Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Woman Outside the Walls

By: Suzanne Goldring
Narrated by: Alison Campbell
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £18.99

Buy Now for £18.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

I always knew it would come out one day. They are finding everyone who has stayed hidden. They would have come to me in the end.

Hamburg, 1942. Seventeen-year-old Anna knows she can never tell her proud parents the truth about where she is going. She must hide the fact that she is pregnant, that the father of her unborn child is dead, and that she is on her way to a special maternity home, where her baby will be given to a perfect family. She tells herself that this is the best solution. She doesn’t expect to feel the rush of love for her beautiful baby boy in the white blanket or the devastation when he is snatched from her, never to be seen again.

Desperate to forget her grief, she sees an advert for a secretary in a prison, far away in the east. Days later, she leaves Hamburg, traveling eastward by train, feeling as if a whole new life is about to begin. It is the biggest mistake she will ever make.

London, 2016. Ninety-year-old Anna sits on the edge of her bed, hands trembling, eyes brimming with tears, as she looks at the picture of the soldier in the newspaper. Her friends and neighbors know her as a kindly old lady who bakes cakes and always has time to listen to their troubles. They don’t know about the hated green uniform she burned, the memories of the prisoners she tried to help, and the bombed and blackened city she once called home. But now the time for a reckoning has come; will revealing the truth free Anna or destroy her?

The Woman Outside the Walls will take you on an emotional journey and show you that in war, even when you are on the wrong side, you can still do the right thing....

©2022 Suzanne Goldring (P)2022 Bookouture, an imprint of Storyfire Ltd.
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2
activate_samplebutton_t1

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Girl Who Escaped cover art
The Girl with the Yellow Star cover art
The Girl with the Scarlet Ribbon cover art
The Girl Without a Name cover art
All the Courage We Have Found cover art
My Name Is Eva cover art
The Shut-Away Sisters cover art
The Secret Photograph cover art
The Silence Before Dawn cover art
The Bletchley Girls cover art
The Wife Who Risked Everything cover art
The Midwife of Auschwitz cover art
The Secrets We Left Behind cover art
Beyond the Tracks cover art
The Tobacco Girls cover art
The Girl They Left Behind cover art

What listeners say about The Woman Outside the Walls

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    6
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    6
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great story, really well told.

Loved this book from start to finish, kept me engaged all the way through and has made me want to do more research myself into the Hamberg and Dresden bombing.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great book

Loved it. Loved the story, the narrator, everything. Well researched and executed. It good to Consider what normal German people suffered as well.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Found this very difficult to empathise with

Really didn’t like this story. Anna/Etta/Margie was not a likeable character, I found her hypocritical and self indulgent. The descriptions of the bombings left me cold. It happened all over Europe and many innocent people lost their lives due to Baedeker raids and Luftwaffe tactics. I found it hard to empathise with the characters even though perhaps I should have, however the main character came over as a devious, manipulative liar with double standards and little remorse. I persevered with it but really wish I’d not bothered as it actually made me feel irritated

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

A bit lacklustre

I felt a frustration while l had empathy for the character living during the war and aftermath "Nazi" l found myself exasperated with the meddlesom neighbour who ate the old womans cakes ordered her some flour and sugar then proceeded to bully her into her dark past to help her son with a school project Ridiculous The aged woman was crippled with trauma PTS and OCD Then had the audacity to film her narrative Hated the bullying and manipulation

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!