A Light Beyond the Trenches

<b>From the <i>USA Today </i>bestselling author of <i>Churchill&#146;s Secret Messenger</i> comes a WWI novel based on little-known history as four very different lives intertwine across Europe from Germany to France&#151;a German Red Cross nurse a Jewish pianist blinded on the battlefield a soldier tortured by deadly secrets of his own and his tormented French mistress. This life-affirming tale of heroism and resilience will stay with you long after turning the final page.</b><br><br>By April 1916 the fervor that accompanied war&#146;s outbreak has faded. In its place is a grim reality. Throughout Germany essentials are rationed. Hope too is in short supply. Anna Zeller whose fianc&#233; Bruno is fighting on the western front works as a nurse at an overcrowded hospital in Oldenburg trying to comfort men broken in body and spirit. But during a visit from Dr. Stalling the director of the Red Cross Ambulance Dogs Association she witnesses a rare spark of optimism: as a German shepherd guides a battle-blinded soldier over a garden path Dr. Stalling is inspired with an idea&#151;to train dogs as companions for sightless veterans.<br> &#160;<br> Anna convinces Dr. Stalling to let her work at his new guide dog training school. Some of the dogs that arrive are themselves veterans of war including Nia a German shepherd with trench-damaged paws. Anna brings the ailing Nia home and secretly tends and trains her convinced she may yet be the perfect guide for the right soldier. In Max Benesch a Jewish soldier blinded by chlorine gas at the front Nia finds her person.<br> &#160;<br> War has taken Max&#146;s sight his fianc&#233;e and his hopes of being a composer. Yet despite all he&#146;s given for his country the tide of anti-Semitism at home is rising and Max encounters it first-hand in one of the school&#146;s trainers who is determined to make Max fail. Still through Anna&#146;s prompting he rediscovers his passion for music. But as Anna discovers more about the conflict&#146;s escalating brutality&#151;and Bruno&#146;s role in it&#151;she realizes how impossible it will be for any of them to escape the war unscathed . . .