Excerpt from Cradles of the Reich by Jennifer Coburn, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Finally sensing her daughter's presence, Johanna turned to the doorway. "You're here," she stated. She was wearing a dress with ivory and mauve stripes and puffed sleeves that looked straight off the pages of Modenschau. She turned back to the stove. "Go upstairs and change into the outfit I laid out for you. Everything needs to be perfect tonight."

Hilde slowly made her way up the steps, each hand gripping a banister. She bit her bottom lip, knowing that when Johanna said everything needed to be perfect, what she really meant was that Hilde needed to be perfect. But even when Hilde did everything that was expected of her, she managed to disappoint her mother and remain invisible to her father. Her older brother, Kurt, was a carbon copy of their father in both looks and character. He was a serious young man who had joined the Wehrmacht the moment he was old enough. Now, at just nineteen, Kurt had already earned his first medal. Hilde's younger sister, Lisa, had been the spitting image of Johanna, which made her the favorite. Hilde took after neither of her parents and often felt as though the stork had dropped her down the wrong chimney.

Hilde didn't excel at anything that mattered. Just months earlier, Hilde had placed second in the Bund Deutscher Mädel's fencing tournament. BDM was the girls' division of the Hitlerjugend, so Hilde was certain her parents would be impressed. Her BDM troop leader, Jutta, regarded the silver medal as a great accomplishment. After all, twenty-­five girls had competed, so even second place meant she was just a few parries and ripostes away from the top prize. But Johanna had taken the medallion from Hilde's outstretched hand and placed it onto the kitchen table with barely a glance. "Do you know what they give a person who comes in second place in a real sword fight?" Johanna asked. "A funeral."

Hilde's stomach churned at the memory. Or perhaps she was just hungry. Why had she bothered to rush home? Her mother didn't seem to want her around. Hilde would have paid a heavy price for her late arrival for supper, but she couldn't help thinking that she should have stayed lost a little longer this afternoon.

How Hilde wished she hadn't ducked into an alley and run when she saw one of her classmates, Rudolf Fritz, riding his bicycle through the square. It had been a month since their humiliating misunderstanding, but the sting was still fresh. She had seen him at school, of course, but they had always been surrounded by friends. Once they were alone, though, Hilde knew Rudolf would confront her. With her luck, her classmate would offer an apology for the miscommunication. His pity would be unbearable.

Rudolf hadn't meant to be cruel. He had just been so unclear when he asked Hilde for advice on how to win a girl's affection. When Rudolf realized that Hilde thought he was asking her on a date—­and that she had eagerly accepted—­he stammered his correction. It was her best friend at school, Margot, that he liked. Thanks to Rudolf's bumbling mistake, Hilde had become lost.

She had spent her entire life in Munich, so it seemed impossible that she had never seen the narrow artery near the Marienplatz. At least she thought she was near the Marienplatz. Hilde couldn't be sure anymore, as there was nothing in her line of vision that was remotely recognizable. Looking upward, Hilde couldn't even spot the zodiac clock tower, the defining landmark of the city center.

Hilde stopped for a moment in front of a hat shop window displaying its spring collection. She could imagine herself in the orange straw topper with a cap so shallow it looked like a plate balancing on the mannequin's head. Margot would probably die for the ultrawide gray hat, its rim upturned so high it could pass for a U-­boat. And although Hilde knew her mother would never sport a turban, she couldn't help think the one in sky blue would look stunning on her.

Excerpted from Cradles of the Reich by Jennifer Coburn. Copyright © 2022 by Jennifer Coburn. Excerpted by permission of Sourcebooks. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.