National Network for Equitable Library Service

Only by Blood is a novel of search for roots, mother-daughter love and family reconciliation. A Polish woman receives puzzling news from her mother just before she dies. She wants to fulfill her mother's last wishes, but has little idea of where to start. Never does she suspect that her search will take her across Poland, back in time and over the ocean. Spanning over sixty years, this story tells about the lengths to which mothers will go in order to save their daughters and the secrets they will keep to protect them from pain. Set in the broader context of the fraught relationship of Poles and Jews during and after the Second World War, it depicts the circumstances that made some ordinary people behave heroically while others betrayed their friends and neighbours.