During a 2006 Paris renovation, Claire pries open a bricked-over door and steps into an apartment sealed since 1942-lace curtains, ration cards, a child's shoe, and letters to "H." The city once outside that wall was Nazi-occupied Paris. Inside, teenage Hanna Rosen survived in whispers: a heating register as lifeline, forged names as armor, each knock a gamble. When hiding can no longer hold, Hanna embarks on a perilous journey across a war-ravaged Europe-safe houses, mountain crossings, and shadowed consulates-fleeing relentless Jewish persecution and chasing a path to freedom. In the present, Claire becomes obsessed with reconstructing that route and Hanna's ultimate fate. Archives, aliases, and a painting draw rivals-an art dealer and a "supposed descendant"-into a battle over ownership and truth. As the past tightens its grip, Claire must decide what she'll risk to let the dead speak and to give one vanished girl the ending history never wrote.

Scott Hamele is a Kansas-born author whose work spans historical fiction, modern thrillers, and sci-fi comedy with adult humor. A Salina native living in the Kansas City area since 1991, he writes stories rooted in family history and American folklore. His books include Dust and Honor-The Story of Peter Cornelius; The Petticoat Butcher-The Pinkertons' Hunt for Jimmy Ward; Capone's North Road; Dustwings-Black Ops; and Area 51-1/2: Cosmic Misfits. His newest novel, Hanna's Room-Secrets Sealed Since 1942: A Novel of Nazi-Occupied Paris, is a deep dive into the atrocities the Nazis inflicted on Paris's Jewish community and the secrets that endured for decades. Across genres-from 19th-century epics to present-day thrillers and comedic sci-fi-Hamele's range is wide and distinctive.