Woman must confront sins of her past

GRETEL Fernsby, who is 91, has lived in the same mansion block in London for decades. She leads a comfortable, quiet life, despite her dark, disturbing past.

She doesn’t talk about her escape from Germany more than 70 years before. She doesn’t talk about the post-war years in France with her mother.

Most of all, she doesn’t talk about her father, the commandant of one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps.

Then a young family moves into the apartment below her. Despite herself, Gretel can’t help but begin a friendship with the young boy, Henry, though his presence brings back memories she would rather forget.

One night, she witnesses a violent argument between Henry’s mother and his domineering father, one that threatens Gretel’s hard-won, self-contained existence.

Gretel is faced with a chance to expiate her guilt, grief and remorse and act to save a young boy – for the second time in her life. But to do so, she will be forced to reveal her true identity to the world.

Will she make a different choice this time, whatever the cost to herself?

All the Broken Places is a devastating, beautiful story about a woman who must confront the sins of her past and a present in which it is never too late for bravery.