Night Angels: A Novel

Written by Weina Dai Randel

Narrated by Angela Lin, Jesse Vilinsky and Feodor Chin

From the author of The Last Rose of Shanghai comes a profoundly moving novel about a diplomatic couple who risked their lives to help Viennese Jews escape the Nazis, inspired by the true story of Dr. Ho Fengshan, Righteous Among the Nations.

1938. Dr. Ho Fengshan, consul general of China, is posted in Vienna with his American wife, Grace. Shy and ill at ease with the societal obligations of diplomats’ wives, Grace is an outsider in a city beginning to feel the sweep of the Nazi dragnet. When Grace forms a friendship with her Jewish tutor, Lola Schnitzler, Dr. Ho requests that Grace keep her distance. His instructions are to maintain amicable relations with the Third Reich, and he and Grace are already under their vigilant eye.

But when Lola’s family is subjugated to a brutal pogrom, Dr. Ho decides to issue them visas to Shanghai. As violence against the Jews escalates after Kristallnacht and threats mount, Dr. Ho must issue thousands more to help Jews escape Vienna before World War II explodes.

Inspired by a remarkable true story, Night Angels explores the risks brave souls took and the love and friendship they built and lost while fighting against incalculable evil.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Feb 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781799799429

Weina Dai Randel

Weina Dai Randel is the award-winning author of the novels The Moon in the Palace and The Empress of Bright Moon, a historical duology about Wu Zetian, China’s only female emperor. The Moon in the Palace won the RWA RITA Award in 2017, and the series has been translated into seven languages and sold worldwide. Born in China, Weina came to the United States at twenty-four. She holds an MA in English from Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas, and has worked as the subject-matter expert for Southern New Hampshire University’s online MFA program and as an adjunct professor for Eastfield College. Interviews with Weina have appeared on WFAA’s Good Morning Texas as well as in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Review of Books, RT Book Reviews, and BooksbyWomen.org. She lives in Texas with her loving husband and two children. For more information visit www.weinarandel.com.

Reviews for Night Angels

[rayski_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Chinese consulate for Austria at the start of WWII has to choose between his career, family and the lives of the Austrian Jews. In saving thousands of Jews through issuing visas he loses his career and his marriage. His wife Grace, an American he met while in university in the US, also grows up from a quiet, innocent, introvert, to a person ready to standup and fight for her Jewish friend and her Chinese stepson. Grace still was self-centered to the point of selfish, she did eventually realize, albeit too late for her friend, that there was more to her life than just herself. The book told a story of how the atrocities of hate and war can be so devastating. A good read.

[northern_light-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

By reading this book I've learned of another hero who saved the lives of many Jewish people.Ho Fengshan has just been made Consul general in Vienna for China. It's 1938 and life is getting very tough for Jewish people. Grace his wife becomes friends with Lola her tutor who herself is Jewish but neither of them could ever imagine where it would end. At first Dr Ho tells his wife to keep away from Lola as his brief is to keep a good relationship between China and Germany.In time though this can't be continued and so Dr Ho begins to try and find a way to save as many Jews as he can This story really draws in the reader to the horrors experienced by many and although a fictional account the accounts described were all too real Grace herself is a quiet shy individual also struggling to connect with her stepson Monto with little success. We also meet the notorious Eichmann who was feared by all Jewish people and Dr Ho has several encounters with him. We can of course never know precisely how events panned out but one thing we know is that Dr Ho was named Righteous among the nations for the work he did.

[susan0316 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've read many books about World War II but this is the first book that I've read about the bravery of a Chinese diplomat and his American wife who defied orders from the Chinese government and wrote visas that helped thousands of Jewish people get out of Austria to safety in China and other countries.1938 - Dr. Ho Fengshan, consul general of China, is posted in Vienna with his American wife, Grace. Grace is very introverted and feels like an outsider. At her husband's urging, she decides to hire a tutor to teach her German. The day that she interviews Lola, they end up in trouble for sitting on a park bench - something that Jewish people were no longer allowed to do in occupied Austria. Grace and Lola become friends despite Dr. Ho's request that Grace keep her distance from Lola and her Jewish family. Grace may be a quiet woman but when she made up her mind, nothing and no one will deter her from moving ahead. When Lola's family becomes a part of the cruelty that is being shown to the Jewish people, Grace is upset and Dr. Ho decides to give the family a visa to leave for Shanghai. As the violence becomes part of everyday life in Vienna, Dr Ho decided to write thousands of visa's for people to escape from Austria - either to Shanghai or to other countries that still had open borders to accept the Jews. Dr Ho defied his direct supervisor and also had to deal with the cruelty of the German leaders in Austria. Dr Ho and his wife Grace were true humanitarians who worried about the plight of others more than their own safety. This book is an emotional look at a brave man and woman who have been forgotten over the years who risked their lives to help others.

[scottjpearson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In a little-known part of the Holocaust, a Chinese diplomat facilitated the rescue of thousands of Jews from Vienna, Austria, by using his visa-writing powers. They were sent to, of all places, Shanghai during the Japanese invasion of China. (Of course, a war zone is much safer than the overzealous rage of Hitler.) As described in the Author’s Note, this Chinese diplomat, named Ho Fengshan, was not recognized until after his death in the late twentieth century. In this work of historical fiction, Dai Randel imagines what this hero would be like. In so doing, she invents several characters and a narrative to support the historical record, replete with some intrigue and some heartache.This book has many tragic elements to it. Even in a courageous rescue, the bittersweetness of life is seen. The story is told from the first-person perspective of Fengshan’s fictionalized second wife along with two other third-person accounts. Grace hopes to start a family in Vienna with this eminent Chinese leader, but becomes outraged by the fall of the surrounding society. She gets involved in relationships with Jewish individuals, who are persecuted and tormented by despicable Nazi henchmen.Kristalnacht is vividly portrayed here along with the capriciousness of Nazi hate. I’ve read over a dozen works on the Holocaust, but none of those brought out the Jewish plight quite in the way that Dai Randel does here. She brings out this oppression in everyday details of relationships that’s, well, unique. Certain Germans just took every opportunity to pick on the Jews however they could, to the extreme of killing thousands. It makes me think of anti-immigrant fervor in today’s world.Fortunately, Fengshan and Grace mutually support each other’s compassion. They sacrifice much to the cause. Of course, their personal lives do not cease just because Hitler’s forces are taking over central Europe. Even though successful in saving thousands, they always have the haunting memory that they could have saved more. They sacrificed their futures for these people. As in her prior novel, Dai Randel highlights this little-known Jewish community is southeastern China. I’m grateful to learn that the Diaspora even reaches there.Those interested in the Holocaust will find a unique perspective in Dai Randel’s books. New aspects to a seemingly depthless tragedy are elucidated through her storytelling. The saying goes that excellence is doing common things in an uncommon manner; this book certainly achieves that and more. I’m grateful to have read it and to ponder its relevance to world history and my life in America today.