The Devil Comes to Bonn
About this ebook
Two women’s psychological endurance is tested to its limits. A literary novel about moral ambiguity set in contemporary and World War II Germany.
1941. Hildegard needs a job. Interviewing for a hotel post, she does not realise she is about to collide with the sinister Fuhrer. She is thrust into the role of maid to Hitler in the infamous Room 106 in a hotel he visited more than 70 times.
2015. Stella, a historian, comes to Bonn, Germany for a World Heritage conference. Life at home is tense, but she pretends all is well until she is assaulted over a trivial matter by another delegate. Bewildered, Stella descends into obsessed stalking. When she meets the elderly Hildegard, she is drawn into her wartime story, little seeing the similarities to her own.
In this dual-timeline story, Stella and Hildegard face questions of survival, identity, love and meaning as they juggle moral ambiguities.
About the author
Jennifer Harris has been fascinated by the presence of the past in the present for as long as she can remember. She writes literary fiction inspired by the historic environment—not historical fiction, but fiction set in the contemporary era that responds to the past. Jennifer holds a PhD in cultural heritage theory and has lectured in and researched cultural heritage and museums. She has run a small social history museum and worked as a journalist in both Australia and London. An Australian by birth, she currently lives in Seattle. She is a watercolourist, hiker, skier and avid visitor to historic sites and museums.
