether the cost of belonging is worth any sacrifice.

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Indie Bound
Barnes & Noble
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EXCERPT

Chapter two

At the far edge of London, somewhere between nightmares and formless dreams, the Reapers slept by daylight.

The only way to enter our home was through the catacombs of the Highgate Cemetery, through a door that no longer existed. It had been built there long ago, when the Britons first came to our land and Ankou carved a hole in their world so that Death could enter. But humans had sealed it shut with layers of wood, then stone, then brick and mortar, all in the hopes of keeping Death out.

By the nineteenth century, humans had mostly forgotten about the Door and what it meant. Then, when the London churchyards began to overflow with bones, the humans had searched for a place just outside of London to bury their dead. By chance or fate, they’d built their new cemetery right on top of the Door. It turned out that Death drew all of us close, even if we weren’t aware of it.

No streetlights lit the path through Highgate at night, but I didn’t need them to find my way home. Before I’d even passed through the main gate, Death pulled me closer. All Reapers were drawn to him, our bones magnetized to the place of our forefather. As soon as I entered the cemetery, a humming began just under my skin, like a train’s engine beginning to whir. My blood flushed faster through my veins as I brushed aside the branches of winter-barren lime trees and low-hanging elms. My boots crunched shattering steps into the frosted pathways as I ran.

I stumbled through jagged rows of ice-cracked tombstones on uneven ground and through a village of mausoleums, finally reaching the gothic arched doorway of the catacomb entrance. The pull had grown unbearable, dragging me along in a dizzy trance as I descended the stairs into the cool quietness of damp bricks and darkness. The labyrinth would have been unnavigable if not for the fervent pull.

At last, my hands came out to touch the wall where the Door used to be, but now there were only damp bricks and an inscription on the arch overhead that read When Ankou comes, he will not go away empty in rigid script. I dug one hand into my pocket and clutched my clock, pressed my other hand to the bricks, then closed my eyes and turned time all the way back to the beginning.

Time flowed through the silver-and-gold gears, up into my bloodstream and through my fingertips, dispersing into the brick wall. Centuries crumbled away, the mortar growing wet and bricks falling loose. One by one, they leaped out of their positions in the wall and aligned themselves in dry stacks on the ground, waiting once again for construction. Objects were easy to manipulate with time, for I could draw from their own intrinsic energy rather than siphoning off my own. Rather than paying in years of my own life, I could borrow years before the bricks crumbled and quickly repay the debt when I put them back.

I stepped through the doorway and the pull released me all at once. I breathed in a deep gasp of the wet night air, then turned around and sealed the door behind me. The bricks jumped back to their positions in the wall, caked together by layers of mortar that dried instantly, the time debt repaid.

The catacombs beyond the threshold spanned infinitely forward, appropriated as resting places for Reapers rather than corpses. Mounted lanterns cast a faint light onto the dirt floors and gray bricks. It was almost Last Toll, so only the last Reapers returning from the night shift still milled around, their silver capes catching the dim light of the tunnels, but most had retreated to their private quarters for the morning.

I turned right and hurried down the block. The low ceilings gave way to high-arched doorways and finally opened up to a hall of echoing marble floors and rows of dark wood desks. Luckily, there was no line for Collections this close to Last Toll.

I hurried to the first Collector and all but slammed my vials into the tray, jolting him awake in his seat. He was a younger Reaper and seemed perplexed at having been awoken so unceremoniously. When his gaze landed on me, he frowned and sat up straight.

“Ren Scarborough,” I said, pushing the tray closer to him.

“I know who you are,” he said, picking up my first vial and uncapping it with deliberate slowness. Of course, everyone knew who I was.

He took a wholly unnecessary sniff of the vial before holding it up to the light to examine the color, checking its authenticity. The Collectors recorded every night’s soul intake before sending the vials off to Processing, where they finally released the souls into Beyond. He picked up a pen from his glass jar of roughly thirty identical pens, tapped it against the desk a few times, then withdrew a leather-bound ledger from a drawer. He dropped it in front of him, opened the creaky cover, and began flipping through the pages, one by one, until he reached a fresh one.

I resisted the urge to slam my face against the desk in impatience.

I really didn’t have time to waste, but Collections was a necessary step. I didn’t consider myself benevolent in times of crisis, but even I was above leaving souls to expire in glass tubes instead of releasing them to their final resting place, wherever that was. And besides, a blank space next to my name in the Collections ledger meant a Collector would pay a visit to my private quarters to reprimand me. The last thing I needed was someone realizing that I’d left before Ivy could even report me.

But when the Collector uncorked my fourth vial and held it up to the lamp, swirling it in the light for ten excruciating seconds, I began to wonder if I’d made the right decision.

The bells of Last Toll reverberated through the bricks all around us, humming through the marble floors. In this hazy hour between night and day, the church grims came out in search of Reaper bones to gnaw on. Night collections had to be turned in by then, while day collections had to be processed by the First Toll at dusk.

