Book Recommendation - The Collector of Burned Books

 

I discovered Roseanna M White several years ago and have been devouring every book she has written since then. Her writing style is lovely, her characters are always well crafted and her stories are always intriguing and faith-driven. Her upcoming novel is no different and is particularly poignant for our politically divided times. Here's a bit about the book:

In this gripping World War II historical about the power of words, two people form an unlikely friendship amid the Nazi occupation in Paris and fight to preserve the truth that enemies of freedom long to destroy.

Paris, 1940. Ever since the Nazi Party began burning books, German writers exiled for their opinions or heritage have been taking up residence in Paris. There they opened a library meant to celebrate the freedom of ideas and gathered every book on the banned list . . . and even incognito versions of the forbidden books that were smuggled back into Germany.

For the last six years, Corinne Bastien has been reading those books and making that library a second home. But when the German army takes possession of Paris, she loses access to the library and all the secrets she’d hidden there. Secrets the Allies will need if they have any hope of liberating the city she calls home.

Christian Bauer may be German, but he never wanted anything to do with the Nazi Party—he is a professor, one who’s done his best to protect his family as well as the books that were a threat to Nazi ideals. But when Goebbels sends him to Paris to handle the “relocation” of France’s libraries, he’s forced into an army uniform and given a rank he doesn’t want. In Paris, he tries to protect whoever and whatever he can from the madness of the Party and preserve the ideas that Germans will need again when that madness is over, and maybe find a lost piece of his heart. 

As a member of the launch team, I had access to the author for a Q&A. Here's how that went:

1. What was the inspiration for this story?

 Several years ago I read a nonfiction book about the role of the publishing industry during WW2, called When Books Went to War. In that book there was a passing mention of a library in Paris founded in 1933 called the Library of Burned Books, populated with all the titles and authors banned by the Nazis, many of which had relocated to Paris. I was fascinated and intrigued! And naturally had to wonder what would have happened to the library during the war, when it was “kept under lock and key” by the Nazis…and how those books would have impacted anyone assigned there. Because we cannot read books without being changed by them. So I began to wonder, “What if…?”

 

2. The theme of book bans is particularly poignant right now. Did you have any idea your story might be one “for such a time as this”? How do you feel about the timing?

Banning books is a perennial subject, sadly. There has never been an era is history where people weren’t banning books they were opposed to…but I certainly had no idea when I pitched the story or even when I wrote it that book bans would become such a huge thing right now. Much like when I wrote a book about the Spanish Flu that happened to release in the height of Covid, we chalk this one up to God’s timing and trust that it’s all part of His plan. I pray that when viewed through the lens of history, we can all see books and the importance of their right to exist and be freely available, whether we agree with them or not, in a new light.

 

3. This is the first WWII book I've read where the Nazis were not portrayed as all completely evil. Though there is one that embodies the evil of “the party,” most of them have been “humanized” in this book. What brought that perspective about?

 I love how you put that. Why did I choose to humanize Nazis? Because they were human. There were true believers, yes, who called good what we recognize as pure evil. But mostly, people were swept up in a movement because they were desperate to reclaim the Germany that had been crushed after the First World War…or they were forced to join the Party to protect their families or keep working in a society that punished you if you didn’t…or they were young people indoctrinated into this ideology who had to be taught something different, something better.

 

Through my characters, I hoped to show that not everyone who joined the Party was truly a Nazi, yes. That plenty viewed Germany as the first occupied country, the first to be taken over by a hostile force, and just longed to reclaim the land they loved for truth and justice and freedom. But I also want it to serve as a cautionary tale for us all. Because as long as we label a party like the Nazis as inhuman, as pure evil, as other, then we are also saying, “We would never fall prey to something like that.” And that is a dangerous, false narrative. The moment we try to take freedoms from those who oppose us, we are entering onto the same ground the Nazis trod…and we see it from both sides of the aisle today. We as society are always in danger of the slippery-slope. Only by being constantly aware, by realizing that these weren’t monsters but men, just like us, by remembering that it’s only the grace of God that keeps us on steady ground, do we have a hope of resisting that ever-present tug to declare our side the only side.

 

4. Did anything come as a surprise to you as you were writing? Or did anything change the trajectory of the story?

 Corinne herself was a surprise when I first began writing her! I had no idea, when I wrote my synopsis, that she would be so bold and outspoken, but as I wrote her first scene, there she was, talking back to people, remembering being a child stealing chocolates from the candy jar, and perfectly willing to spit in the face of the Nazis, if it came down to it.

