In-Store Reading: Marianne Monson: The Opera Sisters

Annie Bloom’s welcomes back Oregon author Marianne Monson for an in-person reading from her new novel, The Opera Sisters.

This in-store reading is first come, first served. Please be mindful of any store health policies that might be in effect on the night of the reading.

Signed and personalized copies are available for order! Please, please, please include the name for personalization in the order notes; or indicate “signed only.”

About The Opera Sisters:

Based on the true story of the Cook sisters, who smuggled valuables out of 1930s Nazi Germany to finance a daring, secret operation to help Jews find hope for a new life in England. British sisters Ida and Louise Cook enjoy their quiet, unassuming lives in south London. Ida writes romance novels, and Louise works as a secretary. In the evenings, the sisters indulge in their shared love for opera, saving their money to buy records and attend performances throughout England and Europe, becoming well-known by both performers and fellow opera lovers. But when Hitler seizes power in 1933, he begins targeting and persecuting German Jews, passing laws that restrict their rights and their lives.

The sisters continue their trips to the German opera houses, but soon, Jewish members of the opera community covertly approach the sisters, worried that they will be stripped of their wealth and forced to leave their homes and the country. Danger looms on the horizon, threatening to spill across all of Europe’s borders. Ida and Louise vow to help, but how can two ordinary working-class women with limited means make a difference? Together with their beloved opera community, the sisters devise a plan to personally escort Jewish refugees from Germany to England. The success of the plan hinges on Ida and Louise’s ability to smuggle contraband jewelry and furs beneath the watchful eyes of the SS soldiers guarding various checkpoints. But how many trips can they make before someone blows a whistle? Or before the final curtain falls on Germany’s borders?

The Opera Sisters is a riveting and inspiring novel of two unlikely heroines whose courage and compassion gave hope to many Jews desperate to escape Nazi persecution

Marianne Monson is the author of twelve books for children and adults, with an emphasis on frontier-era women’s history. She is a regular contributor to Rain Magazine, Hipfish, and Coast Weekend. Her nonfiction book Frontier Grit, was nominated for the American Library Association’s Amelia Bloomer award. The companion volume, Women of the Blue and Gray: Civil War Mothers, Medics, Soldiers, and Spies, was released in 2018 and was awarded a silver medal by Foreword Reviews. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and.has taught writing at Portland Community College, BYU Hawaii and Clatsop Community College. She is president of a literary nonprofit, The Writer’s Guild, and writes from a 100-year-old house in Astoria, Oregon.