Beginning in 1930s Germany and based on their real lives, four cousins as close as siblings—Bettina, Trudi, Gustav, and Gertrud—share the experiences of the young, including first loves, marriages, and children.
Bettina, the oldest, struggles to help her parents with their failing business. Trudi dresses in the latest fashions and tries to make everything look beautiful. Gustav is an artist at heart and hopes to one day open a tailoring shop. Gertrud, the youngest, is forced by her parents to keep secrets, but that doesn’t stop her from chasing boys. However, over their seemingly ordinary lives hangs one critical truth—they’re Jewish—putting them increasingly at risk.
When World War II breaks out, the four are still in Germany or German-occupied lands, unable or unwilling to leave. How will these cousins avoid the horrors of the Nazi regime, a regime that wants them dead? Will they be able to avoid the deportations and concentration camps that have claimed their fellow Jews? Danger is their constant companion, and it will take hope and more to survive.
Publication Date: October 2nd, 2025
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Pages: 360
Genre: Historical Fiction
An interview with Bonnie Suchman
What inspired you to start writing?
As an attorney for more than 40 years, I have been writing my whole work life. Four years ago, after three years of research, I published a history about my husband’s German Jewish family. After the book was published, I realized I was not done writing about the Heppenheimer family, but decided to write their stories as novels to provide a fuller and richer story and to write the novels as a trilogy. I was fortunate to find a publisher, Black Rose Writing, to publish my first novel, Stumbling Stones. The second novel is What Remains is Hope, and I am currently working on the third novel.
What was the hardest part about writing this book?
The hardest part about writing these novels is to separate myself from the characters and what was happening to them. Because the books are all based on what actually happened to family members, their suffering is a foregone conclusion. As much as I cared about them, I couldn’t do anything to stop the horrible things happening to them. I also couldn’t forget that they didn’t just exist in history, but that they were relatives of my husband, of my children. And what happened to them could have happened and could still happen to any of us.
Does one of the main characters hold a special place in your heart? If so, why?
What Remains is Hope follows four Jewish cousins trying to survive the Nazis during World War II. I felt connected to all four for different reasons, but I have to admit that Gustav does hold a special place in my heart. The only boy among the cousins, he would do anything for his cousins. And you could not find a truer friend than Gustav. If you ever have a “Gustav” in your life, hold him dear.
If your book was to be made into a movie, who are the celebrities that would star in it?
The novel opens fifty years after the end of the war, with one of the cousins – now an old woman – returning for the first time to Frankfurt. How could I not want to cast Meryl Streep in that role? For that same cousin, as a young woman with her life ahead of her, I could imagine Emma Stone playing the formidable cousin. And for Gustav, with his artist’s temperament and soulful eyes, I could imagine no better actor for the role than Timothée Chalamet.
What do you hope your readers take away from this book?
I would like my readers to see the power of hope in helping the cousins stay alive under the worst of circumstances. Each of the cousins learned the concept of hope in different ways and each needed more than just hope. Three of the four cousins survived the war, but without hope, those three would not have survived.
Praise for What Remains is Hope:
"Readers will find this follow up to Suchman's prior novel, Stumbling Stones, both a heartbreaking reminder of the Holocaust's atrocities and a compelling tribute to a family's refusal to surrender to despair...Richly compelling Holocaust account, centered on the power of hope."
~ Booklife by Publishers Weekly
"Author Bonnie Suchman has a way of making every moment count with her characters in a narrative that feels powerfully real as she spins deeply personal stories against a sweeping and tragic backdrop of history. ..What Remains is Hope is historical fiction at its best, and I'd highly recommend it to fans of gripping fiction that's emotionally resonant and grounded in truth."
~ K.C. Finn for Readers’ Favorite
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Bonnie Suchman
Bonnie Suchman has been a practicing attorney for forty years. Using her legal skills, she researched her husband's 250-year family history in Germany, publishing the award-winning, non-fiction book, Broken Promises: The Story of a Jewish Family in Germany, as a result.
Those compelling stories became Suchman's Heppenheimer Family Holocaust Saga. The first in the series, Stumbling Stones, was a Finalist for the 2024 Hawthorne Prize for Fiction, and recently, her family traveled to Frankfurt, Germany, to install stumbling stones for her husband's Great Aunt Alice and her husband Alfred, the real-life characters in the book. What Remains is Hope is the second novel in the saga.
In her free time, Bonnie is a runner and a golfer. She and her husband reside in Potomac, Maryland.
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Thank you so much for hosting Bonnie Suchman today, with such a lovely chat about her compelling novel, What Remains is Hope.
ReplyDeleteTake care,
Cathie xx
The Coffee Pot Book Club