Book Reviews

Book Review: Galerie

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Reviews

Welcome to the Galerie Tour with

Author Steven Greenburg

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Book Review by Eric Swett

Survival is an instinct all animals share. Fight or flight. When humans are put into a position where survival is on the line, there is no telling what they might do. Fight or flight can turn to surrender or barbarism in the blink of an eye. Vanessa Neuman is haunted by survival. How did her parents, grandfather and uncle survive when so many others died during the holocaust? When her father dies, he leaves her his leather bound diary filled with the stories of other Jews, and Vanessa heads to Prague to see what she can learn, but will she regrets uncovering a past other left behind?

THE GOOD

Galerie is Steven Greenberg’s second novel, and it is a real page turner, but not because it is simple reading. The author’s prose is magnificent and engaging. The words draw you through the story with an urgency that can old be achieved through good storytelling. Vanessa pops as the lead while the supporting cast of family members and diary memories bring to life a story that could have been relegated to  mere window dressing. Vanessa’s husband, the anxious narrator, provides the backdrop for the story that goes beyond the highly detailed locales explored by the author.

THE BAD

The story jumps from time to time to time and from location to location. If the author were any less skilled it might be an issues, but he weaves the story through the changes in such a way that the suspense builds faster and more intently than if the story followed a more traditional, linear trajectory. So is this bad? No, not really.

THE TAKEAWAY

this is a tremendous addition to the genre. It is dark and gritty at times, but the story and writing lift it up to the point of being nearly sublime. buy this book and say goodbye to your family for the weekend, because you will not want to put it down once you get started.

About the Book

Every family holds to secrets, but some are far darker, reach deeper, and touch a rawer nerve than others.

Vanesa Neuman is the daughter of Holocaust survivors, and her childhood in the cramped intimacy of south Tel Aviv is shadowed by her parents’ unspoken wartime experiences. The past for her was a closed book… until her father passes away and that book falls literally open. Vanesa must now unravel the mystery of the diary she has received—and the strange symbol within—at all costs.

Set against the backdrop of the Nazi occupation and the Jewish Museum of Prague—Adolf Eichmann’s “Museum of an Extinct Race”—Galerie is fast-paced historical fiction in the tradition of Tatiana De Rosnay’s Sarah’s Key. From Jerusalem’s Yad V’Shem Holocaust research center, to the backstreets of Prague, and into the former “paradise ghetto” of Theresienstadt, Vanesa’s journey of understanding will reveal a darker family past than she ever imagined—a secret kept alive for over half a century.

About the Author

Steven Greenburg is a professional writer, as well as a full-time cook, cleaner, chauffeur, and work-at-home Dad for three amazing young children, and the lucky husband of a loving and very supportive wife. Born in Texas and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana, he emigrated to Israel only months before the first Gulf War, following graduation from Indiana University in 1990. In 1996, Steven was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces, where he served for 12 years as a Reserves Combat Medic. Since 2002, Steven has worked as an independent marketing writer, copywriter and consultant. To find out more about Steven Greenburg, find him on Facebook, Goodreads and his website.

About the Prizes

Don’t forget to check out the rafflecopter for this tour here! This tour will 3 $10 gift cards & the more you share, the more you’re entered!

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