Eva, a sixteen-year-old German Jewish girl, and her sister have had their portraits painted by a young painter. It is 1861 when Eva finds herself in an unacceptable relationship with that same painter. Eva’s sister Henriette who is pregnant searches for Eva and in doing so, she not only loses her baby but also her life. Eva is devastated following her sister’s death. Several years pass before she marries Abraham Shein, a German merchant, who has returned to Germany from America for a brief visit. Eva hopes this marriage will help her to forget the guilt she carries about her sister’s death, and as a result, allow her to start a new life.

Eva and Abraham soon depart for Santa Fe, New Mexico where Abraham is part owner of the Shein Brothers Store. Eva finds life to be much more difficult than the pampered life she led in Germany. But that is not the only problem she faces. Abraham is not the upright and faithful husband that she envisioned and she eventually experiences the unfortunate consequences of his actions.

The German Bride is a book about regret, guilt, love, broken promises, and the strength of the human spirit. The setting of Santa Fe, New Mexico populated with German immigrants in the 1800’s makes for an unusual historical tale. And throughout the book it is difficult to like Abraham and Eva who were such miserable characters until Eva redeems herself in the concluding chapters.
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Eva marries in haste and flees Berlin and her shame in hopes of starting anew in America. But Sante Fe isn't the city she thought it would be. And Abraham isn't the kind and generous husband he promised he would be. ( )

The premise was so intriguing, but I lost interest about 3/4 of the way through. The storytelling was dreamlike, episodic, but flat. I could not get a sense of the main character; she was just passive and completely opaque to me. I finally said, "Why am I still reading this?", so I stopped because I just didn't care. ( )

This is a complex and unusual tale of a German Jewish girl who marries a relative stranger who brings her to frontier Santa Fe, New Mexico. She struggles and grows as an individual as does the town around her. ( )

This was a really good one! ( )