Eva Schmidt

BASTARD. A JEW . . .

With these three words, Eva Schmidt is abandoned to the arms of Bertha Pappenheim, the director of an orphanage for Jewish girls in Frankfurt. It is 1913 and Frau Pappenheim raises Eva among her 'spiritual daughters.' Despite being highly educated, Eva can't escape the shame of her birth. At 17, she trades the orphanage's shelter for the dream of freedom in Weimar Berlin.

When Hitler and his Nazi brownshirts rise to power, Eva is working as a dive bar fortune teller and seamstress. Her Jewish past is her most fiercely protected secret. She is in love with Thad Cartwright, an ambitious American spy, who introduces her to Berlin's West End, a place Eva has only dreamed about and to which she struggles to belong.

After a chance encounter at the bar, Magda Goebbels, wife of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, hires Eva as her spiritual advisor. Between Magda's charisma and the persistent courtship of Hans Lorenz, Joseph's top aide, Eva is lured deep into elite Nazi circles. Thad presses Eva to spy on 'her Nazis,' and her double life quickly turns into a treacherous maze built on lies, guilt and fear. Ultimately, Eva is forced to confront her hidden past and risk everything she has to save her life.

Eva Schmidt is an important and magnificent novel. Eva is a fabulous protagonist. I found myself worrying about her in the middle of the night. I kept telling myself to stop because she's a character in a novel, but for me, she is real.

-Elaine Petrocelli, President, Book Passage