Before The Sky Broke

Paris, 1936. Sixteen-year-old Jeanne Adler drifts through bookstores and sidewalk cafés with university on her mind and the whole golden world ahead of her. But home is not what it seems. Her parents are hiding something — something that no one dares name out loud in a city where whispers are starting to carry weight.Europe is changing, and even Paris can feel it. A careless word on the radio. A neighbor's shop that never reopens. Whispers slipping from her parents' room late at night.Jeanne is suspended between the last warmth of childhood and a darkness creeping in from the east. She doesn't have the language for what's happening yet — but she can feel it. In the newspapers. In her parents' faces. In the way people have started crossing the street to avoid each other.As Nazi Germany intensifies its preparations for war, Jeanne begins to understand that the life she's always known is not guaranteed. That the city she loves can be changed. That bravery sometimes looks less like fighting and more like refusing to stop hoping.Before the Sky Broke is the story of what came before — before the bombs, before the occupation, before everything broke open. It's a novel about growing up inside a moment of gathering catastrophe, and about the stubborn, fragile courage it takes to hold onto the people you love.For readers who found themselves swept away by The Nightingale, The Alice Network, or All the Light We Cannot See.