A High and Hidden Place

Christine's encounter with an angel and a long-held truth involving Nazi massacre and her family's date - a fate which has left her alive - comes to life in a series of gripping images in A HIGH AND HIDDEN PLACE, a novel of faith, love, and loss. A first-person account follows Christine from childhood through Nazi threats, convent life, and more. It's a journey of religion, faith, memory and discovery as Christine discovers the truth and learns how it will affect the rest of her life. A moving story of recovery evolves, along with plenty of insights. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

There is so much more to this first novel than is found in a summary...It touches the reader's soul..a sleeper of a book, but I can think of no one who would not learn something about life from reading it...

For most of her life Christine Lenoir has felt that something, she wasn't sure what, what missing from her life. During her time in the United States, working for World magazine, she is witness to the assassination of President Kennedy. The next day she also witnesses the murder of L.H. Oswald. Something in the vision of these atrocities sparks her memory. She begins to have nightmares, visions, which she cannot explain but she knows hold the mystery of her long dead family. Raised in a convent, she was told that her family died of influenza. She returns to Paris and then to Oradour where she finally is told the horrible truth of the brutal shootings by the German soldiers as well as rounding up of all of the women and children into the church and burning the victims alive. As this time she abandons her faith in God, which had been very strong and is unable to decide her future. Through the help of her friend, Sophie, as well as a young man that she met in New York she finally sorts out her feelings and sees a path to her future as an historian. This book was very well written with good character description. I felt that she had a strong story to tell but she falters in the mid portion of the book when she describes those who died in the tragedy with very sketchy descriptions, which don't really reveal much. Nor does she go on to speak much of these people throughout the rest of the book. I was somewhat disappointed; I think it could have been a stronger novel. However I still did enjoy it and learned about the very real tragedy which did occur in Oradour in 1944. I would recommend it and think it could be a good book club

After growing up in a Parisian orphanage, Christine Lenoir is a successful international journalist working in the United States. When she witnesses the televised assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald, she suddenly remembers that she was once "Christine of Oradour" -- the sole known survivor of the Nazi decimation of a small French village. Christine returns to France to uncover her buried memories of the horror of the Holocaust. In many ways, Lucas' novel is a beautiful tale of the resiliency of the human psyche and the redemptive power of faith. However, the novel suffers some credibility problems. For example, when Christine arrives in the US, she's at the mercy of a culture she doesn't fully understand. This is hard to believe given Christine's career. Lucas makes much of Christine's inability to understand American slang, but then proceeds to put American idioms into the character's mouth. At times, the horror of the Nazis is portrayed in such lovely prose that it becomes almost gothically, dreamily beautiful. It becomes too easy for the reader's mind to skim the surface.

A High and Hidden Place is a must read by a talented new novelist Michele Claire Lucas. The story is a fresh one. It tells the story of a small village in France that Nazis kill every citizen and destroy every building. There is only a handful who survived this horrid act. The main character is one of the survivors, but was a child and has lost all memory of the event until she starts having flashbacks. Because of this, she goes on a search to find the truth of who she is. The characters are real and their dialogue moves the story along nicely. As difficult as parts of the story are to read, the events depicted actually happened and it is important for us to remember. It had me doing searches for the area involved. What I found is the town remains the same today as when it was destroyed in 1944. Ms Lucas has named some of the characters the same as those who went through the destruction of the town. The story could have been quite depressing, but the ending is filled with a lot of hope. I learned some history I had not known and what I read made me cry. It also seems to be a lesson for today, too. There is plain evil in the world - and it has nothing to do with religion, but more the lack of a belief. The final chapter was the most important to me, personally, especially the favorite prayer of Sophie's mother. I for one, hope this is the first of many novels by Ms Lucas.