I loved the author's notes and references, we are told that this is a fictional read, but based on real people, sometimes a couple of people to make one, and the references that were used and offered!
This is a terrible time in world history, with this taking place in the Baltic area, and Russia.
Documented murders, a massive loss of life.
This is a fictional story, but the author did a great job of calling attention to the actual crimes being committed, disregard for human life. From Lithuania to Siberia, from the United States to Sweden.
The author brings the main characters alive, and I loved he followed through with the survivors through their lives.
A sad but enjoyable read!
I received this book through Net Galley and the Publisher American Legacy Media, and was not required to give a positive review.

An engrossing book and so well written and researched. Very enlightening on the participation of .lithuania. A must read for anyone interested in the holocaust.

A very hard book to read -- not for how it was written, but for the content. I knew nothing about how the Baltic states were affected by WWII, the Nazi invasion or the antisemitism of the time. The line in the movie " a person is smart, but people are stupid" is so apt and came into play here. If the Nazis were blaming the Jews for everything, there must've been something to it, right?!? To read about people being marched into camps, lined up to be shot, not everyone falling dead but playing it in the hopes of somehow surviving to escape, those next in line being forced to bury those who came minutes prior before taking their turns in the shooting gallery. And I'd know the Siberian camps were bad, but to force them men to go off to fish for months before shelters had,been built, leaving the women and children to handle it and fast as the polar night was coming on quickly. Man's inhumanity to man. No, this book was not an easy read, but such a necessary one in light of what is currently happening in this country. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," said George Santayana, and we are living it now.

This story was very informative but heartbreaking. Although the story brought me to tears many times, it was also inspirational and uplifting towards the end. The author's way of explaining what was happening to various characters and their plight, along with weaving truths into the historical details, was done amazingly well.

I learned a lot about the history of the Lithuanians and their experiences during the war. Things surprised me, and I felt my heart ache for them. It still baffles me at the lengths some of humanity will go for greed, power, and control over other people.

The characters in the story had many layers, endured hardships and loss, but some of them, with remarkable determination, faith, and the ability to be a step ahead of the enemy, made it through to freedom. I was surprised at what seemed to be a set of miracles at the end, producing a happy ending. Hope was still alive.

I received a complimentary copy from NetGalley; a positive review is not required. All opinions are my own.

I can’t say that I enjoyed this book because of the horrific events it chronicled, but I had a hard time putting it down. While there is an abundance of novels set during WWII this is the first I’ve read about Ponary and the horrors that took place there, about the prisoner camps in Siberia and the general plight of the Lithuanian Jews at the hands of their own countryman as well as the Nazis and Soviets. The book was meticulously researched with extensive author and source notes. You will cry, you will be horrified throughout but will in the end be filled with hope. Highly recommended 5+ stars.

This is a very well researched and well written WWII story based on real events. This story was told in multiple points of view with each having their own separate story which made it very interesting. This was very different from most of the WWII books I have read in that this featured more information about the Baltic States Jews. I had a hard time putting this book down.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this gripping page-turner.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (5 stars)

Thank you to NetGalley and author Gary W. Toyn for the opportunity to read From Malice to Ashes. This is my honest review of the ARC, and I truly appreciate it.

💔 History that shakes you to the core 💔 (Spoilers ahead!)
From the very first pages, I was emotionally gripped by the characters and their experiences. The horrors they endured especially the young girl in the beginning... felt so real, so terrifying. When soldiers approached her on the train and one began to harass her, I felt physically uneasy. War brings out the worst in humanity, and this book doesn’t shy away from showing that.

Chapter 5 surprised me with the naivety of the characters’ plans. I found myself genuinely worried for them as they boarded the ferry to Sweden. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this level of concern for every single character in a book before.

The train journey from Latvia to Siberia was heartbreaking. Zeneta and Matis’s fate was painful to witness. Chapter 10 broke me, I cried for hours... And Chapter 17, where Olek recounts the mass murder of Jews, left me speechless. The brutality described throughout the book is vivid and horrifying, yet tragically real.

Reading this book reminded me of how inhumane people can be to one another. It’s devastating to realize that wars continue to happen, and history seems to repeat itself. The way different cultures interpret historical events often through the lens of propaganda makes it hard to believe that any single version of truth exists. That thought alone is terrifying.

Historical fiction like this hits differently. You see the events through the eyes of the characters, and it makes everything feel more immediate, more personal. It’s not just a story, it’s a mirror to the suffering of millions.

💔 Moments that broke me 💔
Ugna’s experience in the Siberian labor camp, the SA by her boss, and her unexpected pregnancy, these scenes were gut-wrenching. Ponary as a death site for Jews was horrifying to read about. When the skeletal boy appeared, I couldn’t hold back tears. Olek’s compassion toward him was beautiful and heartbreaking. Poor Mordecai… I had to pause reading.

Leva’s reaction to her mother’s letter learning her father was dead and her mother imprisoned was unbearable. The grief of two women, one who lost her father and the other her son, was overwhelming. Al’s pain reading about his parents was equally devastating.

