K. J. Holdom — The End And The Beginning: A Novel

Simon & Schuster 2026 Paperback 352 A stunning tour de force of a novel based on the true story of a fourteen-year-old boy's harrowing experience fleeing a Hitler youth camp with his best friend in the last days of the Second World War--perfect for readers of All the Light We Cannot See and The German Girl. At the start of the war, eight-year-old Max Bernot lives with his sister and parents in Lauterbach, Saarland, a narrow strip of territory between the French and German defence lines. His German father, Anton, and his French mother, Marguerite, do their best to shield Max and his sister, Anna, from Nazi violence, but in late 1944, their beloved godfather is executed in their garden by the SS, and Max, now thirteen, is conscripted in the Volkssturm. Good