*I received a copy of this book in eBook format via NetGalley in return for this review. All reviews published on Yours, Chloe are completely honest and my own, and are in now way influenced by the gifting opportunity.
Caution - This review does contain spoilers.
Title: The Polish Girl
Author: Gosia Nealon
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: ★★★★★
The Polish Girl is a renamed republishing of the first book in
Gosia Nealon’s Secret Resistance Series: ‘The Last Sketch’. It tells the story
of Wanda, a young Polish woman who is working for the Polish resistance in memory
of her late Father who was murdered by the Gestapo. Whilst completing a resistance
assignment she comes face to face with the man who killed her father and is
immediately sickened but he quietly tells her “I am not who you think I am” and
reveals himself to actually be Finn, the identical twin brother of the Gestapo
officer, who is impersonating his evil brother in an undercover mission for the
Allies. The story follows Wanda and Finn’s fight for survival, and fight for
each other, amongst the events of the final year of the Second World War.
The Polish Girl is perfectly paced; starting off with a slow
pace to world-build, establish the characters and build relationships between
them and then progressing onto something which is fast-paced with lots of
tension. I was hooked from the first page and finished the book in a single
sitting as I simply couldn’t put it down. Despite being a work of fiction, there’s
a lot of historical accuracy in the book through accurate depictions of key
historical events, such as the Warsaw Uprising and the experiences of Polish
citizens during the Red Army advance into Poland.
All of the characters in The Polish Girl were beautifully
complex. We have a really strong female protagonist in Wanda who is a real
force to be reckoned with. She’s incredibly clever, passionate, brave and determined
and the exploration of her challenging relationship with her mother was a really
interesting addition to the story which really added an extra layer to Wanda’s
characterisation. In the love story of Wanda and Finn we have a good example of
the enemies to lovers trope in the non-traditional sense as Wanda initially
misidentifies Finn as her enemy when in fact he’s actually his twin brother. They
experience an instant connection and it’s really interesting to see the
character of Wanda conflicted between the way she finds herself drawn to him and
her feelings of utter hatred towards the man she thinks killed her father.
My track record of instantly falling in love with the love
interests in historical romances only continued with the character of Finn, who
had me truly captivated from his first entrance into the story. I could give
you a long list of quotes from the things he says/does to Wanda which really
cemented this and the interactions between him and various children he spends
time with during the novel made me just melt. I found the concept of Finn and Stefan
following two completely different paths in life, with one joining the Nazi
party and one fighting against them, despite being twin brothers really
interesting and it’s something which was brilliantly explored.
My one gripe with the character of Finn was that he began to
believe that Wanda had betrayed him. This was a complete 360 from his original
intense trust in the woman he loves and suddenly moved away from his initial (correct)
assumption that Wanda’s disappearance was at the hands of Gerda. Not having any
contact with Wanda – or even trying to find out if she survived the war – for
so many years seemed completely out of character from the Finn we’d seen for
the rest of the novel but I do appreciate that doing this enabled us to have
the heart-warming reunion between Finn and Wanda in the closing chapters of the
book. I was also slightly infuriated that he’d not had the foresight to use his
FBI connections to keep track of his brother but I do appreciate that nobody
would have predicted that someone who had committed such atrocities would be
released from prison so quickly.
I also did find it slightly unbelievable that Finn could ever
capture the mannerisms, speech patterns and behaviours of Stefan (someone he’d
not seen for many years) without detection, but this is something that is picked
up on by the character of Gerda so it’s a potential plot hole I can let pass. I
definitely would have liked for us to have had a chapter which focused on Finn assuming
Stefan’s identity and integrating himself into his life and Gestapo role, as I
think that was a particularly crucial part of his mission. Seeing how Finn recovered
from the potential little slip ups he is likely to have made whilst adjusting
to his new persona could have supported the realism of the plotline.
I thought that Gerda (Stefan Keller’s fiancé and the daughter
of the man in charge of the Gestapo in Warsaw) was a really well written
character who perfectly captured the generation brainwashed by Nazi ideology. Whilst
I’m not normally a fan of a last-minute redemption arc for an antagonist, I was
really satisfied by the inclusion of this as we did see snippets of good in her
character throughout the book and there were hints that she may be beginning to
have doubts regarding the ideology being fed to her by the Nazi regime. This was
particularly explored through her letters to her mother and I also found the
exploration of her experiencing abuse at the hands of both her father and her fiancé
to be really interesting.
Although most historical fiction novels end somewhere around
the end of the war, The Polish Girl rather uniquely takes us up to 1950. As
someone who often finishes novels set in this era craving an insight into how
the characters lives played out in the aftermath of the war as Europe started to
rebuild and recover, I absolutely loved that Gosia Nealon made the choice to do
this. Covering the five years post-war period allowed us to not only explore the
post-war lives of the main characters, it also allowed us to get a little
update on each of the supporting characters we’d met throughout the narrative. Although
I did notice that Mateusz, Wanda’s brother, wasn’t included in this and that
was initially confusing, I am predicting this is intentional to not give us any
hints towards the second book in the series ‘The Polish Wife’ which will focus more
on Mateusz and his love story with Anna.
Overall, The Polish Girl is an incredible historical fiction
work which is as heart-warming as it is heart-breaking. It’s fantastically
paced and contains gripping moments of real tension which will have readers on the edge
of their seats. Fans of World War Two historical fiction will love the story
and it’s feature of an Enemies to Lovers romance will also make it a good introduction
to the genre for other readers who enjoy the trope. I am eagerly awaiting the publication
of the next book in The Secret Resistance series ‘The Polish Wife’ as it will give
us an opportunity to return to some of the much-loved characters we met within The
Polish Girl.
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