Ugna’s thoughts of suicide, her trauma, and the conditions in the barracks were almost too much to bear. Chapter 32, where Ugna and Zeneta are sent near the North Pole with no shelter or food, was beyond words. Soldiers watching them build their own shelter to survive — it’s unimaginable.

Chapter 33 left me in shock. Olek… no. I feared the worst. By Chapter 41, every character had been through hell. I hadn’t seen Leva’s POV in a while, and when her chapter returned, it revealed her brother was imprisoned by the Germans. The emotional weight just kept building.

Itzak discovering his family’s bodies in Ponary was devastating. Chapter 47 brought a moment of relief since they escaped Ponary! But then Leva’s grandmother died of a stroke, and that hit close to home for me personally. My own grandmother passed the same way, and I needed time to collect myself after reading that scene.

And Chapter 62… I was crying like a whale. Zeneta returning to Sweden, finding her daughter Leva, her mother-in-law dead, and her son in a wheelchair, it was too much. I couldn’t hold back the tears.

💔 My final thoughts 💔
This book shook me to my core. It’s a story that makes you tremble, that reaches into the depths of your soul. I always cry when reading historical fiction, but this one felt especially raw. These horrors should never have happened, and yet they did and still probably do somewhere... Humanity doesn’t seem to learn.
The author also highlights how little is said about Baltic Countries' role in WWII in history textbooks. Some events are glossed over or forgotten, but this book brings them to light. The fact that it references real sources makes the experience even more haunting.

Malice and Mercy #1
From Malice to Ashes: Forest of No Mercy by Gary W. Toyn

It's hard to put my thoughts into words when it comes to describing this historical fiction about the Ponary Massacre in Lithuania and also life in Siberia for ordinary men, women, and children who were forced to work under impossible conditions. There is so much more here, with the backdrop of things I know were going on elsewhere in the country and the world. I want to think that when bad things happen, they happen because we are confronted with an enemy. That happens here but the enemy is often a neighbor, a friend, a relative, a community of people who make up a village.

It's not always easy for me to understand all the politics of what is going on. Borders change, locations change names as they change hands, and when there is a chance of atrocities being discovered, great efforts are made to cover up the atrocities and then, of course, more atrocities are committed as the slaves who were forced to labor to cover up the atrocities were themselves killed.

I've known about Ponary for a long while but it's only in the last few years that I've read books that look so closely at what happened there. Over 75,000 Jews were killed there but also tens of thousand more people and many of these people were killed by their neighbors who volunteered to do the killing. Then there were those who felt the only way to stay out of the death pits was to be on the other side of the guns, they may not have volunteered for the job except to not do so was to die. Once this business of killing thousands began, it was no longer a secret among those who lived in the area. There were so few, virtually no choices for those trying to flee slavery, imprisonment, or death.

Olek Kosmen, a young Jewish man, who is a witness to the death at Ponary, is based on a real man who witnessed what went on and wrote about it. This book contains so much history, based on people or composites of several people, allowing us to see what was going on through the eyes of those who managed to live to the end of WWII. Those who might have escaped the fate taking place at Ponary could have been sent to slave camps in Siberia and elsewhere. There was no plan by those in charge for the people they lorded over to live through their slavery. If you were alive, you worked, if you couldn't work, you didn't get your paltry starvation ration.

Read the book, there is so much here and I'm not relating the contents of the book sufficiently because I'll never be able to wrap my mind around these events in history, events that weren't just a mistake or accident that happened over a short time. These are events, like the concentration camps, that were organized and planned and ran like well oiled machines in order to destroy as many people as possible. That neighbors and friends did this to each other is so hard to understand and I can't explain it but we can't let this history be forgotten.

Thank you to the author, American Legacy Media, and NetGalley for this ARC.

From Malice to Ashes delivers a chilling, meticulously researched portrayal of atrocity and endurance during one of history’s darkest chapters. Gary W. Toyn approaches the subject matter with respect, emphasizing human dignity rather than sensational violence. The novel’s greatest strength is its multi-threaded narrative: Olek’s horrific labor within the Burning Brigade contrasts sharply with the Siberian gulag’s cold brutality and the refugee tension in neutral Sweden. Each setting reveals a different face of cruelty—and resilience.

Toyn is skilled at depicting how political forces crush ordinary families, yet the emotional core remains deeply personal. The pacing is thoughtful, not rushed, allowing horror and hope to develop organically. Some readers might find the level of detail overwhelming, but that density is what gives the book weight and authenticity.

Where many WWII novels focus on battlefield heroics, this one highlights uncelebrated forms of resistance: digging tunnels by hand, sharing scraps of bread, refusing to forget the murdered. It is heartbreaking, but ultimately life-affirming.

A powerful tribute to the will to survive

#frommalicetoashes
#garywtoynauthor
#historicalfiction
#wardrama

A big “thank you” to #NetGalley and #AmazonLegacyPubliahers for a very enlightening reading experience. One I had little knowledge about, but was glad to learn more.

