When World War II breaks out, Edith and Oskar Eberhardt move their family—their daughter, Marina; son-in-law, Franz; and their granddaughters—out of Berlin to the quiet town of Blumental, near Switzerland. A member of the Fuhrer’s cabinet, Oskar is gone most of the time, and Franz begins fighting in the war, so the women of the house are left to their quiet lives in the village.

“With jaw-clenching suspense and unexpected tenderness” (Jacquelyn Mitchard), The Good at Heart is an “engaging…rich…evocative” (Library Journal) portrait of a family torn between doing their duty for their country and doing what’s right, especially for those they love.

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“In this delightfully written debut, the Eberhardt women, Edith and Marina, work tirelessly to protect their children from war in the bucolic German countryside.  But nothing can protect them from the fact that they are Nazis.  With Grandpa Oskar about to bring the Fuhrer to visit, tension rises and there will be a price to pay for the denial, the guilt and the sometimes impossible choice between family and morality.”
– Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand and The Summer Before the War

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Reading Group Guide

This reading group guide for The Good at Heart includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Ursula Werner. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

Set in the quiet town of Blumental in southern Germany during World War II, The Good at Heart tells the story of one family, the Eberhardts, and their complicated quest to do right by one another during a time of turmoil, confusion, and terror. Narrated from the perspective of multiple characters, including Edith, the matriarch of the family, and Rosie, her spirited five-year-old granddaughter—this story considers the complications of life for ordinary Germans living in a police state. The Good at Heart is partly a love story, partly a wartime thriller, and partly a meditation on good, evil, and the space between good and evil, where so many of the characters exist.

Topics & Questions for Discussion

1. The Good at Heart opens with a famous epigraph from The Diary of Anne Frank: “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. . . . if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that pe see more Photograph by Geoffrey Klineberg

Ursula Werner

Ursula Werner is a writer and attorney currently living in Washington, DC, with her family. Born in Germany and raised in South Florida, she has practiced law while continuing her creative writing, publishing two books of poetry, In the Silence of the Woodruff (2006) and Rapunzel Revisited (2010). The Good at Heart is her first novel.
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