1946: Jordan McBride’s father Dan is an antique shop owner in Boston. When he meets Austrian Anneliese Weber he’s smitten with the young widow and her young daughter Ruth. After a whirlwind romance, Dan and Anneliese marry. Jordan likes her new stepmother but she doesn’t quite trust her. When she finds an iron cross in the bride’s bouquet, Jordan is determined to find out more about the pretty young woman and confronts her at Thanksgiving. This doesn’t go down well with both her father and stepmother.
A few years later (they’ve gotten over the Thanksgiving incident) when Jordan is looking for her own wedding gown (with Anneliese), Dan is killed in a hunting accident.
1950: Ian Graham, a journalist, is intent on finding the woman known as die Jägerin (the huntress) who killed his brother Sebastian during the war. He is aided by Anton (Tony) Rodomovsky. They don’t know the Huntress’s name: they only know that she has dark hair, blue eyes and a scar on the back of her neck. The only person who can positively identify her is the woman who was there when Seb Graham was killed, a Russian pilot called Nina Borisovna Markova – Ian’s wife.
The storyline switches between the fifties and the forties – we follow Nina on her path to becoming a pilot in the Red Airforce, at first she’s a navigator with pilot Yelena on the U2 they’ve named Rusalka (a water witch – which is what Nina’s abusive father used to call her) – one of the Nachthexen (night witches as the Germans called them).
And we follow Ian, Tony and Nina when they are searching for the Huntress. On the other hand, we follow Jordan, who wants to become a photographer, but her dad wants her to work in the antique shop, and her relationship with her adopted sister Ruth, and stepmother Anna.
This is an excellent book – I’ve read it a few times now, and every time I’m as engrossed in the story as I was previously! I highly recommend this book!
Read for the Read Between the Lines Reading Challenge 2026
Prompt 3: Set During WW2
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️