The Boy with the Star Tattoo

A Novel

De: Talia Carner

Narrado por: Carlotta Brentan

From acclaimed author of The Third Daughter comes an epic historical novel of ingenuity and courage, of love and loss, spanning postwar France when Israeli agents roamed the countryside to rescue hidden Jewish orphans—to the 1969 daring escape of the Israeli boats of Cherbourg.

1942: As the Vichy government hunts for Jews across France, Claudette Pelletier, a young and talented seamstress and lover of romance novels, falls in love with a Jewish man who seeks shelter at the château where she works. Their whirlwind and desperate romance before he must flee leaves her pregnant and terrified.

When the Nazis invade the Free Zone shortly after the birth of her child, the disabled Claudette is forced to make a heartbreaking choice and escapes to Spain, leaving her baby in the care of his nursemaid. By the time Claudette is able to return years later, her son has disappeared. Unbeknown to his anguished mother, the boy has been rescued by a Youth Aliyah agent searching for Jewish orphans.

1968: When Israeli naval officer Daniel Yarden recruits Sharon Bloomenthal for a secret naval operation in Cherbourg, France, he can’t imagine that he is the target of the agenda of the twenty-year-old grieving the recent loss of her fiancé in a drowned submarine. Sharon suspects that Danny's past in Youth Aliyah may reflect that of her mysterious late mother and she sets out to track her boss’s extraordinary journey as an orphan in a quaint French village all the way to Israel.

As Danny focuses on the future of his people and on executing a daring, crucial operation under France’s radar, he is unaware that the obsessed Sharon follows the breadcrumbs of clues across the country to find her answers. But she is wholly unprepared for the dilemma she must face upon solving the puzzle.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2024 Talia Carner (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers

Great history lesson

I loved learning about a time in history that I knew so little about. Talia Carner has done an excellent job of making history come alive. Her characters seem so real and you are really hoping for a successful outcome.

Outstanding Historical Fiction

The interweaving of the stories was breathtaking! The characters were both intriguing and very believable.

My book club loved it

The book makes for great fiction based on history. I learned a lot about the three historical periods in the book: the Loire Valley of France during 1940-42, the work of Israel’s Youth Aliyah in 1946 in the Loire Valley, and the naval crisis involving France and Israel at the onset of Israel’s attack on Beirut in the late 1960’s. The major characters are well drawn and some characters are historical. Listening to the book intensely engaged me. My only criticism is the author’s repeated complaint, which was extraneous to the narrative and historically false, that the League of Nations in 1922 robbed the Jews in Palestine of the area now known as Jordan.