"This family saga is clearly one of the great stories of our time. ... For those who appreciate reading history meticulously researched and written with great skill, this story will hold them spellbound."

The Jewish Times

"Ruth von Kleist was born on February 4, 1867. ... On that same day 39 years later, Christian theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, later martyred by the Nazis,, also began life. The enduring, improbable friendship that grew up between the young scholar from Berlin and the aristocrat from Prussia led to the equally unlikely engagement of Dietrich to Ruth's granddaughter, Maria. ... The Holocaust serves as an ominous and omnipresent character in this chronicle of a landed family that, under the aegis of its matriarch, drew on a sense of integrity and responsibility to act against this outrage."

"A remarkable German noblewoman who was deeply involved in the resistance to Hitler ... This family story deserves to be entered into the record."

The Christian Century

"The story of a Prussian matriarch, an ultra-conservative landowner in a feudal, royalist society. ... Several family members were active in the abortive plots to kill Hitler. ... Pejsa's device of narrating in the present tense works surprisingly well in giving her story freshness, piquancy, and immediacy. A worthy acquisition to both academic and larger general collections."

Library Journal