Publishers Weekly
02/08/2021
Historian Brady (Twelve Desperate Miles) delivers a dramatic group portrait of three teenage girls who fought in the Dutch resistance movement during WWII. Truus Oversteegen and her younger sister, Freddie, were born into a family active in leftist political circles in Haarlem, and after the German military overwhelmed Dutch defenses in 1940, the sisters, who were 17 and 15 years old, distributed copies of an anti-Nazi magazine and helped sabotage a speech by the head of the Dutch Nazi party. Eventually, they joined a resistance cell and met fellow teenager Hannie Schaft, who became known to the Gestapo as “The Girl with the Red Hair.” The trio took part in missions to save Jewish children from deportation, smuggle weapons, gather intelligence, destroy public infrastructure used by the Germans, and assassinate Dutch Nazis. Brady conveys the inhumanity of the period with precision, describing in one instance how Truus had to dispose of the corpse of an elderly Jewish woman who had gone into hiding at the home of fellow resistance members. This moving story spotlights the extraordinary heroism of everyday people during the war and the Holocaust. Agent: Farley Chase, Chase Literary. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
Praise for Three Ordinary Girls
“Historian Brady (Twelve Desperate Miles) delivers a dramatic group portrait of three teenage girls who fought in the Dutch resistance movement during WWII. Brady conveys the inhumanity of the period with precision…. This moving story spotlights the extraordinary heroism of everyday people during the war and the Holocaust.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Brady has explored little-known aspects of World War II, from the life of Ted Roosevelt Jr. (His Father’s Son, 2017) to the story of a civilian freighter that aided in a critical Moroccan invasion (Twelve Desperate Miles, 2012). Now he turns his attention to the Netherlands, highlighting three young women who worked for the Dutch resistance....The women trained as fighters, learning hand-to-hand combat and practicing their shooting. Their missions were often based on their ability to infiltrate male spaces by taking advantage of soldiers’ assumptions about femininity: that the girls were naive, stupid, and innocent when they were anything but.....This book will please Brady’s fans as well as those who are interested in new and different stories of WWII.”
—Booklist
"Exhaustively researched and written with both authority and style, Tim Brady's Three Ordinary Girls is history that reads like a novel. A vivid and unforgettable portrait of three young women who put their lives on the line in a very personal fight against Naziism, this book is a page-turner and is highly recommended."
—Stephen Harding, New York Times best-selling author of The Last Battle.
"James Bond on bicycles, Brady’s Three Ordinary Girls are NOT so Ordinary. These three teenage girls: Truus, her little sister Freddie, and the redheaded Hannie are courage personified and key members of the legendary Dutch resistance. Sometimes reckless, often naïve, always patriotic, our heroines wield guns like cowgirls, while risking their lives to fight the German occupation. And just when you think the Allies have landed and Europe is saved, things take a turn for the worse. Whether they are assassinating Nazis from their bicycles or smuggling Jewish children and satchels of weapons under the nose of the Gestapo, following these three not-so ordinary girls is a nail-biting experience, an exciting book that you won’t be able to put down until the last page."
—Heather Dune Macadam, author of 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz
"An important, untold story from WWII that needed to be told. A brave tale about an incredibly brave sisterhood who fought for all that was good and right and just in the world. The word 'hero' tends to be over-used these days, but not here - not with these utterly extraordinary heroines."
—Damien Lewis, #1 International Bestselling author of Churchill's Hellraisers and Churchill's Band of Brothers
“Three Ordinary Girls delivers a lean and fast-paced true tale about a group of young women who assassinated Nazis, sabotaged bridges, saved Jewish children, and delivered priceless documents and information in the service of the Dutch resistance during World War II. Tim Brady writes captivatingly of under-recognized heroes and self-sacrifice in a chapter of the war’s history that will now be better known.”
—Jack El-Hai, author of The Nazi and the Psychiatrist and The Lost Brothers, and winner of the 2020 Book Award in Biography/History from the American Society of Journalists and Authors
Praise for Tim Brady
“Historians have so thoroughly fished the drama of World War II that it is hard to believe the subject still has prize catches to offer up, but here comes a keeper...[Brady] conveys the campaign in an almost novelistic way, bringing seemingly disparate figures and incidents into an engaging narrative...[he] tells the story in a style that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.”
—The Wall Street Journal on Twelve Desperate Miles
"Tim Brady's yarn of the Contessa and her role in one of the most crucial episodes in WWII will delight military buffs and those looking for a well-written page turner. Highly recommended."
—Alex Kershaw, author of The Bedford Boys and The Longest Winter on Twelve Desperate Miles
"[A] tension-filled, exciting story of the invasion and Contessa's role in it. This is an excellent recounting of an obscure but important episode of World War II."
—Booklist on Twelve Desperate Miles
"An entertaining story of individual heroism, which Brady surrounds by an equally entertaining account of the North African invasion, the largest amphibious operation in history at the time."
—Kirkus Reviews on Twelve Desperate Miles
APRIL 2021 - AudioFile
Narrator David de Vries takes a straightforward approach to this journalistic account of how three teenagers—sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen and friend Jo Schaft—became actively involved with the Nazi resistance movement based in Haarlem, The Netherlands. De Vries’s expressive delivery emphasizes the girls’ improvisational training as they learned to lie, steal, plant homemade bombs, and even assassinate enemy soldiers. Listeners hear about the trio’s successes and failures in transporting Jewish children to safety and distributing underground newspapers and how the girls, especially Jo, became Nazi targets. The Dutch and German names and words flow smoothly from de Vries’s tongue, adding authenticity to his performance. The teens acted on their convictions, standing up to tyranny and protecting others, proving that ordinary people can indeed become heroes. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
