Title: STOLEN BABIES
Author: Matthew Lutostanski
Publisher: AuthorHouseUK
ISBN: 979-8823089869
Pages: 200
Genre: Action & Adventure / Fiction
Reviewer: Anthony Avina

Read Book Review

Anyone who has ever grown up with questions in their life knows how important it is to find answers to their past. The lack of knowledge comes with questions surrounding identity and a need to erase moments of self-doubt from a person’s mind, making the need to understand a person’s past and where they come from so important and crucial to understanding oneself.

In author Matthew Lutostanski’s STOLEN BABIES, the author explores the need to understand the past through a historical lens. After hundreds of thousands of children were stolen by the Germans in WWII from their Polish parents, a man, decades later, discovers he is one of these children. Never knowing he was one of these kids, the now successful businessman must go on a transformational journey after discovering his birth mother is still alive, and his heritage may not be what he always believed it to be.

The world-building and character development were phenomenal in this story. The haunting first chapter captures the horrors that WWII often brought as the Nazis stole these children from their mother’s arms, and the emotional depth of both Adam and Maria’s stories as mother and son, separated by time and war, as they must determine whether to find one another again after so much time apart. The story not only focused on them, but on the reporters and team who investigated these crimes and what they went through as others tried to prevent the story from seeing the light of day. The intense emotional journey they went through as they confronted these atrocities made the narrative intense and adrenaline-fueled as I delved further into the history behind the narrative.

Readers who enjoy historical fiction and action-adventure novels, especially those involving WWII era history and a mix of family drama, this novel is the perfect read. The inclusion of drama from the point of view of the parents who raised Adam, and the heartbreaking realities of what crimes like this during WWII have done to everyone involved was perfectly represented in this narrative. The pacing and drama made this feel like equal parts action and adventure and equal parts suspense thriller while remaining grounded and emotionally driven, making this a must-read novel.