Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture, and author Kate Hewitt for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

This is the third book in a series by Kate Hewitt that centers on four young women who meet during World War II. They are four Jewish women attempting to escape Nazi Germany with their families on board the S.S. St. Louis, which was turned away from Cuba. The four end up in very different circumstances, but promise each other they will meet up again when it’s “safe.”

Like earlier books in the series, The Girl Who Risked It All gives us a glimpse of life after World War II, with three of the four women meeting up as they promised. We know that one of the women is not there, but not who it is. One of them remarks that she knows the missing woman will not be there because she saw her cut down.

Hannah was on board the St. Louis with her younger sister, Lottie. They were on their way to live with their father in Havana, Cuba after their mother remarried an S.S. Agent. When the remaining passengers are divided up to go to various European countries, Hannah and Lottie find themselves in France. While Hannah is out one day trying to arrange passage to Cuba, Lottie is taken to an orphanage. Hannah manages to track her down, but the setting Lottie is in is much better than what Hannah can offer her at the current time.

While trying to figure out her next step, Hannah makes the acquaintance of Michel. He’s a jazz musician who lives with his parents nearby. They offer Hannah shelter and she helps out in the father’s tailor shop. Being only half-Jewish, many of the restrictions once the Nazis invade France don’t apply to her, but Hannah stays hidden as much as possible until one day she is discovered. With contacts in the Resistance Network in France, Hannah is sent south to the Vichy area where she finds herself working as a seamstress in a brothel that caters to German officers and becoming a part of the Resistance.

Hannah has a lot of great character development here. She begins as an 18-year-old woman who is unsure of her life and her place in it. She is depending on her father to take care of her and her sister once her mother rejects them to side with her S.S. husband. Once she is convinced that they can’t get to him in Cuba, she finds a resilience she didn’t know she had. Lottie is the most important thing in the world to her, but she also gives her sister the space to grow as well. Hannah learns from Michel’s family what family life can be like in a real family where there is love. She finds herself falling for Michel but isn’t sure he feels the same until he joins the fight when the Nazis invade France. It seems everyone she loves or cares about ends up abandoning her and she has trouble trusting that people will be there for her. This creates a resilience in her that helps her survive the war.

More than the other two books in the series, The Girl Who Risked It All gives a more complete picture of life during World War II. Since Hannah’s story takes place in an occupied country I can see how the Nazis acted as well as how the people who resisted fared. Hannah is luckily able to get into a situation where she’s not suffering all that much but also has guilt about it. She does quite a bit of work for the Resistance but is tarnished by the company she keeps to glean the information. After the fact, it was easy for people to point fingers at those they believed to be collaborators, but with so many secrets these allegations were often against people who worked against the Nazis.

I enjoyed The Girl Who Risked It All quite a bit. Kate Hewitt does a terrific job making me feel like I was right there with Hannah during the occupation as well as the difficulty she faced when she had to make hard choices. This series has been great to read, and this is another entry that delivers very well on a subject that is pretty serious.

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