Summary Isabelle and Gaetan spend a passionate week together away from the war effort. Meanwhile, Vianne and her children encounter a group of Jews being taken away to concentration camps. A woman named Helene Ruelle asks Vianne to take her two sons in order to rescue them from the camps. […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 29Summary and Analysis Chapter 28
Summary Vianne begins having nightmares in which Von Richter realizes that Ari (“Daniel”) is Jewish. She is also racked with guilt for killing Beck. Isabelle wakes up from her delirium to find Gaetan still with her. She remembers him kissing her and realizes that he loves her. He continues to […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 28Summary and Analysis Chapter 27
Summary Vianne and Gaetan bring Isabelle to the border, where Gaetan smuggles her across in a coffin by pretending to be her widowed husband. Gaetan kisses Isabelle while she is delirious during her recovery. When the Gestapo begins looking for Beck, Vianne lies, saying he went searching for the missing […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 27Summary and Analysis Chapter 26
Summary The story leaps forward to 1995 in Oregon. The elderly woman inspects her invitation, which is to a reunion the next night in Paris celebrating the work of Juliette Gervaise. She receives a phone call from someone speaking French, asking if she will be coming to the reunion. She […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 26Summary and Analysis Chapter 25
Summary When an Allied airplane is shot down over Carriveau, Isabelle and her resistance friends rescue the wounded pilot and hide him in Vianne’s cellar. Isabelle stays with the pilot, trying to keep him alive, but he dies. Beck and his men have been searching for the missing pilot, and […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 25Summary and Analysis Chapter 24
Summary Isabelle meets with her resistance contact, Anouk, who summons her to a meeting in Carriveau and tells her Gaetan has been asking about her. When Isabelle meets Henri in Carriveau, he warns her that the Germans are searching for the Nightingale, which worries him more now that the Germans […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 24Summary and Analysis Chapter 23
Summary The afternoon after concealing Rachel and Ari in the cellar, Vianne sees nothing unusual in town. She thinks that Beck must have been wrong, but she suggests that Rachel stay in hiding one more night. When Rachel comes out briefly to get new diapers and bathe, the police come […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 23Summary and Analysis Chapter 22
Summary Isabelle sees the streets full of buses carrying women and children to a stadium. She follows to investigate and learns that the Nazis are sending foreign-born Jews—not just in Paris, but throughout all of France—to concentration camps. Vianne goes to Rachel’s house to offer her food, which Rachel can […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 22Summary and Analysis Chapter 21
Summary In the summer, Sophie comes down with a fever, and Beck supplies medicine for her. Isabelle has delivered eighty-seven Allied airmen safely to the British consulate. On her most recent trip, one airman was captured because he refused to follow a “girl’s” orders and tried to reach safety on […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 21Summary and Analysis Chapter 20
Summary Isabelle returns to France much more easily than she left it, catching a train for Paris. On her return, she thinks that Gaetan is following her, but he doesn’t reveal himself. She meets with a new group of Allied airmen seeking to escape. With no source of income, Vianne […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 20