Book Summary and Reviews of The Goddess of Warsaw by Lisa Barr

Book Summary

The Goddess Of Warsaw is an enthralling tale of a legendary Hollywood screen goddess with a dark secret about her life in the Warsaw Ghetto. When the famous actress is threatened by someone from her past, she must put her skills into play to protect herself, her illustrious career, and those she loves, then and now.  

Los Angeles, 2005. Sienna Hayes, Hollywood's latest It Girl, has ambitions to work behind the camera. When she meets Lena Browning, the enormously mysterious and famous Golden Age movie star, Sienna sees her big break. She wants to direct a picture about Lena's life—but the legendary actor's murky past turns out to be even darker than Sienna dreamed. Before she was a Living Legend, Lena Browning was Bina Blonski, a Polish Jew whose life and family were destroyed by the Nazis.

Warsaw, 1943. A member of the city's Jewish elite, Bina Blonski and her husband, Jakub, are imprisoned in the ghastly, cramped ghetto along with the rest of Warsaw's surviving Jews. Determined to fight back against the brutal Nazis, the beautiful, blonde Aryan-looking Bina becomes a spy, gaining information and stealing weapons outside the ghetto to protect her fellow Jews. But her dangerous circumstances grow complicated when she falls in love with Aleksander, an ally in resistance—and Jakub's brother. While Lena accomplishes amazing feats of bravery, she sacrifices much in the process.

Over a decade after escaping the horrors of the ghetto, Bina, now known as Lena, rises to fame in Hollywood. Yet she cannot help but be reminded of her old life and hungers for revenge against the Nazis who escaped justice after the war. Her power and fame as a movie star offer Lena the chance to right the past's wrongs ... and perhaps even find the happy ending she never had.

A gripping page-turner of one of history's most heroic uprisings and an actress whose personal war never ends, The Goddess Of Warsaw is filled with secrets, lies, twists and turns, and a burning pursuit of justice no matter the cost.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. Goddess is filled with empowered female characters: Bina, Zelda, Anna, Sienna. How does each woman use her "power" both in her own life and in the plot of the book?
2. Revenge is a powerful theme threading through the novel. Can one take vengeance too far?
3. Lena justifies her violent past to the young actress Sienna Hayes, maintaining that she is an avenger and not a psychopath. "Survival always comes down to a choice, never a compromise." Do you believe this?
4. There's a difference between revenge and redemption – and yet they often go together. Can you achieve redemption without extracting revenge?
5. In the Warsaw Ghetto and in many arenas in life, women are the true heroes. What are the examples in our...