Kelly’s debut novel, published April 5, 2016, is available on Amazon in hardcover, paperback, Kindle, or audiobook formats, at your local library, or through the Libby App. The structure of the book is triple points of view alternating between the three main characters: 

Caroline Ferriday, a New York socialite who volunteers at the French consulate, assists French orphanages and ultimately Polish concentration camp survivors. Kelly took the unfortunate liberty of injecting a romantic subplot for Caroline with a married French stage actor named Paul Rodier; this romantic storyline overwhelms her thoughts, thus her chapters, which detract from the actual history of Caroline Ferriday and all she achieved before, during, and after WWII. In the audiobook, Caroline is narrated by Cassandra Campbell. Her beautiful and smooth narration doesn’t change the two-dimensionality of this character, making it hard for readers and listeners to connect with her and the causes she’s fighting for.

Kasia Kuzmerick, a teenage Polish girl arrested as a political prisoner for helping the ‘underground’ to impress a boy, is a character who maintains this attitude throughout the book, ‘How can I impress Pietrik?’. She, her sister, and her mother are sent to Ravensbrück, the Nazi’s only all-female concentration camp, where she undergoes inhumane medical procedures. Kathleen Gati narrates Kasia; her narration is on point, depicting a surly, bitter, angry, resentful, and unlikable woman. If this is Kelly’s intention to endear readers and listeners to the ‘rabbits’ and all the other horrors that transpired at the camp, she fell far short of the mark, as it’s nearly impossible to connect with Kasia.

Herta Oberhauser, a German doctor working for the Nazis at Ravensbrück, performed heinous medical experiments on the prisoners. This character is the hardest one to connect with because, although Kelly attempts to make readers and listeners sympathetic to Herta, showing us how outraged she is when she arrives at the camp and discovers she’s to euthanize a percentage of the prisoners and states she’d be gone by sunrise. Still, by her next chapter, Herta is elbow deep in a horrific experimental surgery, and her only explanation is that the salary was greatly needed. Kelly left too much out for the audience to understand this drastic change of heart. Kathrin Kana reads Herta’s character in the audiobook, keeping her narration robotic, almost auto-narrated, as if showcasing how cold, detached, and detestable Herta is at her core.

Kelly’s overuse of dialogue tags when unnecessary became annoying. The rushed pacing, where in a sentence a week or months flew by, leaving her audience behind, wondering what grew infuriating. The writing and dialogue made her characters insubstantial. Kasia’s attitude when she joins the ‘underground’ is a prime example of this, with her overexuberance for being on a mission, or Caroline’s focus on the socialites, and most importantly, Paul portraying a flimsy woman instead of a determined, capable one. Although Herta was a real person and played a significant role in the lives of the prisoners at Ravensbrück, her point of view chapters were maddening as Kelly attempted to diminish the monstrosities through her eyes. Why give her voice at all? By doing so, it’s like rationalizing the atrocities that occurred. Yes, it is crucial to understand how the Nazis justified their actions; nonetheless, in this case, Herta shouldn’t have a voice as equal to Kasia or Caroline. Kelly could have found another way to express this perspective.

The most valuable aspect of this book is the research, which provides incredibly detailed information about the ‘rabbits’, as well as Caroline Ferriday’s life through her charitable efforts with the orphans and survivors. Furthermore, in her Author’s note narrated by Kelly she summarizes her initial interest in writing this story, this where readers and listeners finally connect with the story, because there are no added dramatic extras, if she would have stuck with this honest down to earth writing style this could have been an excellent book, as it stands, it’s a 2.5-star read or listen.