by Anthony Doerr
Reviewed by Janet:
Marie-Laure is a blind girl in Paris, whose father is the master locksmith at the Museum of Natural History. As the German invasion and occupation approaches, they flee to a great-uncle in St. Malo. Werner Pfennig lives in an orphanage in a coal mining area near Essen, German. A self-taught radio repairman, he becomes part of a team that detects and neutralizes radio transmissions from the resistance. These parallel stories converge in St. Malo in August 1944 in this compelling novel of the courage and strength of the human heart.