Carol Windley's Midnight Train to Prague was definitely not what I expected. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. The novel, set in Europe, takes readers from 1927 through World War II and its aftermath.
Let's start with what I liked about the novel. First off, I thought it was an interesting look at how Nazi Germany affected the surrounding countries and those who chose to stay instead of fleeing. I also liked that the characters' lives were intertwined after a chance encounter on a train from Berlin to Prague in 1927.
However, I didn't immediately understand that the minor event on the train was going to tie these characters together eventually. The first part of the book focuses on Natalia and her mother Beatriz, along with Miklos and his on-again/off-again girlfriend Zita. We get to know these characters very closely, but then part two comes along, and we're reading about someone named Anna. Who is Anna??? Eventually, the author draws the people from part one to the family in part two, but I didn't really feel that the ties were that strong.
Perhaps that's because I wasn't fond of the author's writing style. There isn't much action. It's very "tell, tell, tell" instead of "show, show, show". And time passes rather quickly and without much notice in the author's world. I got confused as to whether something was a flashback or happening now or how so-and-so knew this other person because apparently they had met but the author didn't think I needed to know that until later.
And back to that event on the train. When this book was pitched to me, it sounded like the train event was monumental. Like it was going to change who Natalia was for the future. And while the train event could be deemed kind of tragic or upsetting for her, it didn't really have anything to do with her future choices. Maybe it affected her mother more? I don't want to give too much away.
If anything, this book would be good for a book club discussion. I think the books that people didn't like that much always had better discussions than the books we did like.
Midnight Train to Prague is published by HarperCollins and is on bookstore shelves today. I received a free e-ARC to review in exchange for my honest opinion.
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