A chance encounter between a penniless young woman in search of her missing brother and a hobo burdened with a big secret takes both on a journey to Chicago's glamorous yet crime-ridden 1920s, where prostitution, bootlegging, and corruption rule. Separated by fate and reunited by chance, WHERE THE NIGHT NEVER ENDS is an unforgettable tale of courage and perseverance, a tribute to the triumph of hope and love against all odds. When feisty and headstrong Samantha Bruno loses her mother in a freak accident, she decides to search for her brother, Angelo, who didn't return from a business trip to Chicago seven months earlier. It is the year 1924, the height of prohibition, and the city of Cincinnati is in the midst of a deep recession. Narrowly escaping a band of thugs, Sam meets Paul, a mysterious hobo with a big secret. Together they embark on a harrowing journey to Chicago, where Al Capone is building an empire. Just when it seems their friendship is blossoming into something more, a raid tears Sam and Paul apart. Sam is sold into a brothel while Paul is arrested. Trapped without money and desperate to escape her new profession, Sam realizes she is on her own. Not only to free herself and search for her brother among Chicago's three million residents, but also to do the impossible--find Paul. During his hearing, Paul learns that his father, a wealthy Chicago inventor, is on his deathbed. The judge, an old family friend, gives Paul an ultimatum. See your father or go to jail. Reluctantly, Paul returns home, where he finds that his decision to run away seven years earlier was based on a terrible mistake. Narrated in alternating chapters by Sam and Paul, with rich historical detail, complex characters, and stunning prose, award-winning author Annette Oppenlander once again delivers a touching novel that lets us imagine what it was like to live and love during the roaring 1920s.

Where the Night Never Ends: A Prohibition Era Novel

Literature & Fiction

Oppenlander, Annette

Genre Fiction

Annette Oppenlander

Escape From the Past: The Kid

History

Americas

Based on true-life accounts of particpants in the wide-sweeping and much-loathed children's evacuation program of Hitler's Germany, award-winning 'Surviving the Fatherland' author Annette Oppenlander offers another heart-wrenching contribution to the history of the children's war. When They Made Us Leave tells the touching love story of Hilda and Peter, whose budding relationship ends abruptly when they are forced to attend separate evacuation camps during WWII. Each confronted with terror and cruelty as well as unexpected kindness, they must rise above to survive the war and find each other once more. Solingen, 1943: As bombs carpet Germany and fourteen-year old Hilda is falling in love with her childhood friend and next-door neighbor, Peter, he excitedly takes off to an evacuation camp in Pomerania, six hundred miles from home. Though Peter soon finds that his expectations are far from reality, he is ordered to write happy letters home, even when things take a turn for the worse and a new Hitler youth leader attempts to convert camp into a military battalion. Meanwhile, Hilda must unwillingly accompany her classmates to a cloister in Bavaria run by a draconian Abbess. There Hilda struggles to overcome her homesickness and yearning for Peter while helping a classmate hide her bedwetting accidents. As Germany is buried under rubble and supplies shorten, Peter lands at an inn near Gdansk. By now, all he wants is to go home. But his new teacher, a staunch national socialist, deems their place safe despite the refugees from the east whispering of German defeat by an advancing Russian Army. When the cloister is converted into a German field hospital, enemy planes destroy Hilda's homebound train and kill her teacher. Weeks later, tired and hungry, she arrives home to find her mother safe. But Peter has not returned, nor is there any news of him. Refusing to believe the worst, she must survive in a barely recognizable world.

