This book starts at the very beginning of World War 2, right before Hitler takes over Poland. We follow a family, the Vogels, that lives in Germany, The father has a factory that the Nazi's use to create their gas. The mother is originally from England and is a stay at home mom. All the kids are grown, Max is a spy for the English, his twin Paul is a doctor that is forced into working for the Nazi's and their sister, Hannah, lives in England with her husband Frank. The youngest of the group is Wilmot and he is a Nazi solider. We follow the family through the beninnings of the war and how they all cope and deal with the rolls they have chosen or been forced into.


This book can be very descriptive on how the Jewish people and others were treated during this time. This story can get very heavy to read sometimes, but it is a good book with good writing. As I have said this is the first book in a trilogy, I will need a mental break before I can move on to the next one. But if you are into WWII history this may be the fictional book for you.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read this book, I didn’t really enjoy this book as much as I thought I would as I do love this genre but I thought it quite boring and a very slow reads and i really don’t enjoy slow reads, such a shame because the writing and history was great. I would definitely recommend this book to people that like the genre though nevertheless. I gave this book 3 stars

Wow! I loved it. This story about the Vogel family during WWII drew me in and kept me reading late into the night. Sometimes I couldn't ready fast enough to keep up with the exciting story. The members of this German family: parents Dieter and Laura, twin sons Max and Paul, daughter Hannah, and son Wilmot all have their own storylines that are woven together. Each has a different path and a point of view that evolves through their unique experiences and characteristics. While the story moves back and forth from one family member to another, from Berlin to London to Paris, no section is too long. Never did I have to say, "Wait, who is this?" and flip back chapters to connect the story.

At the end of The German Half-Bloods, author Jana Petken left me with too many unresolved issues. Where is Paul? Will Willie survive? Where will Klara go? I can't wait to read the next two books in this trilogy, The Vogels and Before the Brightest Dawn.

I posted the following review on my blog as well as Goodreads

Book 36 of my 2019 Reading Challenge
read from March 24 - May 19

The German Half-Bloods
by Jana Petken
Book 1 of The Half-Blood series

Summary (via Goodreads)
published 2018

Germany, September 1939. At the outbreak of War, Dieter Vogel and his family face catastrophic events and separation as each member embarks on their deadly paths towards survival, love, and freedom.
Dieter Vogel, a German industrialist, believes in protecting his family at all costs, but in a bid to keep his English wife and children safe, he is plunged into a well of deceit that tears the family apart.
Doctor Paul Vogel is coerced into working in the Nazi eugenics program and soon discovers that sterilizing handicapped and mentally-ill Germans is just a prelude to a more lethal plan against those the Reich deem unworthy of life. Paul, trapped by the SS, seeks help from the unlikeliest of people and is plunged into a world of espionage and murder.
British Army Major, Max Vogel, is attached to The British Intelligence Services and Winston Churchill’s Special Operations Executive. His missions in occupied Europe are fraught with danger, and his adulterous affair with a woman he cannot give up leads him deeper into the quagmire of treachery and lies.
Wilmot Vogel dreams of winning the Iron Cross, but when he confronts a mass killing of Jews in Poland, his idolatry of Hitler is shaken to its roots, and he finds himself imprisoned in the infamous Dachau concentration camp with no release date in sight.
Hannah Vogel has no ambition other than to marry her English fiancé, Frank, before the lines of war are drawn. Against her father’s wishes, she leaves Berlin on the eve of the German invasion of Poland, but when she arrives in England, she learns that Frank is not the civilian engineer he claims to be.

My Opinion
4 stars

**I received an electronic copy of this book via NetGalley and would like to thank the author and/or publisher for the opportunity to read and honestly review it**

I had no trouble keeping all the characters straight even though I took breaks while reading it - I wouldn't have held it against the author if I couldn't since my timing would've affected it but it was a pleasant surprise that I didn't have any issues.

Everything is presented on such an individual level that it was hard to read because it made me realize how people allowed the Nazis to gain so much power. They just kept their heads down and tried to live their lives and ignore as much as possible until they couldn't anymore. I wish there weren't parallels to the things going on today.

The book ended on such a cliffhanger that I was upset until I realized there was a second book. I haven't read it yet but if it had been available the moment I finished this one I would've jumped right in.

Excellent characters,setting was mostly Berlin and Poland.
Great characterizations and each character had a remarkable part to play
The main family portrayed the father and son both working for the Nazi's even though they lived in Germany and hated what they stood for.
The father had a factory,which actually made the gases,that killed so many Jews,which he didn't know.As soon as he was sure,he bombed it & went into hiding.
Since it was about the War,there was a lot of cloak.and dagger stuff going on and not knowing who to.trust.
One pleasing part were the twin Bros.Max and Paul,they both had different thoughts about the way things were,but generally accepted each other.
I will.read the Author,Jana Petken again,as this really held my attention.
I would also.like to take the opportunity to thank Netgalley,for for allowing me to read "The German Half-Bloods" for an honest review.

Book one of the series and wow, I need to read the rest of the series. An excellent, fact-based story of a family living in Germany at the outbreak of the 2nd World War. The wife is English, her husband German and the children split between the 2 countries at war. Spies, intrigue, secrets and family loyalty all tested to the limits. Wonderful book, most highly recommended.

