Songbird: A Novel
by By Zacharius, Walter
Category: Literary Criticism , Drama

Songbird is a compelling and sweeping saga that will take readers on a harrowing journey -- from the ghettos of Warsaw to the occupied streets of Paris -- during the darkest days of the Second World War.  The story of Songbird is told through the eyes of Mia, a beautiful Jewish teenager who loses everything in the onslaught of World War II: her upper-middle-class home in Lodz, Poland, her classical music studies, and her entire family who perishes at Auschwitz. Mia embarks on a perilous odyssey through war-torn Poland to join the ranks of a secret cadre of Jewish militia who have sworn to save their brethren, before escaping to Switzerland and then to America.  Determined to avenge her family's deaths, she leaves behind the man she loves and risks her life once more to return to Europe as a double agent and undermine the Germans in the final days of the war. Just when it seems that pain and loss will be her permanent companions, a surprising letter offers the prospect of a very different outcome.  Brimming with historical detail, passion, and intrigue, Songbird draws richly upon the author's own experiences as an American soldier in World War II, making history come alive with a unique freshness and emotional candor rarely ever seen in a first novel.