Jessica Shattuck, “The Women in the Castle”

Written with the devastating emotional power of “The Nightingale,” and “The Light Between Oceans,” Jessica Shattuck’s evocative and utterly enthralling novel offers a fresh perspective on one of the most tumultuous periods in history. Set at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played host to all of German high society, “The Women in the Castle” is a powerful and propulsive story of three widows whose lives and fates become intertwined—an affecting, shocking, and ultimately redemptive novel.