Review: City of Fate by Nicola Pierce

Image from Goodreads

Title: City of Fate
Author: Nicola Pierce
Publisher: O’Brien Press
Publication Date: Feb 2014
Source: Review Copy
Rating: 4.5/5

Synopsis from Goodreads

Imagine your home is bombed one Sunday afternoon by a horde of enemy planes. Imagine your family has gone and you are left behind. This is the fate of five-year-old Peter and two teenagers Yuri and Tanya.

Imagine being ordered to leave school to fight the terrifying Nazis in WWII. Imagine you are right in the middle of a battle; it’s you or them – you have no choice. This is the fate of Vlad and his three classmates.

The battlefield is the city of Stalingrad, the pride of Russia. Germany’s Adolf Hitler wants the city badly, but Josef Stalin refuses to let go.

Nobody has managed to stop the triumphant Nazi invasion across Europe. It all depends on one city – Stalingrad – her citizens, her soldiers and her children.

REVIEW BY BETH

My love for World War Two literature is never ending and I was particularly pleased to have the chance to read about the battle of Stalingrad and the people trying to live whilst it’s going on. Completely fascinating and not a subject I know in depth it is very clear that Pierce has researched and researched to ensure every element of this novel is believable and every character is genuine. There are parts of this book that are hard to read as we meet characters who have had their nerves destroyed and their mental state is far removed from their normal.

The moment Yuri is forced to leave his mother and baby sister is heart-breaking, Pierce talks about his family in ways which make you want to pick them up and take them anywhere else, away from the terror of the battlefield.

At Stalingrad there were nearly 2 million killed, civilians and soldiers. Pierce doesn’t shy away from the brutality of it all and even with the young age of her audience she simply tells a story. As well as Yuri we have Peter, who at just 5 years old gives another dimension to the story, more innocent and naïve and Vlad, a teenage soldier who, despite bravado, sees and hears things no child should have to see.

As the battle commences so does the connection between Vlad, Yuri and Peter as Pierce’s plot cleverly brings them together and then bang, in a horrible, harrowing climax, it’s all over. There are no happy endings because it would ruin the authenticity of Pierce’s story. I didn’t expect the end to be quite so brutal but, I think because it is the story has stayed with me for longer and I have a powerful sense of the injustice of war and a deeper understanding of the Battle of Stalingrad.

Although the novel sounds dark there are moments of light relief, adding humanity, with scenes of spying on Nazi soldiers particularly heart-warming, although when put like that it sounds pretty terrifying.

I would love to read more of Pierce’s work.