Heart-Breaking & Inspiring

The Ruins In Which We Bleed by Steve N Lee is a powerful historical novel that I read in just two sittings, pausing only to sleep. It is the third book in the World War II Historical Fiction series but can be read as a stand-alone.

This is a book that will both horrify and inspire you. This is a book that will impact you and not leave you unchanged – because this is a book that is based on real lives.

What the lead character went through seems unbelievable, it seems impossible – but this impossibility is in fact true.

This is a story about a sixteen-year-old who was brave and resourceful. As you read the tale, it is all too easy to forget that she was just sixteen. She was wise beyond her years.

The story is set in the Warsaw ghetto. We hear about life both before and after the Warsaw uprising. We see the importance of family, and of having someone else to live for. Complete isolation would break a spirit. People needed to have someone to live for. “She smiled at the furry little creature. Even in hell, it appeared that friendships could blossom.”

Resistance came in many forms. “This was her sixteenth notebook… The other fifteen had been buried around the ghetto in tins… She couldn’t fire a gun, but she was deadly with a pencil – this was her way of resisting.” Without written records and personal testimonies, how would the world know? “Resisting isn’t only about picking up a gun but about refusing to simply lie down and die… We are resisting… because we’re still here.” There was a strong spirit to survive. “She’d vowed to survive to tell the world.”

Life in the Warsaw ghetto was horrific. Steve N Lee has written sensitively, whilst still relaying the horrors to the reader. “What kind of a world had they built where it was normal for streets to be littered with the corpses of emaciated children?”

Ironically just a few streets away, life was good. “She stared. At freedom. At normality. At a world where people were simply people living life. It was the first time she’d seen anything but overcrowded streets and filthy tenements for a getting on for a year.” The simplicity and beauty of normal life contrasted sharply with the streets of hell which was the ghetto.

For some, they managed to retain their dignity, their humanity, and their compassion. Others within the ghetto were reduced to baseness as they were purely out for themselves.

Sparkle, the kitty, was a symbol of hope, of humanity, of a brighter tomorrow.

All the characters were well drawn and realistic. The cruelty of the Nazis came through. The goodness and kindness of those who had little also shone through.

This is a horrifying but necessary read. It must be read in memory of the six million innocents who perished, and of those who survived. The world needs to know. We must never forget.

I received a free copy from the author. A favourable review was not required. All opinions are my own.

JULIA WILSON

Blurb

A story of courage and a fight for survival like none you have ever read. Guaranteed!

Inspired by a previously untold true story.

Following the Nazi invasion of Poland, 13-year-old Helena is imprisoned in the Warsaw ghetto, a squalid hellhole rife with disease and starvation. Yet, although the Nazis have destroyed her home, her life, and her future, they haven’t destroyed the only thing that truly matters — her family. Helena might be just a child, but she’s a fighter, and she’ll do whatever it takes to help her loved ones.

Making sacrifices no child should ever have to make, seeing horrors no child should ever have to see, Helena bravely battles on as her world crumbles amid random killings, slave labor, and deportations. And through it all, her compassion helps to protect her family. But then the Nazis unleash new horrors.

With the ghetto a raging sea of flames, explosions, and gunfire, Helena runs for her life only to hurtle straight into an unimaginable hell from which there seems no escape. And the Nazis are closing in. Can her love for her family give her the strength to survive?

Inspired by a heartbreaking true story of unbelievable courage, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit, The Ruins in Which We Bleed reveals that, even in the darkest of times, one person can make a difference through the greatest power of all — love.

If you didn’t know this was inspired by a true story, you would never believe it possible. Read The Ruins in Which We Bleed now.

Short Bio

Apart from animals and writing, Steve’s passion is travel. He’s visited 60 countries and enjoyed some amazing experiences, including cage-diving with great white sharks, sparring with a monk at a Shaolin temple, and watching a turtle lay eggs on a moonlit beach. He’s explored Machu Picchu, Pompeii, and the Great Wall of China, yet for all that, he’s a man of simple tastes — give him an egg sandwich and the TV remote control, and he’ll be happy for hours!

He lives in the North of England with his partner, Ania, and two black cats who arrived in the garden one day and liked it so much, they moved into the house. Graciously, the cats allow Steve and Ania to stay in ‘their’ home.