Eva's Cousin

By: Sibylle Knauss

Narrated by: Kim Edwards-Fukei

In the summer of 1944, 20-year-old Marlene is thrilled to visit her older cousin, Eva Braun - Adolf Hitler's mistress - at the Fuhrer's Bavarian mountain retreat. There, Marlene finds herself in a strange paradise, a world of opulence and imminent danger, of freedom and surveillance.

The two women sneak off and skinny-dip in a nearby lake, watch films in the Fuhrer's private cinema, and flirt with the SS officers at the dinner table - one of whom will become Marlene's first lover.

But soon a clandestine mission of mercy forces Marlene to question her allegiance to both her cousin and her country - and to face the chilling reality that exists outside her sheltered world.

Translated by Anthea Bell.

©2002 Sibylle Knauss (P)2008 BBC Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"Knauss' first novel to be translated into English is based on her interviews with Gertrude Weisker, the cousin of Hitler's mistress, Eva Braun....Both passively complicit and helpless, Marlene is nonetheless a character who commands the reader's sympathy and interest." ( Booklist)