Ellen Marie Wiseman's THE PLUM TREE, a Forbidden Love Story in WWII Germany

PRLog (Press Release) - Dec. 3, 2012 - Kensington Publishing Corp. proudly debuts Ellen Marie Wiseman with the January 2013 release of THE PLUM TREE, a deeply moving story about a young German woman during the chaos of World War II and its aftermath.  Told from the incomparable vantage point for witnessing the first cruelties and final ruin of the Third Reich—the German home front—THE PLUM TREE is an epic story of human resilience and enduring hope in the vein of Cold Mountain and Schindler’s List.

Seventeen-year-old Christine Bolz knows that there is a whole world waiting beyond her small German village. It’s a world she’s begun to glimpse through music, books—and through Isaac Bauerman, the cultured son of the wealthy Jewish family she works for.

Yet in the fall of 1938, Germany is changing rapidly under Hitler’s regime. Anti-Jewish posters appear on street corners and a new law forbids Christine from having any relationship with Isaac. In the months and years that follow, Christine will confront the Gestapo’s wrath and the horrors of Dachau, desperate to protect those she loves, to survive, and finally, to speak out.

THE PLUM TREE is an epic love story, but at its heart is Wiseman’s attempt to put a face on the countless destitute German women and children who lived and died under Hitler's regime, most often as victims of their government’s actions. Wiseman grew up listening to her mother’s remembrances of poverty, hunger, bombings, and constant fear in Germany during WWII.  Her German relatives who lived through the war as young adults and children told her of a country made up of women, children, and the elderly struggling to stay alive while the men were drafted and sent off to fight.

Wiseman weaves this personal heritage into the fictional story of THE PLUM TREE – an unforgettable novel of courage and resolve, of the inhumanity of war, and the heartbreak and hope left in its wake.

"Stories of WWII rarely look at the lives of the average German; Wiseman eschews the genre’s usual military conflicts in favor of the slow, inexorable pressure of daily life during wartime, lending an intimate and compelling poignancy to this intriguing debut." - Publishers Weekly

“A beautifully written first novel…Ellen Marie Wiseman weaves a story of intrigue, terror, and love from a perspective not often seen in Holocaust novels.” – Jewish Book World

“An extraordinary debut novel in which the author’s childhood trips visiting family in Germany impart a heartbreaking realism. A Holocaust story told from the unlikely perspective of a German teenage girl in love with a Jewish boy...an original and important addition to the World War II canon.”– RT Book Reviews, 4.5 stars, TOP PICK!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Ellen Marie Wiseman was born and raised in Three Mile Bay, a tiny hamlet in Northern New York. A first generation American, Ellen has traveled frequently to visit her family in Germany, where she fell in love with the country’s history and culture. Ellen lives on the shores of Lake Ontario with her husband and three dogs.

www.KensingtonBooks.com

For review copies or to schedule an interview with the author, please contact:

Vida Engstrand / Senior Publicist / 212.407.1573 / vengstrand@kensingtonbooks.com

Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/12035723/1