A review by jtlars7
Resistance by Owen Sheers

4.0

I highly recommend this book. It starts with the premise that the Allied invasion of Normandy has failed and the Germans have counter-attacked, invading Britain. All of the women in one Welsh valley wake up to find that their husbands have gone away - presumably to join the British resistance to Nazi occupation. Later, a patrol of war- weary German soldiers moves into the valley, and the women and Germans develop a close - if wary - relationship over the course of a harsh winter. The counterfactual history was unsettling (with off-hand references to the Japanese attacks on California, for example) and something about an invasion of Britain hit closer to home for me than the real history of Germany's WWII conquests, perhaps just because I didn't grow up knowing it as a real part of the past. I stayed up late to finish the book, then was awake even longer wishing for someone to discuss it with. While the ending didn't work out the way a big part of me hoped it would, it was satisfying in that the characters all stayed true to what I would have expected based on their development throughout the novel.