Review of The Dohlen Inheritance

A splendid review of The Dohlen Inheritance was published in a German newspaper, the Cuxhavener Nachrichten, based in the town of Cuxhaven, a port on the Elbe Estuary in North Germany.

You can read it on this link: www.scribd.com/doc/26305491

This is a whole page of the paper, the review itself is headed Geschichten aus "Schwanenbruch".
I will try to sum up the piece for those of you who do not read German. I have cut it down quite substantially. It is important to stress that the book is based on a real family, but it is definitely not a biography, it is fiction.
Ernst Julius Gehben emigrated from North Germany to the United States as a boy of 16, in 1860, with just the clothes on his back. He landed in Manhattan, near Wall Street, and made his fortune there. He returned to Germany and built a splendid villa in his native village of Altenbruch, near Cuxhaven. The house is now Cuxhaven's Council House, and a show-piece of Art Nouveau architecture, visited by around 1500 visitors a year. I have added a picture of the house.
The family in the novel is called Dohlen, the three children are Gabriele, Emil and Dorinda. The novel starts in 1913 with the death of the mother, followed three years later by that of the father. The trilogy depicts the lives of the three children.
The orphans, American citizens, found themselves at the mercy of German relatives not renowned for their kindness, and an American guardian they were unable to contact because the Great War was in full swing. Viewed as enemies of Germany, their lives were difficult. When they finally managed to get to the United States they did not find their life there particularly inspiring. The story moves from the United States back to their native village, then to Berlin and Vienna as well as back to the United States. This first book of the trilogy finishes in 1932, when the youngest child, Dorinda, comes of age.
A number of hardly-known local legends are interspersed with the main narrative, translated from Hake Betken siene Duven, by Eberhard Michael Iba. It is extraordinary how these tales reflect the actions and thoughts of the protagonists.
The 'inheritance' in the title refers to three inheritances, each one emphasized in one book of the trilogy. There is the father's enormous wealth, the mother's physical legacy and last, but certainly not least, the spirit which drove the father to seek his fortune and to make it.
The review goes on to explain that the novel is easy to read, that each chapter orients the reader to place and date, and that though there are 531 pages it is easy to read. The reviewer goes on to say that it is engrossing, thrilling and often funny.
A German reading group based in Cuxhaven is reading the book.
The second book in the trilogy, Hobgoblin Gold, is scheduled for Spring 2010 publication.

The Dohlen Inheritance, hardback ISBN 9780906374030 and softback ISBN9780906374061, is available from Waterstone's and Amazon.

This is a wonderful review. It is extraordinary that a group of German speakers are able to tackle a book of this length in English. Very impressive, in my view.

If anyone is inspired to read the book I'd be really glad to have feedback. And, if you feel like it, a review on Amazon, or anywhere else you might like to send it, would be much appreciated.