I read The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah on a skiing holiday to France at Easter, which seemed appropriate giving its French setting in World War Two. It is the story of two sisters – Vianne and Isabelle, estranged from their father and from each other, one living in Paris and another in the French countryside.

At the start of the war Vianne’s husband goes off to fight, leaving her alone with her daughter and her Jewish best friend and neighbour Rachel, and soon a Nazi officer billeted with her after the fall of France. Life becomes increasingly dangerous for her, as she finds she cannot just stand by whilst her friends and neighbours are deported to concentration camps in Germany and she steps in to save who she can.

Isabelle embarks on an even more dangerous path, becoming active in the resistance, first by distributing anti Nazi leaflets and then by helping downed British and later American airmen escape safely to Spain. Code-named The Nightingale, she sets up an escape route through safe houses across France and accompanies the men herself on the treacherous journey, culminating in climbing the Pyrenees.

As the war draws to a close and the Nazis become increasingly desperate, both sisters are living on red alert and their father finally makes amends for being so emotionally absent from them since his time in the First World War. There is a poignant twist at the end and you are left feeling grateful to these remarkable women who played such an important part in the war.