Kristin Hannah

Historical Fiction 2015 | 760 pages

Isabelle Rossignol is ten years younger than her sister Vianne Mauriac..  From the time she was quite young, she was rebellious, reckless, resolute, brave, impetuous, strong, passionate. A foil to her older sister.  But it was the 1940s and Germany had just occupied France.  Unabashedly and with no apparent fear, Isabelle began as a teenager to fight the German occupation.  She was an integral part of the French Resistance.  First delivering papers to mailboxes all over her home town of Carriveau she soon graduates to leading downed RAF and American pilots over the border to safety in Spain, guiding them up and down the Pyrenees. avoiding the Gestapo, German police and later, incredibly, French police.  She eventually led 117 men to safety until she was captured.  Her code name, The Nightingale, became well known among resistance workers and eventually the Germans.  The Germans couldn’t fathom that The Nightingale  was a woman. This part of the book is based in non-fiction.

This is her story.  In pure Kristin Hannah style, this novel is extremely well researched.  Her writing as always draws you in and engages you, heart and soul. About 400 pages in, we encounter a difficult time, a gruesome and disturbing part of the book, when some of our characters are violently herded into cattle cars, tortured, and transported to work camps and concentration camps. 

Overall, the story is very rich, with lots of depth, and visually astonishing.  It is absolutely a page turner.  Even if you are late to get to this epic, as I was, it is definitely a Kristin Hannah to go back and read.

May 2026