The German Half-Bloods is a fabulous piece of historical fiction. I can not wait to read more by this author. Five plus stars.

A well-written and complexly plotted crime thriller with crackling dialogue, true-to-life characters, an intensely paced plot, and an explosive finale.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for a review. I am glad I did. I enjoyed the book which takes place in WWII.
It is the first in a trilogy and I am looking forward to reading the other 2 books. The characters are well-drawn, each much alive on the page, and quickly thrown into action. The characters in this book are all very different. We see WWII through their individual eyes, both in England, France and Germany. Their reactions to the goings-on in Germany, Britain and France in the 30's and 40's are described brilliantly and very detailed.
I cannot wait to read the next instalment.

Amazing and entertaining read that accurately portrays the WWII era of Germany. Great for genre fans . Highly suggest purchasing for libraries and classrooms.

Ein altes Thema, das nie alt wird - eine spannende Geschichte, die aus verschiedenen Blickwinkel einen frischen Blick auf alte, historische Vorkommnisse wirft.

I found this to be a most interesting book.. I really enjoyed reading this story about a German family on the eve of WWII and having the members of the family on differing sides. The characters were very believable and the events were well relayed to the reader. I look forward to reading the next book in this trilogy to see how the characters continue to evolve and how they all deal with the war individually and as a whole. I received a copy from NetGalley and the publisher and this is my honest opinion.

I received a free copy of The German Half-Bloods by Jana Petken from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review of the book. This is an amazingly told story. It is the first in a trilogy and I am looking forward to reading the other 2 books as well. This book grabs you by the heart and soul from page one and keeps ahold on you to the final page. You get an excellent view of WWII Nazi Germany and how it tore apart many families. The Vogel family is one such family. You get see each member as they walk their particular path in Nazi Germany and England. We get see how each member is forced to cope and struggle with what they face. There are parts of the book that are difficult to read as they are explicit and honest in what occurred. But it is tastefully done. Amazing story and I plan to purchase and read the other 2 as well.

I read every WWII book I find. I grabbed this one and found it to be very interesting. The half-bloods are the children of a German father and an English mother. As the world is drawn into war the family begins to have split loyalties. The writing is very clear and accurate on the actions of that time. The character are unique and frustratingly real. I was upset to find the fate of two of the half-bloods to be undetermined as the novel ended. The book had a few surprises and much suspense. I put it on my shelf to read again.

A very interesting reading with a lot of facts to learn from! It describes a past reality of the human kind and the sacrifices a familist must do in order to protect his family.

Intriguing plot well constructed. Many twists and turns throughout. Set in WWII centred around a family which is split on what side they support. Although they are German and they live in Berlin their mother is English! I found the book kept my interest throughout.

5 stars

** Please be aware that this is a difficult book that deals with the horrors of WWII. It might not be for the faint of heart.

This is a wonderful book. It is about the four adult children of parents who spend their time between Berlin and Dresden in the 1930's. The father is a very wealthy busnessman, a native German, who has been married to an English woman for thirty-seven years. The children are Hannah who is engaged to an Englishman named Frank and plans to move to England with him, Wilmot “Willie” who has been newly- and proudly - accepted to the SS, Paul who is a doctor and is essentially blackmailed into joining the Nazis in their eugenics program and Max currently living in England and living a secret double life.

The characters in this book are all very different. We see WWII through their individual eyes, both in England, France and Germany. Their reactions to the goings-on in Germany, Britain and France in the 30's and 40's are described brilliantly and very detailed.

The reader gets a lesson in the resistance movement in France, as well as in Germany. We meet the people in the movement, all with their own reasons for joining this quest to free their countries and its peoples from the yoke of Nazi oppression.

This book is extremely well written. Ms. Petken's descriptions of the Nazi atrocities and the children of Dieter and Laura Vogel are complete. The sons and daughter, indeed the parents, too, all react differently at first, but their reactions change with time and experience. Of all the secret lives lived in this book, Dieter's comes as perhaps the biggest. My only disappointment with this novel is that it ended rather abruptly and I want to know what happened to the other characters.

I want to thank NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for forwarding to me a copy of this instructive and very good book for me to read, enjoy and review.

Great read. Interesting subject that appeals to so many out tgere. A subject we will never tire of. Easy to read and was fast paced

I totally loved reading this book, and didn't want it to end. An entwined tale of WWII, from Germany to England, encompassing members of the same family, and their experiences dealt to them and their friends by Adolf Hitler and his henchmen. Looking forward to the next book!

Not my cup of tea!

It was very hard for me to like this book. And yet the idea of writing a WWII story from a German point of view is worthwhile. Faced with the pressures put on families the decisions various members of the family made ring true.
Though the Vogels are hardly your typical German family, the everyday person caught up in the storm of Hitler and the SS. The children of this family are privileged, half English and well educated. Privileges that make it possible for some of them to chart a course that others in the family and the society could not. English enough to confront and acknowledge what they see happening, that Hitler is not the savior of the German people and that something shocking is happening. Although it seems Wilfred and Dieter have some way to go.
One can't help but admire the research behind Petkin's novel.
A novel you either are drawn to or not.

A NetGalley ARC