Publication Date: February 9, 2026
Elise isn’t the same as her father. She’s like a sister to us. She’ll know what to do to keep us safe. She would never betray us…
Paris, 1940. Shops are being boarded up, Jewish children are loaded onto buses and eighteen-year-old Elise’s heart beats hard as she runs down the cobbled streets under the shadow of swastikas. She hates her father with all her heart: he is working with the Nazis and has forbidden her to be friends with Myriam and Salomé, the Goldman sisters who are closer to her than her own family.
Elise will do anything to help the girls she loves as sisters, including sharing her father’s secret business. Every day she creeps out to their apartment, avoiding the cold-eyed soldiers who stalk the streets. But in trying to save them, will she bring terrible danger to their door?
Years later, newly pregnant Jeanne stares at the photograph of three young girls on the beach. She recognises her mother Elise in the centre of the picture, but who does her mother have her arms around?
Jeanne feels such love for the tiny new life inside her and feels desperate to connect with the mother who has always shut her out. Could finding these lost sisters, laughing and vibrant in the crumpled black and white photo, help Jeanne understand her mother and lay the ghosts of the past to rest?
A beautiful and deeply moving story about love and friendship and the bond between women in a time of fear and darkness. Fans of The Midwife of Auschwitz and The Nightingale will fall in love with this heartbreaking, hopeful read.
Three French friends find their lives turned upside down as the Germans move to occupy France.
Author Ann Bennett delivers a heartbreaking story set in World War II with Once We Were Sisters. It never seemed to matter that Myriam and Salomé were Jews since they were also French like Elise.
Told through alternating timelines through the war years and 1972, their story comes to life. Meanwhile, the 1972 timeline focuses on Elise’s daughter, Jeanne, and her efforts to unlock her mother’s secret past.
For the main characters, sacrifice comes in different forms. While the Jewish girls must sacrifice everything, including beloved family members, Elise sacrifices the relationship with her Nazi-sympathizing father in an effort to help her friends.
It’s a poignant read that underscores the bravery shown by people of all ages, with German soldiers taking over Paris.
Once We Were Sisters details the powerful bonds of friendship in the midst of death and destruction.
Ann Bennett is the author of several historical novels about the second world war in South East Asia, inspired by her father’s experience as a prisoner of the Japanese on the Thai-Burma railway. She has a Law degree and works full time as a lawyer, but is fascinated by India and South East Asia. Since her early twenties she has spent as much time as possible travelling in the region. She’s married with three sons and lives in Surrey.