“Olek Kosmen, a young Jewish man hiding in a forest cabin, becomes an unwitting chronicler to one of the Holocaust’s earliest massacres in Lithuania’s Ponary Forest. Eventually captured, Olek is forced into the Nazi “Burning Brigade,” a unit of 80 men tasked with exhuming and incinerating the bodies of Ponary’s victims to erase the evidence of mass murder. Knowing they’ll be executed once they finish their grisly job, the prisoners’ only hope for survival lies in an audacious escape tunnel they are digging with their bare hands.

Meanwhile, Olek’s fiancée flees to neutral Sweden, while her parents are deported to Siberia, where they must survive one of Stalin’s harshest labor colonies. Their fates converge in a sweeping, true-to-history story of resistance, survival, and the will to reclaim family and truth.”

No doubt, I had very little knowledge of this piece of WWII history. It helped to expand my knowledge of the situations in the Baltic countries present day. Certainly the Ukraine-Russia War now had a bit of background that I was lacking.

The horror perpetrated on Jewish people and others executed In the Ponary Forest
was sorely lacking from my history classes. As well as the Soviet role being akin to the German one. A sorrowful part of history depicted so well.

The author has written a compelling, if horrifying, work of historical fiction. One we all need to read. Very well done!

There are a lot of emotions going through my brain, as I have just finished reading this book. Every time I read a book that covers the timeframe of World War II, I feel like I learn of more tragedy, sacrifice and terror that these people went through. Those that had the opportunity to fight for their lives and survive to tell their tale. And sadly those that suffered and didn’t have any choice, I had not read of the horrors that took place in the Baltic region. I am grateful for the authors research and notes to bring the book to life. This story follows four fictitious main characters with many other sub characters. In the beginning I had to stop to take notes because I couldn’t keep the characters straight. It was a little choppy. This is a new author to me, so maybe I just didn’t embrace his style. I did read an arc copy so it had not gone through its final edits and I hope it was cleaned up for the final draft. Overall, I did enjoy reading this book. It is rather long, but I felt like it was worth it. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

From Malice to Ashes by Gary W. Toyn is a heartbreaking and harrowing Historical Fiction novel heavily rooted in factual events and people during World War II. The horrors in the Baltics during this time seem to be largely unknown and what information there is, forgotten. But through meticulous research and passion about the topic, the author draws the reader's attention to the important Baltic Holocaust. Lithuanian Jews were wrongly perceived by many to be aligned with Soviets which caused rampant antisemitism. Many were sent to labour camps in Siberia and others escaped to neutral Sweden. Under Nazi control, there was chaos in Lithuania. Imaging the pushes and pulls in all directions by Nazis and Soviets is incomprehensible.

This novel details the accounts of Zeneta, Al, Leva, Olek, and Mordecai, all with different stories, Jews and non Jews, all desperate to escape. Mass forest shootings were commonplace. People were deported on trains. "Intelligentsia" were purged. Brutality and depravity are depicted realistically, as are raw emotions such as horror and sorrow. But there are slivers of hope in the dark evil. Human determination under such grim circumstances always amazes me. These men and women were real-life heroes and heroines who at great personal risk joined resistance and rescue efforts when merely surviving was a tremendous feat.

I felt a real connection to Toyn's writing and could tell he put his soul into this thoughtful and compelling story. I have read hundreds of WWII Historical Fiction novels but very few mention the Baltics, and practically none focus on these countries. It was fascinating to learn more!

This harrowing composite story is based on grim reality which has been intricately researched in
published papers as well as written private memoirs of those who lived through the horrors of both German and Russian occupations. The story covers the trials and tribulations of parts of a family between June 1940 and November 1944. The characters are an amalgam of people who were very real, and the sufferings they underwent such as the escape tunnel at Ponary, women and children transported to Lena River Delta in Siberia near the Mongolian border, and a journalist who made intricate notes detailing the mass murders (and worse) of hundreds of ordinary dissidents are documented truth. Those of us who geek history are impressed with the author's notes and the detailed chapter notes which all serve as testimony and warning. Think on the frog in the soup pot.
I requested and received a temporary uncorrected digital galley from American Legacy Media via NetGalley. *****review
#FromMaliceToAshes by #GaryWToyn #ForestofNoMercy #MaliceandMercyBk2 #AmericanLegacyMedia #bookbub #goodreads #librarything #thestorygraph #atrocities #USSR
#Lithuania #balticstates #siberia #sweden #WW2 #historicalresearch #massmurder #cruelty
#bookshop_org #bookshop_org_uk #indiebookstoresca #thriftbooks #BN #BAM #usarmyaircorps

From Malice to Ashes by Gary W. Toyn

This gripping story of the mass executions in the Ponary Forest, Lithuania, had me reading into the wee hours of the morning. My heart ached and my nerves were shredded as I felt the agony and pain experienced by the Jews, Poles, and Russians who were murdered there.
Toyn's amazing writing placed me in that forest, on that train, and in the Siberian Labor Camp. His ability to have the reader feel so deeply for the characters is simply top notch and learning new facets of WWII is something I enjoy (although tragic as it were). I'm an avid Toyn fan!

My thanks to #NetGalley and to the author for sending me an advanced copy of this novel for my review. This opinion is my own.