The Star and the Shamrock by Jean Grainger

 

"On one hand, the Irish knew what it was like to be a persecuted people. They were subjected to terrible cruelty at the hands of the British by all accounts, so this stone wall of refusal on the subject of [Jewish] refugees was hard to understand."

     -Thoughts of Daniel Lieber, from the novel

In Berlin, Ariella Bannon is forced to make a very difficult decision. With her husband having been taken prisoner by the Nazis, she must send her children, Liesl and Erich, by Kindertransport to the UK. She asks her husband's cousin in Liverpool, Elizabeth Klein, if she will take them in and care for them. Elizabeth is a childless widow but out of compassion she agrees. 

After welcoming the children, Liverpool is bombed, and Elizabeth and the children relocate to a rural area of Northern Ireland. There Elizabeth teaches school and comes to love Liesl and Erich as her own. She meets other German and Austrian refugees, including Daniel quoted above. Several chapters into the novel, it becomes evident there is a spy in their midst. Daniel is arrested but Elizabeth and several others cannot believe he would betray them. If not Daniel, who?

I enjoyed this historical fiction and will give it a rating of 4. The ending was not completely satisfactory but after discovering this is book I of a trilogy, I understand why. Perhaps I will read book II one of these days.