Excerpt from The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Connie finished. Sweat had formed around his hairline and he was out of breath.

There were murmurs and nods among the men gathered.

"I agree with the principle." Albrecht spoke slowly into the swell of support. "But active collusion against our government— this government—is a dangerous thing. And we have wives and families to consider. I am not suggesting we should not, only that we think carefully— "

"Your wives and families will support you," Marianne interrupted, surprising herself and the rest of the room. It came out like a rebuke. Albrecht was always so measured, slow, and thoughtful. A plodding tortoise to Connie's leaping stag.

"All of them?" von Strallen asked wryly.

"All of them," Marianne repeated. Von Strallen was a chauvinist. He told his silly wife, Missy, nothing and took her nowhere. Poor Missy, treated like a dumb fattened cow.

"And bear the risk?" Albrecht asked gently.

"And bear the risk," Marianne repeated.

"All right," Connie said, turning his intense gaze upon her.

"Then you will see to it that they are all right. You are appointed the commander of wives and children."

Marianne met his gaze. The commander of wives and children. She knew he did not mean to belittle her, but it smarted like a slap.

The meeting—if that's what it was—broke up, and with a sense of unreality, Marianne headed back to the party to resume her hostess responsibilities. Conversations rose and fell, the jazz trio played, and from the landing of the stairs someone recited Cicero in Latin.

But outside, beyond the castle walls, terrible things were happening. Marianne could imagine Hitler's thuggish Brownshirts swarming the streets, swaggering and shouting with their air of unchecked violence. She had seen them marching in a parade last summer in Munich. Two of the men had broken formation and rushed toward her across the sidewalk. For a moment she had stood frozen, afraid that she would be attacked: but for what? Instead they knocked down the university student beside her and kicked him as he curled into a ball, their shiny black boots hammering at his back. It had happened so fast that she simply stood. Why? What did he do? she asked a man standing beside her when the SA were gone. He did not lift his hand in a proper Heil, the man whispered as they bent to help the poor student to his feet.

For days afterward she saw those men's faces as they rushed at her: ordinary, middle-aged faces flattened and made stupid with violence.

"What is it? You look as if you've seen a ghost," Mimi Armacher said, interrupting the memory. Mimi was a sweet woman, a distant cousin of Albrecht's whom Marianne had always liked.

"I've just heard—" Marianne faltered. What to call it? It was something from a less civilized time, and for which she had no vocabulary. "We've gotten news from Munich that there is rioting— the SA—beating people, breaking down Jewish properties—"

"News?" Mimi repeated, as if this were the incomprehensible thing.

"From a friend of Connie's who's just arrived," Marianne ex-plained.

"Oh, how awful," Mimi said, and her face fell. "In all the cities?" Others gathered around. Marianne was aware of Berna and Gottlieb Bruckner at the edge of the group, and Alfred Klausner: Jewish friends whose own positions here in Germany were increasingly difficult. Generations of assimilation no longer seemed to set them apart from the eastern immigrant Jews Hitler was obsessed with deporting. No one was safe.

Marianne felt exhausted suddenly. "That's what I understood."

"Destroying property?" someone asked. "At random?"

"Jewish property," Mimi asserted with chilling crispness. "Only Jewish properties." She turned to Marianne. "Isn't that what you said?"

Excerpted from The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck. Copyright © 2017 by Jessica Shattuck. Excerpted by permission of William Morrow. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.