Perfectly Ordinary People

By: Nick Alexander

Narrated by: Mary Jane Wells, David de Vries, Helen Lloyd, Elizabeth Knowelden

In occupied France, two people sacrificed everything. Now their granddaughter has come looking for the truth…

Ruth’s childhood was a happy one, and her family—on her mother’s side—large and loving. But her father’s French origins have always remained a mystery. Now, with aged relatives beginning to die, Ruth decides to research her father’s family before it’s too late.

When she discovers a series of long-lost cassettes, everything she thought she knew about them shatters. The tapes expose an unimaginable truth–an epic wartime story of hidden love and sacrifice, stretching back to occupied France.

These long-buried confessions will rock Ruth’s family—and finally piece together the puzzle of her father’s heritage. But are any of them ready for the truth?

©2022 Nick Alexander (P)2022 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Fascinating historical fiction

Wonderful story of a family finding their origins and discovering secrets long buried because of so much personal and political trauma. Intensely sad and miraculous at times, and most definitely worth reading.

But not an Ordinary story!

Loved this story! The narrator was brilliant and the story profound, horrifying, eye-opening, heart warming and inspiring. A must read!!

Best narration

I feel funny, even calling it narration. It was storytelling at its finest. The narrators brought the story to life. It was all ready to amazing story. Particularly the narrator who voiced Ruth, truly fabulous.

Slow start

I’ve loved all this author’s titles but this one started off slow for me and I contemplated giving up. I’m glad I persevered. The story eventually got me hooked and it was a satisfying one.

Engaging and important story that was well told

Great performance and lovely historical fiction. I laughed and cried and learned about experiences during WWll that aren't often talked about.

Amazing Story of sacrifice, love and relationships

I wasn’t sure what the story was going to be about not having read the synopsis. But very quickly I was captivated by the characters and the story. I found it all very moving, especially hearing about the horrors of trying to survive an occupied France, and being a homosexual living in a time when you couldn’t express your sexuality in the open.it’s so much more than just a story of peoples lives and how they survived. It is also a way to remember what people went through in World War III and away for us to all remember.

Choked up

This has a dual timeline of WWII Germany and the persecution of LGBT members (pink triangles) by the Nazis. The modern timeline is 1986 London immersed with a typical big, fun-loving, loud, English-Irish family. When their estranged French grandmother dies, her granddaughter realizes she missed an opportunity to know her and sets out to find just a wee bit of history but stumbles upon an extraordinary secret that rocks their lives, and things are never the same (sorry for the cliche)

Truth be told, I found myself leaning forward while listening to the audiobook as if I was watching TV, lol!!

The narrators SOLD this story so well (Mary Jane Wells, David de Vries, Helen Lloyd, Elizabeth Knowelden) I felt like this was my family or this could be anyone's family and the secret - I know this has to be real/factual on some level. But it's the aftermath of the secret that is so compelling, so thought-provoking. One of the themes that come across is family doesn't require a membership of blood, identity is a concept and that love & sacrifice are powerful forces. I almost cried at the end...and I'm so very thankful for my perfectly ordinary people.

Loving characters

I hesitate to say I like any holocaust story. There is nothing to like about the holocaust, and this story had extremely disturbing, appalling atrocities. I cried through most of the story, however, I loved the characters and wanted them to find happiness.

Must listen

This is one of those books that was enormously enhanced by the audio version. Each narrator had perfect accents and voices that gave personality and depth to the characters that would have been completely lost on the printed page. The story was a creative twist that added many layers to WWII fiction; I've probably read a hundred books set in that time period, and there was nothing that felt even a bit repetitive about this one. It was long, but I think it needed to be. Great story.

Moving story

It's sad how some people have been prosecuted and how brutal the Nazi were. How a whole country could have followed the will of a madman. This story is written from an angle different from any I have experience in the past and I really enjoyed it.