Reviewed by Nas Dean
The War Rings by Joanne Austen Brown is an emotionally gripping and beautifully written novel set during the harrowing years of Nazi Germany. From the very first chapter, the author pulls you into a world torn apart by cruelty, fear, and impossible choices—but also illuminated by extraordinary acts of bravery and love.
The story centers around a love story that becomes a powerful symbol of connection, memory, and resistance. Through the lives of characters who feel painfully real, Joanne Austen Brown captures both the brutality of the era and the quiet, stubborn hope that survived even in the darkest places.
What makes this book stand out is the author’s sensitivity and respect for the historical setting. The atrocities depicted are heartbreaking, yet never gratuitous. Instead, they underline what the characters are fighting to protect: humanity, family, and the belief that goodness can endure even when surrounded by unimaginable evil.
If you enjoy historical fiction that stays with you long after the last page, The War Rings is a must-read. It’s emotional, tense, and beautifully told—a story that honors the past while reminding us why it must never be forgotten.
Highly recommended.
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The War Rings
Joanne Austen Brown
Reviewed by Helen
This is a story that is based on a true story, set in a time when Germany was changing, it is 1930 and Alida and Dieter literally run into each other and it is love at first sight, they marry and have three children but Hitler is climbing the ranks in the government and doing all he can to change things and not for the better.
Alida and Dieter both have Jewish blood running through them, Dieter is a doctor and it is getting harder for him to treat Jewish patients and Alida is getting more worried they make a decision to leave and go to England to be with Alida’s sister Marta but they all don’t make it and when Alida sees her children safe with her sister she goes back to find her husband.
What happens is a time of persecution, danger and pain, what will happen to them? And now all these years later after the war has ended it is time for Marta to tell the full story to Alida and Dieter’s children.
The truth is painful and will not be easy for some people to read, but it is a story that the author felt must be told, what the people of Germany went through even before the war started was terrible, the love that flows between Alida and Dieter was so strong and everlasting.
There is a lot of facts told throughout the book and that was very interesting, parts were hard to read but it is told with heart and care.
My thanks to the author for my digital copy to read and review.
4 stars
November 11, 2025 by Joanne Austen Brown
