
The Girl from the Mountains
Audible Audiobook
– Unabridged
Amazon Price | New from | Used from |
Audible Audiobook, Unabridged
"Please retry" |
$0.00
| Free with your Audible trial |
The story of one young woman’s exceptional courage in the darkest of times, set in the stunningly atmospheric mountains of Czechoslovakia during the Second World War.
1938: Magda has led a sheltered life in her small village until the day she is forced from her home by the invading Nazi army. Torn away from her family and the only place she has ever known, she is offered refuge in an alpine villa owned by brilliant Dr, Tauber and his talented, beautiful wife.
But despite having friends in high places, the Jewish Taubers are living on borrowed time. When the Gestapo come to arrest them, Magda is asked to protect something more precious than the silver and jewels they leave behind. Their newborn son Samuel.
Magda turns to the local Resistance, who hide Samuel nearby. Determined to help them and save her country, Magda remains in the house to serve the Nazi commander, passing messages and supplies to the secret network. But when she is caught, Magda is forced to flee into the high mountains with a price on her head.
With the Nazis in pursuit, and nothing left to lose, Magda takes up arms with a band of partisan fighters in the hope of rescuing the Taubers and reuniting them with Samuel. Even if it might mean laying down her life to win the freedom of those she loves....
This heartbreaking wartime epic of love, bravery, and survival will stay with you. Perfect for fans of My Name Is Eva, The Alice Network, and The German Midwife.
Previously published as Magda’s Mark, this edition has substantial editorial changes.
- Listening Length10 hours and 52 minutes
- Audible release date3 February 2021
- LanguageEnglish
- ASINB08T6NDN53
- VersionUnabridged
- Program TypeAudiobook
Read & Listen
Get the Audible audiobook for the reduced price of $2.99 after you buy the Kindle book.
- Get this audiobook free then 1 credit each month, good for any title you like - yours to keep, even if you cancel
- Listen all you want to the Plus Catalogue—a selection of thousands of Audible Originals, audiobooks and podcasts, including exclusive series
- Exclusive member-only deals
- $16.45 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime
People who viewed this also viewed
- The Girl on the Platform: Based on a True Story, a Totally Heartbreaking, Epic and Gripping World War 2 Page-TurnerAudible Audiobook
- Audible Audiobook
- Audible Audiobook
- Audible Audiobook
- While Paris Slept: A mother faces a heartbreaking choice in this bestselling story of love and courage in World War 2Audible Audiobook
Product details
Listening Length | 10 hours and 52 minutes |
---|---|
Author | Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger |
Narrator | Alison Campbell |
Whispersync for Voice | Ready |
Audible.com.au Release Date | 03 February 2021 |
Publisher | Hachette UK - Bookouture |
Program Type | Audiobook |
Version | Unabridged |
Language | English |
ASIN | B08T6NDN53 |
Best Sellers Rank | 56,989 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) 267 in World War II Historical Fiction 1,927 in Women's Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) 13,677 in Women's Fiction (Books) |
Customer reviews
Top reviews from Australia
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Magda Novak lives peacefully on her family’s farm in Czechoslovakia, until the German army arrives, the Novak’s are ordered to leave and the farm is given to a German family. Her family’s fractured, scattered in all different directions and what will happen to them all now? Magda’s offered a place to stay with Dr Tauber, his wife Ruth and their daughter Eliska at their beautiful alpine villa.
The Tauber’s are Jewish, they have been given protection and it’s only a matter of time until it ends. Magda enjoys living with the Tauber’s they treat her well, like one of the family, unfortunately the Germans arrest the Tauber’s and she manages to help save their newborn son Samuel. Magda is badly beaten by the Germans; she’s forced to work for the hated German officer Koenig and his nasty wife who now reside in the Tauber’s villa. She determined to help the resistance, she passes on messages, medical supplies and when she’s caught she flees into the mountains.
Magda becomes more involved in the fight to free Czechoslovakia; wearing a disguise, she works as an army nurse and eventually trains to be a freedom fighter with the partisans. Magda was born with a birthmark on one side of her face; add a badly broken nose, she stands out and she ends up with a bounty on her head. Magda loved her country, her family, the Tauber’s, baby Samuel, her boyfriend Karol and she never gave up trying to find them! The Girl From The Mountains is a story about Magda’s incredible bravery, courage, dedication and her personal fight against the Germans during WW II. I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, the story at times was too over the top for me and I gave the book three stars.
Top reviews from other countries

This is a gritty, powerful, heart-breaking war novel set in what was once known as Bohemia, the German Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia. I was enthralled to discover a new area of history that I knew very little about, brought to life with believable characters and hooking me right in with the first menacing, ominous pages.
It’s a story about war that spares no punches – shows us the cruelty and prejudices of Nazi Germany against the courage and determination of the resistance, but not in swashbuckling, derring-do style. Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger paints us a war where “it’s dog eat dog.” It is passionate without being slushy, introducing us to a cast of characters that are flawed but strong, showing us how the human spirit and desire to do right can conquer. The heroine, Magda, has a distinctive birthmark on her face and she is told: “…birthmark is not an excuse for avoiding risks. It should not be the thing that prevents you from performing acts of courage.” I love that she proceeds with bravery but is fearful (and therefore so identifiable) at the same time. She is truly human even though her lover calls her a “warrior queen”.
I have read other books by this talented author but this is her best so far, in my opinion. The writing flows, the descriptions are original, the world these characters live in was so vivid to me. There are beautiful, clever lines like when the Nazis begin to roll in: “… witness the Germans chalking off the Sudetenland demarcation with their exhaust fumes”. I love the author’s voice: “A crow cawed and grazed the winter sky…”; the menacing lines where Magda is interrogated: “Koenig strode to her, reaching over and crushed the cigar out, leaving a dark bruise in the ashtray…”; “Danger left a funny metallic taste on Magda’s tongue. It stuck to the roof of her mouth, thick and syrupy. Sometimes it made her feel sick…”. Towards the end of the story, when the hunted become the hunters and Magda returns to her birthplace for the first time since the outbreak: “This was what it must have felt like to be dead and to return as a ghost, to be looking in on a life that had gone on without her.”. These are just a few lines that I highlighted and went back to savour again.
I’d like to add that the maps at the front of the book are very useful and helped explain the complex history.
My thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for allowing me to read an early copy of this amazing book in return for an unbiased review. I have since bought it too, as I need this book on my shelves. I highly recommend this book and give it 5 full fat stars.

Whilst one learns about the atrocities commited by the Nazi's against the Jewish people, it takes a fictional account like this one, to involve one fully. This is perhaps because one needs to engage not just with one's head, but also with one's heart to understand and empathise on a deeper level. The tale told by the author is truly horrifying.
Magda's terror is so well illustrated that I was very fearful for her throughout. Lucyk-Berger's description of what the years of hiding and abject fear do to her humanity as a person, are very believable and all the more shocking for it. I was relieved that redemption from this descent into ruthlessness was allowed for Magda in the final pages.
This book should be required reading lest we ever see the like of those horrors again.

Flitting about between timelines does nothing for this story except confuse the reader. Too many explanations omitted---or maybe avoided?---just when you get into one thread it peters out never to re-appear.
The author seems to have had so many ideas for this story it`s almost like reading her notes rather than the finished article.
The idea that someone so conspicuous as Magda both in appearance and manner, would have been allowed out and thus compromise the resistance is stretching the imagination and certainly the realities----I`m sure they`d have got rid of her a.s.a.p. as an unreliable liability!
Maybe the original book is better but this for me, is best forgotten and I won`t be looking for another by this author.

