I love reading a book that makes me want to find out more about a time and a place - and this is such a book. It is a story of a city divided in two by the building of a wall that physically separates families and friends, of the suffering and despair of East Berliners under strict communist occupation and the desperate choices one woman has to make.

Life is grey and harsh in Communist East Berlin and Marcia Preston effectively draws the reader into the drudgery of Trudy's daily routines. Soon Trudy learns through an old friend, Wolfgang Kruger, that, as the wife of a defector, she is in danger of being brought in for questioning by the Stasi. Faced with possible imprisonment, torture or worse Trudy reluctantly takes up an offer of help to escape to the west. Tragically she is unable to take Stefan with her - a heart-wrenching decision for any woman.

The reader is then presented with a sequence of events which somewhat tests the bounds of credibility but nevertheless still provides an enjoyable read. President J F Kennedy visits to deliver his now famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech. Believing Kennedy is committed to helping Berliners Trudy more or less throws herself at his cavalcade and is helped up off the road by a presidential aid. After hearing her story he arranges for Trudy to travel to America to publicise her plight. Of course all this is not without a price and he is exploiting Trudy for his own political ambitions and so she returns to West Berlin with her hopes shattered. It is interesting to see through Trudy's eyes the relative affluence and material wealth of America in the 1960's compared to the conditions at that time in both East and West Berlin.

Having become immersed in the harshness of daily living in East Berlin in the 1960's it was interesting to see the contrast of West Berlin, although the latter was by no means an affluent society. I found the chain of events leading to Trudy's move to America, and indeed while in America, somewhat unbelievable and in some ways incongruous with the rest of the story. The only thing that kept this part of the story going for me was Trudy's feeling of being an outsider, her loneliness and steely determination to undertake anything that might reunite her family.

This is certainly a book with some strong and vivid characters. There's a stark contrast between childhood friends Wolfgang Kruger and Rolf Hulst. Despite their political and ideological differences their friendship survived. Wolfgang remains to the end a dedicated friend to Rolf's family, even at the cost of his own career. His character develops well as he becomes more compassionate and considerate as he becomes increasingly disenchanted with the communist establishment. Rolf on the other hand, appears to have put his political ideals before the wellbeing and safety of his family. I got the feeling his actions were motivated by his politics rather than concern for his family and I was left thinking that he didn't love Trudy in the way she loved him.

With a writing style which is both eloquent and passionate, Marcia Preston brings to life the bleakness and cheerlessness that marked the lives of ordinary people living in East Berlin at that time. It is at times a heart-wrenching story that had me rooting for Trudy right from the start and left me wanting to know more about the politics of the cold war period of which the Berlin Wall was so symbolic.