Berlin Butterfly

Ensnare (Berlin Butterfly Series Book 1)

Fiction - Historical - Event/Era
383 Pages
Reviewed on 07/04/2019
Buy on Amazon

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Free Book Program, which is open to all readers and is completely free. The author will provide you with a free copy of their book in exchange for an honest review. You and the author will discuss what sites you will post your review to and what kind of copy of the book you would like to receive (eBook, PDF, Word, paperback, etc.). To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email.

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Review Exchange Program, which is open to all authors and is completely free. Simply put, you agree to provide an honest review an author's book in exchange for the author doing the same for you. What sites your reviews are posted on (B&N, Amazon, etc.) and whether you send digital (eBook, PDF, Word, etc.) or hard copies of your books to each other for review is up to you. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email, and be sure to describe your book or include a link to your Readers' Favorite review page or Amazon page.

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Donation Program, which was created to help nonprofit and charitable organizations (schools, libraries, convalescent homes, soldier donation programs, etc.) by providing them with free books and to help authors garner more exposure for their work. This author is willing to donate free copies of their book in exchange for reviews (if circumstances allow) and the knowledge that their book is being read and enjoyed. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email. Be sure to tell the author who you are, what organization you are with, how many books you need, how they will be used, and the number of reviews, if any, you would be able to provide.

Author Biography

Leah Moyes is from Arizona, but experienced many parts of the world in thanks to a career in the airlines, now most of her time, aside from writing is spent as a mom to four incredible kids and studying ancient cultures as an anthropologist.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Tiffany Ferrell for Readers' Favorite

Life changes dramatically for fifteen-year-old Ella Kühn in August of 1961 in Leah Moyes' book Berlin Butterfly: Ensnare. Berlin is divided by a wall that East Germany is building to keep its residents in. Unfortunately, Ella and her dying father get stuck while she sends her little brother and sweetheart ahead to the west and to freedom. After the death of her adoptive father, Ella gets employment with the wealthy well-to-do mortician Herr Franke in order to pay off the debt of the burial she couldn’t afford. The Franke household is a world of its own with its owners lacking for nothing while chaos erupts as people are killed while desperately trying to seek freedom in the west. The lady of the house is cruel and the older son seems determined to torment her as well. Ella never gives up hope that one day she’ll be able to get past that wall to the family that awaits her. As the months of her servitude continue, things change, people change, and Ella finds herself conflicted between the need to escape or staying with a boy she has come to forgive and love.

I was absolutely captivated by this book from the first page. I admit my history is a bit rusty when it comes to after WWII and what happened to Germany when the wall went up. I was a year old when it finally fell; my father-in-law was there with the US army when it happened. It’s so refreshing to read historical fiction from a period not written about much in that sense. Leah Moyes has done a fantastic job in telling the at times heartbreaking story of Ella Kühn and those first couple years the wall was up and what occurred in East Germany. There are so many colorful and amazing characters that I can’t really choose one that I liked the most. I am anxiously looking forward to the second book and what the future holds for Ella, Anton, and the Franke family.

Greg

This is an incredible story about a young lady who grows through the period of the building of the Berlin Wall and both her emotional and physical struggles to get over the wall. We all experience those struggles today with our own internal walls. Ella is a fantastic character you’re constantly pulling for despite all of her setbacks. If you have not yet read the Berlin Butterfly series this is one you will be happy you read and wondered where have the books like this one been hiding all this time.

I’m looking forward to the final book (#3) in this historical series which comes out on the 30 year Anniversary of the wall coming down in November. Great job by Moyes!