We Were the Lucky Ones

"Turning history into fiction can be tricky, especially when using real names and details. Hunter finesses the challenge. Her novel brings the Kurcs to life in heart-pounding detail, from passionate young love and beloved traditions to narrow escapes, heartbreaking choices, starvation, imprisonment and torture. We come to care deeply about the fate of each of these resourceful, determined characters." -The Jewish Voice

"The story that so grippingly comes across in the pages of We Were the Lucky Ones isn't strictly fiction-the characters and events that inhabit this Holocaust survival story are based on her family's own history." -Newsweek

"[A] must-read." -New York Post

"[A] remarkable history . . . Hunter sidesteps hollow sentimentality and nihilism, revealing instead the beautiful complexity and ambiguity of life in this extraordinarily moving tale." -Publishers Weekly

Selected as a Great Group Read by the Women's National Book Association

"Reading Georgia Hunter's We Were the Lucky Ones is like being swung heart first into history. Her engrossing and deeply affecting account of how the Kurc family survives the Holocaust, against every possible odd, will leave you breathless. But the true wonder of the book is how convincingly Hunter inhabits these characters, each modeled after her own family members. This is their story Hunter is telling so beautifully and profoundly, and ours as well. A brave and mesmerizing debut, and a truly tremendous accomplishment." -Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife and Circling the Sun

"We Were the Lucky Ones is the most gripping novel I've read in years. Georgia Hunter pulled me into another world, vivid, horrifying, astonishing, and heartbreaking, and I walked with the Kurc family as they traversed the edges of life and death." -Lauren Belfer, New York Times bestselling author of And After the Fire, A Fierce Radiance, and City of Light.

"Georgia Hunter's We Were the Lucky Ones is a skillfully woven reimagining of her own family's struggle for survival during World War II. Hunter takes us from the Polish ghetto to Siberia to Brazil, all with spectacular historical detail. This emotionally resonant, gripping portrait of the war is filled with beautifully drawn and wonderfully heroic characters I won't soon forget." -Jillian Cantor, author of Margot and The Hours Count