The Naked Heart

Description for THE NAKED HEART by Jacqueline Briskin:

"For as long as I live, Father, the betrayer's family will suffer, I promise you that." This vow will resonate through the years to haunt the lives of two women and the men they love.

But for Gilberte de Permont and her American friend, Ann Blakely, schoolgirls in the grim Paris of the Nazi Occupation, there is no forewarning of their tragically entwined destinies. They brighten their bleak, hungry days by spinning romantic fantasies about Gilberte's American cousin, Quent Dejong, heir to the Temple fortune, and his handsome friend, Larry Porter. Then a Paris railroad station is sabotaged by the Resistance. Shortly afterward the Baron and the Baronne de Permont and Gilberte disappear. Ann, beginning a fruitless search for the family, enlists Quent's aid. When "America enters the war it is Quent who guides her through enemy territory to Switzerland and safety. They fall in love but must separate, she to bomb-racked London, he on a secret mission.

Meanwhile, the de Permonts are imprisoned by the Gestapo, Gilberte, subjected to unspeakable brutality, witnesses the death of her parents by torture. All That sustains her is a passion to fulfill the oath she made to her father. This obsessive need for vengeance pursues her through the decades, leaving a wake of tragedy that engulfs her as well as Ann, and all whom they both hold dear.

THE NAKED HEART is an electrifying tale of love and revenge, with characters that linger in the mind long after the book is closed.