Resistance

Most people in the book club finished this book but not everyone had managed it.

We felt that this was a well written book but not very much happened, there really was not a very strong plot at all. There were some interesting historical elements to the story describing how things were done in those days in this small Welsh valley which we found interesting to read. We decided that we wanted more information and background about the men and where they went, more about George and his spying, and more about the women and how they felt about what the men had done. There was not a great deal of information about these elements which made it hard to bond with the different characters.

The fact that this is an alternative history caught out attention, the way that just a few different missteps by the UK and America allowed Germany to win the war was quite chilling. It was fascinating that a lot of the elements that Sheers used actually came from real life, the only different element was "what if Germany had won the war" which enabled him to move the Germans into Wales. As we're from Wales this made this book feel that much closer to home.

We discussed what we thought we would do if we had been in the war. Would we have done the things that some of the soldiers were described doing just to stay alive? How would we have felt if we were the women who suddenly woke up with no men beside us in this environment and then had to work alongside the Germans just to survive?

We all felt so sorry for Albrech, he really was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He tried his best with what he had but made some poor choices in order to do what he thought was right. We wondered what happened to him at the end of the book.

Overall this was an interesting read but not one that many of us enjoyed.