Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant. This masterful work leaves you wanting more.
Review: A fabulous read. Maintaining the integrity of historical fact, Stroyar extrapolates to the present with brilliant creativity, developing real characters and exploring with finesse the deepest human emotions. Through beautiful prose, Stroyar draws the reader into a story flavored by cross-cultural intrigue and cross-generational interpretations of good and evil. This novel is gripping; a real page-turner. We can only hope that there will be a sequel.
Rating:
Summary: Gripping
Review: A truly gripping story of what might have happened in WWII. This book is much much more than a thriller though, it can be read on multiple levels exploring both man's inhumanity to man and the response of the human psyche to stress. It actually only seems to be about WWII, it is really a much broader and more interesting story with relevance to US foreign policy today. This is a must read book.
Rating:
Summary: Great Political Thriller
Review: A truly gripping thriller, this is a real page turner, I can't believe it comes from a first time author it is so well crafted.
Rating: 
Summary: Impressive and Involving
Review: Alternate history novels have become quite popular these days and, indeed, they make a fun and interesting genre. Many of them fall into one of two categories: the "what if the Nazis had won the war?" and all the rest. In this first category are some brilliant novels such as Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle and Robert Harris's Fatherland. Though perhaps not quite as good as these, The Children's War can be added to that list. First off, at well over 1100 pages, this is not a novel for the weak-willed. It is divided into three sections, however, so it really reads like three novels of about 400 pages each. The reader should also be warned that the first section is the weakest part of the novel. Once the second section begins, things really start to get interesting and remain at a good pitch throughout the rest of the book. That's not to say that the first part doesn't have value but it mostly just introduces you to this modern world of a Nazi-conquered Europe: a cruel master race, subjugated populations (some enslaved and some "ethnically cleansed"), poverty and rebellion. Okay, but pretty standard stuff. In the second section, however, things start to cook. Enough of the characters have been killed off so that there is a manageable cast and the Nazis become secondary. In fact, the story narrows pretty much to a group of Polish rebels who take in a former English slave named Peter. Peter is the character who, for the most part, drives the novel. What makes these later parts more interesting is, first, the examination of what it is like to be a slave under totalitarianism. Peter escapes at the end of part one and it is not until he is in (relative) freedom that we can see the deeper effects of slavery. More interesting, however, is the examination of the rebels. Most of them are young and have grown up knowing nothing but war and oppression. What does this do to them? Will they be capable of creating a reasonable society even if they do manage a victory over the Nazis? Are they justified in the atrocities they commit to achieve their ends? Much of this is brought out in a love story between Peter and a rebel named Zosia. It is this examination of the psyches of these characters that make this novel better than the run-of-the-mill. (If you can get past some of the amazing coincidences that allow major characters to interact in some unexpected ways.) But it is difficult to describe such an involved novel in a few lines. There are many interesting characters here both major (Richard, the Vogels) and minor (Tadek, Barbara). There is a fascinating visit to America mid-novel that gives the chance for some sly commentary on our culture. Ultimately, this is a book that is well worth the effort.
Rating:
Summary: A Dark Alternate Vision of Life Under Victorious 3d Reich
Review: As a fan of alternate history, I was intrigued by the premise of this book. This is not the first novel to focus on the potential of a victorious Germany. It is the first I have seen, however, that focuses not on the geo-politics but on the lives of ordinary people determined to be less than fully human. The world depicted here imagines a Europe completely subjugated by the Nazis, even England. The 1200 page novel initially follows several different stories. First is, Peter Halifax, captured British underground member, who becomes a slave to a haughty German family and whose treatment is harrowing. The book also follows the lives of a group of Polish patriots who live free underground and hold off Nazi attack through the threat of retaliation. The novel also follows the life of a high level official in the Nazi government as he navigates his way through Nazi incompetence and viciousness. Ultimately these characters all come together in a series of complex and unlikely happenings. The novel is well written but very dense. The characters are uniformly not nice people, understandable given their circumstances. It is not easy to like them as they are not particularly heroic. Peter, in particularly is damaged by his disastrous childhood and his systematic brutalization and degradation in his slave years. This is described in brutal detail. Ultimately the plot, which I am intentionally not revealing, is rather simple. The strength of the novel is the portrait of blighted characters in a horror world that it reveals. As the book is read the author reveals a bleak world without much hope of redemption in which simple survival is far from guaranteed. The 1999 of the "Children's War" is a world most of us could not imagine in our worst nightmares. This book was not easy or pleasant reading. When I was finished I had a bad taste in my mouth. (and my head) Whether Germany could have ever won the war and whether a German Europe fifty years later could have resembled this nightmare is far from clear. One thing that is clear is that after you read this novel, you will be glad you live in the real world, not the world of J.N. Stroyar's imagination.
Rating: 
Summary: Just plain dull...
Review: Dull characterizations, relentlessly boring plot, heavy-handed moralizing. Useful perhaps as a tool for high-school history teachers, looking to engage average (but certainly not advanced) students in a discussion of life in a totalitarian state. As entertainment, it fails. If you want to know what life in Nazi Germany was like, read history. If you want "escape from the Nazi baddies" adventure, read Jack Higgins.
Rating:
Summary: Good alternate history thriller with heart in the horror
Review: For alternative history and a fine escape for a vacation read The Children's War offers compelling reading as well as an imaginative leap into an alternative future where the Nazi rule Europe and the British Isles. It is told from the perspective of a multigenerational resistance to the Nazi slave and terror rule and how pockets of national resistance accommodate to nearly total domination. It is told from the point of view of Peter who arrested for having bad papers is tortured and enslaved. There are several premises in this wonderful adventure that deserve special mention. Stroyar's study of the deep disorientation of torture victims fuels the plot development though as she admits in her notes she actually down played worst of common modern torture practice. Her characterization of an American social system still technically at war with the Nazi's also plays a bit to parody but the story remains tight and most f the action believable and exciting. This has my attention for a Vacation read. Don't miss it. I think I night want a sequel!
Rating: 
Summary: Sleeping Pill
Review: Having not read the entire book, maybe my review doesn't count. But after the excerpt, I have no desire to read further. I nearly fell asleep twice. The idea of good liturature is to give the reader something to look forward to within the first couple of chapters. I couldn't tell if the characters were in England, Germany, Russia or some other location. Or whether they were in the future (due to mention of the millenium) or if they were in an alternative universe. There was no lead-in to clue me as to the circumstances of the characters' current situation.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: How do I start, this is without a doubt one of the best books that I have ever read. Many books are described as emotional roller coasters but this one really is. Stroyar really puts you in the mind and hearts of her characters and makes her imaginary world seem all too real. I just don't understand the negative reviews - don't these people read the newspapers. It amazes me the press hasn't picked up on this sleeper masterpiece. Hollywood should turn it into a movie, its way better than the sacharine stuff Tinseltown churns out these days.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: How do I start, this is without a doubt one of the best books that I have ever read. Many books are described as emotional roller coasters but this one really is. Stroyar really puts you in the mind and hearts of her characters and makes her imaginary world seem all too real. I just don't understand the negative reviews - don't these people read the newspapers. It amazes me the press hasn't picked up on this sleeper masterpiece. Hollywood should turn it into a movie, its way better than the sacharine stuff Tinseltown churns out these days.
| 