The Collector sighed as he picked up my fifth vial. “I’m afraid I’ll have to mark your collections as late.”

My jaw clenched. “Why.”

“It’s past Last Toll, of course,” he said.

My fingers twitched. The lamp on the Collector’s desk flickered with my impatience, but I took a steadying breath.

“I was here before Last Toll,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.

“According to my ledger, your collections still have not been processed,” he said, spinning my fifth vial in his left hand.

I sighed and closed my eyes. Of course, I knew what he was doing. Chastising a “latecomer” would earn praise from higher management. It was the easiest way for him to climb the ranks—to exert his power over the half-breed. He would be praised for his steadfastness and gain a reputation as a strict and immovable Collector, while I could do nothing to complain. I could explode his lamp and send glass shards into his eyes, but that wouldn’t make him process my vials any faster. The fastest way to get out of there was subservience.

“Forgive me, Reaper,” I said, bowing my head and dropping my shoulders. I let my voice sound timid and afraid. “I apologize for being late.”

The Collector blinked at me for a moment, as if surprised that I’d given in so quickly. But he looked young and power-hungry and not particularly perceptive, so I wasn’t too afraid that he’d see through my tactic. As expected, he sneered as if I truly had offended him, finally beginning to process the fifth vial.

“It’s a great inconvenience to both Collections and Processing,” he said, “though I wouldn’t expect a half-breed to understand the workings of the educated Reapers.”

The only believable response to his goading was humiliated silence, so I hung my head even further and tried to make myself as small and pathetic as possible. It wasn’t hard, because the memory of the night’s events was still wringing my heart out like a wet rag and my skin prickled with nerves so fiercely that I wanted to claw it all off and escape before Ivy could find me, yet here I was, brought to my knees before a glorified teller. I imagined being a High Reaper, being able to reach over and smash his face into his blotter and shatter his owlish glasses into his eyes for delaying and insulting me.

His lamp flickered more violently and he paused to smack it before finally finishing with my last vial. He placed all seven in a tray and pressed a button that started the conveyor belt, sending the souls down to Processing. The moment he put a black check next to my name in the ledger, I stood up straight and turned to leave.

His hand twisted into my sleeve, yanking me back.

I shot him a look that could have melted glass, but he only pulled me closer.

“There’s the matter of your sanction,” he said.

“My sanction,” I said, glancing around the office to see how many people would notice if I simply twisted the Collector’s neck. Too many.

“For your tardiness, of course,” he said, smirking sourly. From his position stretched across the desk, the lamplight caught in his glasses and turned them into two beaming white moons.

The standard punishment for failing to make curfew was a night on the pillory, hands and feet nailed to the wood and head locked in a hole that was just slightly too tight, letting you breathe but not speak. The other Reapers could pull your hair or pour mead over your head or call you a thousand names when you couldn’t talk back. But the worst part wasn’t the nails or the insults. It was the Reapers who did nothing but look at you and sneer like you were nothing but an ugly piece of wall art, like they were so perfect that they couldn’t fathom being in your place. And far worse than that was my own father and stepmother walking past me and pretending not to see.

“Come back at First Toll,” the Collector said. “We’ll find a nice place to hang you up by the Door.”

It took every ounce of restraint I had left to keep my expression calm. This was the part where I was supposed to say, Yes, Reaper, and bow, but he was lucky that I hadn’t smashed his glasses into his face with my fist.

As if he could smell my defiance, he pulled me closer. His glasses fell out of the lamplight, revealing a deep frown.

“Scrub that look from your face,” he said. “Remember that I’ll handle your collections in the future.”

The future, I thought.

Luckily, I didn’t have a future.

The light bulb flashed with a sudden surge of power, then burst. Glass shards rained down over the desk, forcing the man to release me as hot glass scored his hands. Some of his paperwork caught fire, and he frantically patted out the flames with hands full of shards.

“Yes, Reaper,” I said, bowing deeply so he wouldn’t see my smirk as he sputtered about “bloody light bulbs, I knew we should have kept the gas lamps.”

Then I turned and rushed off to the West Catacombs.

Excerpted from The Keeper of Night by Kylie Lee Baker, Copyright © 2021 by Kylie Lee Baker. Published by Inkyard Press. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kylie Lee Baker grew up in Boston and has since lived in Atlanta, Salamanca, and Seoul. Her writing is informed by her heritage (Japanese, Chinese, and Irish), as well as her experiences living abroad as both a student and teacher. She has a B.A. in Creative Writing and Spanish from Emory University and is currently pursuing a Master of Library and Information Science degree at Simmons University. In her free time, she watches horror movies, plays the cello, and bakes too many cookies. The Keeper of Night is her debut novel.

AUTHOR LINKS
Author website

Twitter: @KylieYamashiro
Instagram: @kylieleebaker 

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