The Lion's Den

The Lion's Den Series, Book 1

By: Eoin Dempsey

Narrated by: Joff Manning

A broken family. A new opportunity in a country on the precipice of unspeakable evil.

November 1932. Seamus Ritter, a widower with four children, returns from riding the rails in an America crippled by the great depression. Realizing that his homecoming will not be how he envisioned it, and in a desperate attempt to make amends with his 16-year-old daughter, Maureen, Seamus accepts an invitation to come and work for his long-lost uncle in Berlin. With little other choice, Seamus takes the ship to Germany with his family. Maureen leaves everything to go with her father she no longer trusts, dedicated to taking care of her younger siblings.

The Germany the Ritter family encounters is vastly different than the one Seamus spent time living in as a child. An upstart politician called Adolf Hitler has come to the fore, but surely it’s only a matter of time before the right-thinking members of society banish him to the fringes of the political landscape he emerged from.

As the Ritter family struggles to adjust to life in a country ravaged by unemployment and internal strife, Seamus meets Lisa, a beautiful and mysterious woman weighed down by the ghosts of her past life. When tragedy strikes, Lisa and Seamus will be forced to act together to save their lives and build a future together in a nation that, unbeknownst to the citizens there, is about to descend into the greatest evil the world has ever known.

The Lion’s Den is the first novel in a new series by the number one Amazon best-selling author of White Rose, Black Forest, and The Longest Echo set in Hitler’s Germany in the 1930s. Buy it and discover Eoin Dempsey’s books today.

©2021 Eoin Dempsey (P)2022 Eoin Dempsey

A single father’s dramatic journey through loss and struggles to provide for his children

This story is a winding tale of what happened to a German immigrant during the US depression after his wife died leaving him with 4 children and his banking job wiped out. It’s intense at times and an example of what someone can do in desperation to provide for his children. It’s a character study of a basically decent man wanting to behave morally but also making poor choices at times due to human weakness, desperation and loneliness.

Care

I quickly began to care about the characters and thought the background was useful history.

a study in stupid decisions

The Good: The story is different from most other WW II books, in that it is about a family in Germany just before the war. The narration is very good- the reader does a good job of using different voices for each character.

The Bad: The characters make unbelievably STUPID decisions. So many times, as I listened, I found myself screaming "Don't do it!!" and exclaiming "Seriously?? Are you kidding me right now??"

The Ugly: I like long books, and love series. Many books I listen to are 18+ hours. This "series" seems more like one book broken onto 4 segments, so I paid 4 credits to listen to this story.

Very predictable story

Too short and too predictable. Feels like the story was stretched to make a series.

Great series

I've enjoyed the series so far, Good character development and storyline. I've looked forward to next book after finishing each in the series. The narration is good and gives each character their own voice. I'm currently waiting for the latest book to be available on audio.

Great start of a series!

I love WW2 historical fiction and this book gives an interesting glimpse of prewar Berlin and Hitler’s rise. I instantly liked the main character and his family and can’t wait to read the next in the series. The narrator does great German accents, while still being easy to understand. I felt he really added to the story and atmosphere.

Great book, crippled by terrible prologue

The book excels with rounded characters and tense, fast moving plot. The prologue summarizes the protagonist as a one-dimensional saint who give the money he saved for his family to a stranger.

It must have been written by a terrible writer. Perhaps a pr flak or tone-deaf editor.

Skip the prologue and it’s spoilers and dive straight into this excellent book.

Boring

Just don’t like it..
I forced myself to listen-I no longer want to & will find another book.