Night Angels
“The foreboding tone of this audiobook's narrators suggests the brutality of the Nazi occupation of Vienna. Performed in a low-key yet effective style by Angela Lin, Jesse Vilinsky and Feodor Chin, the novel focuses on Grace Fengshan, wife of a Chinese diplomat who is posted to Austria during a period of pogroms and other actions against the Jews.… The use of a team of narrators works well for the story's multiple characters of various nationalities. While all the narrators handle their roles well, Angela Lin's portrayal of Grace is especially memorable.
From the author of The Last Rose of Shanghai comes a profoundly moving novel about a diplomatic couple who risked their lives to help Viennese Jews escape the Nazis, inspired by the true story of Dr. Ho Fengshan, Righteous Among the Nations.
1938. Dr. Ho Fengshan, consul general of China, is posted in Vienna with his American wife, Grace. Shy and ill at ease with the societal obligations of diplomats’ wives, Grace is an outsider in a city beginning to feel the sweep of the Nazi dragnet. When Grace forms a friendship with her Jewish tutor, Lola Schnitzler, Dr. Ho requests that Grace keep her distance. His instructions are to maintain amicable relations with the Third Reich, and he and Grace are already under their vigilant eye.
But when Lola’s family is subjugated to a brutal pogrom, Dr. Ho decides to issue them visas to Shanghai. As violence against the Jews escalates after Kristallnacht and threats mount, Dr. Ho must issue thousands more to help Jews escape Vienna before World War II explodes.
Inspired by a remarkable true story, Night Angels explores the risks brave souls took and the love and friendship they built and lost while fighting against incalculable evil.
Praise