Blog Tour Review: Adiel and the Führer by Elyse Hoffman

Hey everyone!
Today is my stop on the blog tour for Adiel and the Führer by Elyse Hoffman, and I am excited to be sharing my review with you all.

A massive thank you to @The_WriteReads for allowing me to be a part of the tour.

Title: Adiel and the Führer
Author: Elyse Hoffman
Publisher: Project 613
Release Date: 20th April 2024
Page Count: 374
Genre: Historical Fiction
Age Group: Adult
Buy It Here: Amazon UK

Book Blurb:

Adiel Goldstein has a good life. Despite the anti-Semitism he faces as a German Jew, he has everything he wants. A dream job as an art professor, good friends, a loving father, and a precious nine-year-old daughter, Kaia. But his life is about to be upended. An old comrade from his time fighting in the Great War is gaining power: a man named Hitler. Adiel’s father insists that they need to leave the country before Hitler becomes the leader of Germany.

Adiel and his family plan to move to America, but before they can even pack their bags, he and Kaia make a shocking discovery. Adiel’s father, Natan Goldstein, is from the future. A Holocaust survivor who lost his family to unspeakable tragedy, Natan was given the chance to go back in time and take the life of Adolf Hitler. But when he failed to kill the future Führer, he devoted himself to his new family and awaited the inevitable.

Natan can’t face the Holocaust again, but Adiel’s unique connection to Hitler means he might be able to succeed where his father failed. Adiel now has a choice: escape as planned and let history repeat itself, or sacrifice everything to stop the Holocaust before it can begin.

Award winning author Elyse Hoffman has crafted a thought-provoking and daring work of historical fiction which will tug at your heartstrings.

My Review:

Adiel and the Führer is the 4th book in the Project 613 series, but can be read as a standalone. Having already read and loved the other 3 books in the series (Fracture, The Vengeance of Samuel Val, and Black Fox One) I had extremely high expectations for this book, and I certainly wasn’t let down.

The story begins with little Adiel trying to make friends, but none of his German neighbours wanted to/were allowed to play with a Jew. It immediately pulls on your heartstrings, and the knowledge that this discrimination was so very real made it even more devastating. We then fast forward to adult Adiel, who is now an art professor, and a very proud Jewish man, in a country that sees him as the enemy. What Adiel is unaware of is that his father, Natan, has been through it all before.

The time travel aspect made this story so interesting, and the revelation of who Adiel was in a past life/alternate timeframe was something I would have never seen coming. This was a HUGE moment! It brought a whole new feeling to the story, and shifted a few perspectives. Adiel became determined to save as many people as he possibly could, and he would risk everything to do it.

The characters within the story are all intriguing and complex. A few of them we know of through history, but the author makes us think a lot deeper about them. Anyone who knows anything about WWII will undoubtable know the names Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Himmler, but the fictional twists to their characters within the story is very interesting. One of my favourite characters in the book is little Kaia Goldstein! She has so much strength, resilience, and spirit. She brought so much to this story, and was a ray of sunshine in an otherwise dark tale.

The action and intensity really picks up towards the end of the book, and took some turns I hadn’t expected. Word of warning, be prepared with a box of tissues for one part of the final few chapters, because it hits you like a double decker bus. From that moment, everything changes, and catapults the process of the storyline. Once the action calms back down, the final few pages end the story in a very bitter sweet way, but it’s the perfect way for everything to wrap up.

This book is exciting, emotional, and fantastically written. I love how Elyse pushes the boundaries with her stories, twisting subjects in a way that I’ve never seen before, and she has easily become on of my favourite authors because of it. I can not wait for her next book!

I give Adiel and the Führer a 5 star rating!

About The Author:

Elyse Hoffman is an award-winning author who strives to tell historical tales with new twists. Having studied WWII since the age of thirteen and with interests in fantasy and Jewish folklore, she loves to combine them in her writing. Elyse started writing novels at fourteen and finished her first historical fiction work at fifteen.

She has published eight books: five in a series called The Barracks of the Holocaust, and three novels, including The Book of Uriel, Where David Threw Stones, and Fracture. In her spare time, she loves to read, work on pretty keyboards, and hang out with her co-authors – her Goldendoodle Ari and her ex-feral cat, Echo.

YOU CAN FIND ELYSE HERE:
Website, Twitter, Instagram, GoodReads