 

5. Did you learn anything interesting in the research for this story?

 So much! First was just learning about the Library of Burned Books, of course, and through my research on that, the very loooooong history of book burnings in general. But I also learned so much about life in occupied Paris that I’d never known. I think one of the little details that made it so, so real to me was when I read in a diary from the time that the fumes from when they’d burned their fuel reserves to keep them out of Nazi hands killed all the pigeons in Paris—not immediately, but within a few months. Can you imagine a city without pigeons? How quiet and eerie it would be?

 

6. Which character in this story was the easiest to write? Or which one is most like you?

 I think Christian was probably the easiest, honestly. I love a good conflicted character with something to hide, and from the first page, he was clearly a man who didn’t want to be where he was, who hated the uniform he wore, but who had to walk a very careful line if he didn’t want to be sent to a concentration camp for his real views. That makes for a great point-of-view character, with plenty of room for both internal and external conflict!

 

Most like me…hmm. In personality, I’m more like Christian. But Corinne being constantly mistaken for a teenager was definitely borrowed from my real-life experience. Even in my mid-thirties, I was being offered student discounts, teens at conferences thought I was one of them instead of a teacher, and people were constantly amazed that I had kids as old as mine were. It was generally amusing by that point in time, but I thought it would be hilarious to have a college professor with a double-doctorate who could still pass for seventeen.

 

7. Which character was the most difficult to write?

 Probably Christian’s aid, Klaus. He was a young Nazi who’d grown up in the Hitler Youth, so in many ways a true believer…but also just so young. Is any nineteen-year-old beyond redemption, beyond learning? Christian wanted to reach him but also feared him, and finding the right balance to strike with him kept me on my toes!

 

8. Is there any “behind the scenes” trivia you would like to share with my readers?

Absolutely! But rather than go historical facts for this one, I’m going to go Roseanna-World. If this is the first book of mine you read, it will absolutely stand on its own. But for those who’ve been reading my books for a while, there are some super-fun crossover characters!

 

First and most obviously is Corinne’s adopted uncle, Georges Piers…also known as Georgie Pearce, the little brother from the Shadows Over England series who joined up during the Great War (lying about his age to do so) and ended up serving in France throughout the whole war. I used him several times in several books as my on-the-ground “fixer” when I needed to send other characters into the heart of the war. It made perfect sense to me that he’d end up living in France afterward with the sweetheart we meet in An Hour Unspent who he married afterward.

 

But there’s another surprise crossover character too, from Yesterday’s Tides. If you’ve read that one, you’ll remember that the hero’s brother, Sebastian, died in the war, lost to the mud. Turns out…he didn’t, though it was a close thing. Corinne stumbled over his nearly-dead body as a small girl, and her mother nursed him back to health. Georgie later came looking for a grave and found instead the man, newly married to Corinne’s widowed mother. That’s actually why she has the surname of Bastien—it’s for Sebastian. (Someday, if time permits, I intend to write a novella all about it!!)

 

9. What are you hoping readers will glean from this story?

 My deepest prayer is that this story will help all of us really pause to consider the link between free society and free thought, especially written thought like books. We are always so quick to dismiss books we don’t like, to judge a book by the author we may or may not agree with…and so quick to be outraged if someone wants to silence us. But it has to go both ways. Freedom not offered to one’s opponent is not freedom at all.

 

So I invite us all to read outside our comfort zones—to read things by people we don’t agree with, because when we read their actual thoughts, only then can we hope to understand them. And only when we understand them can we hope to show them another way…or perhaps learn the flaw in our own logic. Read books that challenge you. Read genres you wouldn’t normally try. Read old books, new books, banned books, praised books. Read things that will change you.

 

Read dangerously.

 

10. What is coming next and when can we expect it?

 Next up for me in this same era and world is The Spy Keeper of Marseille. Set in France during 1941-1942, it’s all about the female head of France’s largest intelligence network, Alliance (inspired by a true story, though I take some liberties!), and a concert pianist brought into Alliance as a liaison to the arts sector. This story is all about how ordinary people all over France fed the Allies constant information about Nazi movements. It’ll be out July 2026!

Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary. You can learn more about her and her stories at www.RoseannaMWhite.com.

This book releases July 15, 2025 wherever books are sold. Be sure to check it out! For more information, check out the following links:

Roseanna M. White's website: https://www.roseannamwhite.com/

Roseanna M. White's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/RoseannaMWhite

My full 5 star review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7632075313