The Beast's Garden
Kate Forsyth2015

HE BEAST’S GARDEN is a retelling of the Grimm’s Beauty and The Beast set in Nazi Germany. Ava is a young woman who marries a Nazi officer in order to save her father, but she hates and fears her new husband and the regime for which he works.

She becomes involved with an underground resistance movement in Berlin called the Red Orchestra, made up of artists, writers, diplomats and journalists, who pass on intelligence to the American embassy, distribute leaflets encouraging opposition to Hitler, and help people in danger from the Nazis to escape the country.

Gradually Ava comes to realise that her husband Leo is part of a dangerous military conspiracy that plans to assassinate Hitler. As Berlin is bombed into ruins, and the Gestapo ruthlessly hunt down all resistance to Nazism, Ava unwittingly betrays Leo.