The Wild Date Palm by Diane Armstrong

Publisher's Synopsis

During a train journey across Turkey's Anatolian Plain in 1915 during World War I, Shoshana Adelstein witnesses the slaughter of the Armenians and knows she has just come face to face with her destiny.

Convinced that her Jewish community in a small outpost of the Ottoman Empire will soon meet a similar fate, she is desperate to save her people. With Turkey and Britain locked in a global conflict, she orchestrates an audacious plan. Enlisting a group of co-conspirators who include her charismatic lover Eli and her impetuous brother Nathan, this young woman forms a clandestine spy ring. Conquering almost insurmountable obstacles, they risk betrayal, torture and death to spy on the Turks and pass on intelligence to the British to help them win the war.

This epic novel explores the fate of ordinary people whose mission collides with the secret agenda of powerful countries, people ready to risk everything to rescue their communities. But can individuals affect the fate of nations? And when life is at stake, how far will we go to reach the limits of our dreams?.

Reviews From Elsewhere

GoodReads

This is a story that is told with heart, the courage that is shown had me turning the pages and cheering this group and Shoshi on the heartache that they went through to ensure that everyone was safe against the obstacles that are thrown their way, but love and sheer determination kept them going.

This is a story that I highly recommend to any historical fiction reader, it is so interesting learning about what happened back then and with true characters throughout the story, I also loved the connection between Shoshi, Eli and the title of the book, this one is a must read. Read All Reviews

Amazon

Based around the true story of siblings Sarah, Aaron and Rivka Aaronsohns, ordinary people who wanted to turn the tide of a world war and they lived in Palestine. This book looks at The Great War from a different angle and perspective, using a balance of real and fictional characters. Read All Reviews

Queensland Reviewers Collective

Some true stories deserve a novel. This is one of them. Even the title of Diane Armstrong’s latest novel is a clever and poignant take on a date palm that did not exist when the story took place, and an historian might overlook, but a novelist could see the romantic symbolism. Read Full Review

Better Reading

This epic novel explores the fate of ordinary people whose mission collides with the secret agenda of powerful countries, people ready to risk everything to rescue their communities. But can individuals affect the fate of nations? And when life is at stake, how far will we go to reach the limits of our dreams?

Diane Armstrong was an award-winning journalist and travel writer before turning to fiction twenty years ago. Her debut, Winter Journey, was shortlisted for the 2006 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Since then, she’s written several bestselling novels, such as The Collaborator and Dancing with the Enemy. Her latest, The Wild Date Palm, cements her reputation as one of Australia’s finest historical authors.

The novel is inspired by the astonishing true story of siblings Sarah and Aaron Aaronsohn, from Zichron Yaakov, who became part of a secret spy ring to defeat the Turks in World War I. Read Full Review