Book Review: Black Fox One by Elyse Hoffman

A deadly mission to hunt down the resistance's top soldier will make SS Officer Jonas Amsel question everything he kills for...

Jonas Amsel and Avalina Keller, devoted Nazis and best friends, have a bright future in Hitler’s Third Reich. Ava, a talented gymnast, wants to serve Germany in the Olympics, and Jonas, who has loved Ava since they were children, wants nothing more than to marry her and start a family. When he is about to propose, however, Ava and her entire family vanish without a trace.

Jonas blames the Jews for Ava’s disappearance and throws himself into a career in the Nazi Party. He serves the Reich under the ruthless Chief of the Gestapo, Reinhard Heydrich. Jonas becomes particularly good at capturing members of the Black Foxes, an anti-Nazi resistance group, earning Heydrich’s respect and the moniker of “the Fox Hunter.”

Impressed by Jonas’ skills, Heydrich gives him his most difficult task yet: capture the elusive Black Fox One, the Black Foxes’ most deadly and mysterious operative. No Nazi who has pursued Black Fox One has returned alive, but Jonas is determined and confident. Capturing Black Fox One might bring him one step closer to finding Ava.

But while he is hunting Black Fox One, Jonas makes a shocking discovery, forcing him to make an agonizing decision. He must choose between his love for the Reich and his heart, torn between the lies he has been taught all his life and the new truth before him.

GENRE: Historical Fantasy, Romance

PURCHASE LINK: Amazon

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Elyse Hoffman is a best-selling author who strives to tell historical tales with new twists. Having studied WWII since the age of thirteen and with interests in fantasy and Jewish folklore, she loves to combine them in her writing. Elyse started writing novels at fourteen and finished her first historical fiction work at fifteen. She studied English, History, and Law at George Mason University. In her spare time, she loves to read, work on pretty keyboards, and hang out with her co-authors - her Goldendoodle Ari and her ex-feral cat, Echo.

Review

I don't read a lot of romance. Historical fiction even more so, especially when the time period is something I'm not quite familiar with (and I'm more of a Roman Empire girl, LOL). But a friend recommended this to me after I helped in the tour of Elyse Hoffman's other book, The Vengeance of Samuel Val, and I said yes after reading the first paragraph of the blurb. Best friends, lost loves? That's just my thing!

So, yes, I went in without knowing a whole lot about WWII, and without having read the previous installment of Project 613, which contains interconnected stories centered on the Black Foxes, a resistance group that attempt to save Jews from the Nazis. It wasn't hard to get into the story, however. The backdrop is familiar; who hasn't studied WWII in school? And the story quickly zeroes in on the main characters, Jonas and Ava, with the occasional scenes from the POVs of Heydrich, Jonas' boss, and Dieter, Jonas' father.

Did I mention childhood/best friends to lovers is one of my favorite romance tropes? Sprinkle that with tragedy and... yeah, I knew when Ava disappeared that I was going to love this book. And I wasn't wrong. The romance plot was satisfying, but it did not distract from the bigger plot. Nor was it overly cheesy. The characters were also relatable and complex, neither being one-dimensionally good nor one-dimensionally evil. (Just like the discussion on yetzer hatov and yetzer hara.)

And I did not expect the last scene of the Epilogue. The shift might be a little jarring if you only read historical fiction, but as someone with broader tastes (and who reads a lot of fantasy), I really liked it.

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️️⭐️️