I’ve known the name Mitch Albom since I was 15, when he started writing for the Detroit Free Press. He started with sports related columns, but eventually started writing a second column that focused on … well, “life.” I’ve always enjoyed reading his columns, even when he and I disagreed on a topic.

As an author, his big breakthrough was in 1997 with his book Tuesdays With Morrie. That was followed by The Five People You Meet in Heaven, For One More Day, Have a Little Faith, The Time Keeper, The First Phone Call From Heaven, The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto, The Next Person You Meet in Heaven, Finding Chika, and The Stranger in the Lifeboat.

I have read a few of his books in the past and enjoy his style of writing. He has been able to take much of what makes his newspaper columns so popular and do the same with his novels. Last year he published The Little Liar and after reading the synopsis, I knew I had to read it.

From Amazon.com

Beloved bestselling author Mitch Albom returns with a powerful novel of hope and forgiveness that moves from a coastal Greek city during WWII to America in the golden age of Hollywood, as the intertwined lives of three young survivors are forever changed by the perils of deception and the grace of redemption.

Eleven-year-old Nico Krispis has never told a lie. His schoolmate, Fannie, loves him because of it. Nico’s older brother Sebastian resents him for both these facts. When their young lives are torn apart during the war, it will take them decades to find each other again. 

Nico’s innocence and goodness is used against his tightly knit community when a German officer barters Nico’s reputation for honesty into a promise to save his loved ones. When Nico realizes the consequences of the betrayal, he can never tell the truth again. He will spend the rest of this life changing names, changing locations and identities, desperate to find a way to forgiveness—for himself and from the people he loves most.

Albom’s extraordinary storytelling is at its powerful best in his first novel to confront the destruction that lying can wreak both on the world stage as well as on the individual lives that get caught up in it. As The Stranger in the Lifeboat spoke to belief, The Little Liar speaks to hope, in a breathless page-turner that will break your heart open and fill it with the power of the human spirit and the goodness that lies within us all.

Narrated by the voice of Truth itself, The Little Liar is a timeless story about the power of love to ultimately redeem us, no matter how deeply we blame ourselves for our mistakes. 

I have read my share of books set in World War II, Concentration Camps, and that era in general. I suppose that is why it popped up as a recommendation on Goodreads. I really enjoyed this book. While the setting and situations involve sadness (the Holocaust, the War, etc…), it was more about the characters and their stories that really grabbed me. The innocent child who believed he was doing right; the hateful German officer and his terrible thoughts, the family members who fought to survive and those who never had a chance; sibling rivalry, jealousy, and a drive for justice – all of those characters and how their stories intertwined made this book a memorable one.

If you love historical fiction, you will enjoy this one.