When They Made Us Leave: A Novel about Hitler’s Mass Evacuation Program for Children (Moving Love Stories of WWII Germany)

Vaterland, wo bist du?: Roman nach einer wahren Geschichte (Bewegende Liebesgeschichten des Zweiten Weltkriegs) (German Edition)

Ein auf Zeitzeugenberichten beruhender Roman des Zweiten Weltkriegs, der die »Erweiterte Kinderlandverschickung« (KLV) des Dritten Reichs kritisch beleuchtet: meisterhaft erzählt von Annette Oppenlander, der Erfolgsautorin von »Vaterland, wo bist Du?«. 
Ein perfekt recherchierter und hochspannender historischer Roman aus der Sicht zweier Jugendlicher und ... eine komplizierte Liebesgeschichte. 
Solingen, 1943: Gerade hat die vierzehnjährige Hilda entdeckt, dass sie ihren Nachbarn Peter liebt, als er ihr freudestrahlend seine Abreise in ein Lager der KLV verkündet. Während Peters Klasse eine verlassene Schule in Pommern bezieht, und bald feststellt, dass die Versprechungen von Strandurlaub und herrlichem Essen nichts als Erfindungen sind, muss Hilda kurz darauf mit ihrer Klasse in ein bayrisches Kloster. Unter den kalten Augen der herrischen Oberin, versucht Hilda das Bettnässen ihrer Freundin zu verstecken und ihr Heimweh unter Kontrolle zu bringen. Unterdessen sieht sich Peter mit dem militärischen Gebaren des pedantischen HJ Lagerführers konfrontiert ...

Erzwungene Wege: Historischer Roman (Bewegende Liebesgeschichten des Zweiten Weltkriegs) (German Edition)

A Lightness in My Soul: Inspired by a True Story

As Germany enters its last war year and precious resources, especially available and combat-ready men, become scarce, Hitler decides it is time to exploit Germany’s teens. Unlike typical battle stories, this collection of true accounts follows four fifteen- to seventeen-year old boys as they struggle with the ever-crumbling Reich, trying to stay alive against the odds. 
Visiting his brother, Hans, who serves as a radioman near the Dutch boarder, Günter narrowly escapes the oncoming artillery fire of Allied troops… Günter and his best friend, Helmut, are drafted in the spring of 1945. Instead of following orders, they decide to hide, spending seven weeks on the run… Arthur still believes, Germany is winning, when American troops march into his youth camp in late April 1945. He and his classmates are arrested and shipped to Dachau, the just liberated death camp. But being a prisoner is only the beginning of his ordeal… When the war ends in May 1945, Hans does not return. Günter and his mother fear the worst. Until July, when a skeletal visitor appears at their door…\nBeginning in the fall of 1944 and ending in the summer of 1945, this collection contains 47 Days and A Lightness in My Soul, two novellas—also published separately—as well as two short stories.

Boys No More: True Stories of WWII

Teen & Young Adult

Biographies

2022 Indie B.R.A.G. Nominee 
"... a complex multi-layered narrative that fully engages the reader." Historical Novel Society 
"...a fantastic read that is impossible to put down and will steal the hearts of all true romantics, as well as historical fiction buffs. I can highly recommend this book." Readers' Favorite Five Stars 
A heart-wrenching love story for the ages – inspired by true events 
Eastern Prussia, 1944: Young lovers Annie and Werner are separated from each other when he is drafted into Hitler’s Volkssturm. While the SS orders Werner to remove the dead bodies of frozen refugees from Königsberg’s streets, Annie discovers she is pregnant. As she urgently awaits Werner’s return, rumors of the advancing Red Army mount and with it, alarming reports of what they do to women. Running for their lives, Annie and her mother embark on a life-threatening journey west. Even before they can escape by boat, Annie makes a horrifying mistake, one that will haunt her forever. Werner, arrested and imprisoned in a Russian gulag, manages to escape after four months of cruelty and returns home. But his and Annie’s farms lie abandoned—the love of his life and his own family have vanished… 
East Berlin, 1989: On the evening of November 9, when the borders between East and West Berlin open for the first time in nearly thirty years—a day which ultimately heralds Germany’s reunification—Annie watches a correspondent on West TV who reminds her of her childhood sweetheart Werner, the man she has thought dead for 45 years. Together with her daughter Emma, Annie sets out on a search...

The Scent of a Storm: A WWII Story about Love, Courage and Survival—Inspired by True Events (Moving Love Stories of WWII Germany)

So Close to Heaven: A Novel

When the Skies Rained Freedom: A gripping historical novel about the Berlin Airlift (Moving Love Stories of WWII Germany)

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Books by Annette Oppenlander