Für Elise

He waited half his life for a homecoming, only to discover his home no longer existed. . . . But perhaps he can create a new one. In 1956, more than a decade after the end of World War II, Hans Becker is finally released from a Soviet POW camp and returns to Germany. The reunion is disheartening-his beloved Dresden is largely blackened rubble, and his feelings of disorientation and melancholy hinder his attempt to revive the life-and love-he left behind. Elise, the once delicate teenager whose memory Hans carried in his heart, has, through unspeakable trauma, transformed into a strong, independent woman skeptical of love. Yet just as she and Hans can spot traces of splendor in the ruins and oppression of Iron Curtain-era Dresden, so they each can see flashes of what attracted them to their long-ago sweetheart. But they-and their world-have changed so much. Are they willing to risk everything to seek a new beginning?

About the Author :
Mark grew up in the St. Louis area before receiving his bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois and his master's degree from Northwestern University. He has had a lifelong passion for reading and history, particularly military history, and the idea for this book can be traced back decades to when he first read that the Soviet Union detained some of their German POWs for more than a decade after the end of World War II. He recalls thinking that the story of those POWs would make a great novel, but it took years of research and a visit to Dresden before it came to fruition. He currently lives with his family in the Chicago suburbs.

Review :
"In Für Elise, Splitstone offers a sweeping yet intimate tale of love, life, and loss, against the backdrop of a frenzied Germany prior to WWII and a broken and divided one following. This story-full of history and rich, sometimes harrowing, detail-will grab you from the start and linger long after you've turned the last page." -Katherine Reay, bestselling author of A Shadow in Moscow and The Berlin Letters "Splitstone delves deep into the quieter, everyday devastations of war, skillfully depicting how it irrevocably alters cities, cultures, and lives. A moving and illuminating narrative that lingers long after the final page." -BookLife Reviews "A riveting, emotional story of struggle, bravery, and love in Dresden during World War II and in postwar East Germany. This book tugs at your heartstrings, and it will keep you up past bedtime turning pages. I loved it." -Don Pugnetti Jr., author of A Coat Dyed Black "Fur Elise by Mark Splitstone shines an intense light on two people whose lives are changed forever by World War II. Not only do they live with the consequences of Hitler's Nazi regime and the destruction of their home by Allied bombers, but they must also survive the long aftermath of war. They are both prisoners: he in a Russian POW camp and she in the stultifying rule of Cold War East Germany. At last, they are reunited. Can they build a new life from the shattered remnants of the old?" -John Rhodes, award-winning author of the World War II Breaking Point series