What a different world it was, Brussels 1935-36. A worried world, a bruised and vulnerable world. Hearts recoiled at the very mention of "the Great War." For that past horror still lay too close, was yet too painful. Too many friends and relations had died. Old enemies were hardly forgiven. Little wonder, then, that all of Europe was listening with heightened emotions to what was now coming from the Germany of this new Herr Hitler, threatening renewed terrors….

Arnold Simon has brilliantly conjured up a fertile and deadly cast of characters. Each plays out the present while evoking and heralding past and future. Each rushes – during this respite between two storms – to fulfil their wild destiny.

…Simon has sensitively captured the mood of the era, the dread underlying each daily pursuit, the passion striving to soar free, the resentment and suspicion clouding each relationship, the hatred kindled from past atrocity or blistering in present bigotry. The reader can only sympathize with Behrndt's passionate dilemma, empathize with André's fierce rage, identify with Lise's sense of betrayal when, daring to step beyond the precipice, her entire world suddenly crumbles. Behind everything lurks the frosty Steeg, that greater-than-life specter of past and future horrors.

…A Break in the Storm offers the gamut: credible history, riveting drama and a profound message for all ages.

The best kind of reading there is.

— Steven Roger Fischer, linguist and historian, author of Glyphbreaker; the trilogy A History of Language, A History of Writing, A History of Reading ; Island at the End of the World; and others.

---

…shows a side of the plunge toward World War II that no writer, fiction or nonfiction, has ever depicted. Highly recommended.

— Michael Levin, co-author, The Idiots Guide to The Pentagon and 40 other books