This spellbinding, page turner tells the story, based on a true story, of two working class British women, sisters Ida and Louise Cook, who scrimped and saved their money to attend operas in England and throughout Europe and ultimately became heroes.

Eventually, through the people they met in the opera business, they learned about the dangers facing Jews in Germany and smuggled furs and jewelry out of Germany and into England and personally escorted Jewish refugees to England. Ultimately, members of 29 families were saved by these brave women.

As an opera buff, I especially loved the portions early in the book dealing with opera but I think this book would appeal to non-opera buffs as well. This would be an excellent book for anyone who wants to learn about what ordinary people were able to accomplish during World War 2.

Well-written, well-researched and a book I would highly recommend.

(I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via Net Galley, in exchange for a fair and honest review.) ( )

You don't have to know anything about opera or even like it to read this book. It's mostly about Ida and Louisa Cook's work to get the Jewish people out of Germany and Austria. I found out somewhere in reading it that they were real people. Also, I didn't know there were notes about certain passages in the back until I was about a third of the way through. I still forgot to read them as there was no notation for when we should flip to the back. I think this was one of the best books I've read on the subject. ( )

The Opera Sisters by Marianne Monson is a story of love, war, and Nazi Persecution of the Jews in Germany and Austria. It's wonderfully researched and written with compassion and empathy for the time.

The story is based on the Cook sisters, Ida Cook was a campaigner for the Jews and an author using the name Mary Purcell. She and her sister Mary Louise was instrumental in aiding 29 Jews to escape the persecution of Jews in Austria and Germany mostly after Kristallnacht.

They both loved opera so they were able to obtain tickets to concerts performed in Germany. These trips to the operas were coverups for what they were really up to. While there in Germany, it became word of mouth about what they could do to help these people that had had everything taken from them. They would take their jewelry and other valuable items back to England with them and keep them for the people. Then they were able to smuggle the people back to England. The only way that they were able to do this is recruit people in England to sponsor the Jews.

In a three-year period, they were able to save 29, men women, and children. Austrian conductor Clemens Krauss and his wife, soprano Viorica Ursuleac originally told them about the plight of the Jews. Ida as an author was able to support the effort with the money she made from the novels.

They had rented a small flat in England for some of these refugees that had nowhere else to go. After the war, the sisters continued their efforts to save as many people as they could from the nastiness that was the Nazis.

I love this book so much, cheered for the sisters and their endeavors, not a fan of opera but I found it very interesting that they were able to use this ruse to free people right under the Nazi guard's noses.

Impeccable research went into this story and it shows. I was the first that I had heard of the Cook sisters and I am glad I read this book. It will stay in my mind for a long time to come.

I give the book 5 stars. ( )

historical-fiction, historical-figures, historical-places-events, historical-research, historical-setting, history-and-culture, holocaust, WW2, romance-writer, family, family-dynamics, fanatic about opera, bravery, British, rescue, opera-stars*****

The people are real, the history is real, the conversations are likely, the research is well documented, and the storytelling is very fine, indeed. I remembered reading about the sisters over a year ago and dug into my Goodreads pile to find it. This book is grand storytelling for an important piece of history and two very remarkable women. I really enjoyed this one!
"Ida Cook (1904 to 1986) was a British campaigner for Jewish refugees and a romance novelist as Mary Burchell. Ida Cook and her sister Mary Louise Cook (1901–1991) rescued Jews from the Nazis during the 1930s. The sisters helped 29 people escape, funded mainly by Ida's writing. In 1965, the Cook sisters were honoured as Righteous among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority in Israel. Between 1936 and 1985, Ida Cook wrote 112 romance novels as Mary Burchell in 1950 she wrote her autobiography, We Followed Our Stars," and The Bravest Voices: The Extraordinary Heroism of Sisters Ida and Louise Cook During the Nazi Era by Ida Cook was published in 2021.
I requested and received an e-book copy from Shadow Mountain Publishing via NetGalley. Thank you! ( )

What an awesome job this author did with bringing this story alive. We meet the Cook sisters, Ida and Louise, on the cusp of their young adult lives. Soon, we are with these young women as they discover their mutual love of opera, and they save every cent they have to keep fulfilling their dreams.
They begin going to the continent from their home in Great Brittan, and are such enthusiastic lovers of Opera they are being to be recognized and meeting famous performers and others with their passion. These are real people, although the story is fictional, most of the the story is based on fact.
Soon, with a lot of people not believing, the evil was taking over Europe, and getting rid of the problem, the Jewish population!
These sisters were amazing people, they sacrificed and gave all that they had to help others, and there are people alive today because of them. A captivating read, with notes that correspond with the facts being revealed.
Thank you Marianne Monson!
I received this book through the Publisher Shadow Mountain, and was not required to give a positive review. ( )