The Hours Count, Jillian Cantor
The Hours Count, Jillian Cantor
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The Hours Count

Author: Jillian Cantor

Narrator: Rachel Botchan

Unabridged: 11 hr 13 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 10/20/2015


Synopsis

A spellbinding historical novel about a woman who befriends Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, and is drawn into their world of intrigue, from the author of Margot. On June 19, 1953, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed for conspiring to commit espionage. The day Ethel was first arrested in 1950, she left her two young sons with a neighbor, and she never came home to them again. Brilliantly melding fact and fiction, Jillian Cantor reimagines the life of that neighbor, and the life of Ethel and Julius, an ordinary-seeming Jewish couple who became the only Americans put to death for spying during the Cold War. A few years earlier, in 1947, Millie Stein moves with her husband, Ed, and their toddler son, David, into an apartment on the eleventh floor in Knickerbocker Village on New York's Lower East Side. Her new neighbors are the Rosenbergs. Struggling to care for David, who doesn't speak, and isolated from other "normal" families, Millie meets Jake, a psychologist who says he can help David, and befriends Ethel, also a young mother. Millie and Ethel's lives as friends, wives, mothers, and neighbors entwine, even as chaos begins to swirl around the Rosenbergs and the FBI closes in. Millie begins to question her own husband's political loyalty and her marriage, and whether she can trust Jake and the deep connection they have forged as they secretly work with David. Caught between these two men, both of whom have their own agendas, and desperate to help her friends, Millie will find herself drawn into the dramatic course of history. As Millie-trusting and naive-is thrown into a world of lies, intrigue, spies and counterspies, she realizes she must fight for what she believes, who she loves, and what is right.

About Jillian Cantor

Jillian Cantor is the author of award-winning and bestselling novels for adults and teens, including In Another Time, The Hours Count, Margot, and The Lost Letter, which was a USA Today bestseller. She has a BA in English from Penn State University and an MFA from the University of Arizona. Cantor lives in Arizona with her husband and two sons.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Candi on February 08, 2016

The idea of learning more about Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, two Americans executed for espionage during the 1950's, was quite intriguing. Author Jillian Cantor based this novel on the true story of their lives and the years preceding their executions as told from the point of view of a fictional nei......more

Goodreads review by Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader on March 19, 2017

"What surprises me the most is the way the days sometimes feel so long and yet the years so short. It's all the hours between that count." I knew basic history about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the only civilians in the United States executed for "conspiracy to commit espionage." They were parents of......more

Goodreads review by Barbara on January 11, 2016

What I enjoyed about this novel was its accuracy of the life of a housewife in the early 1950’s. To me, the Rosenberg’s were an excuse to write about that particular time. The United States was on edge. The whole country was paranoid that the Russians were going to bomb the USA. Primary school child......more

Goodreads review by Melissa on December 01, 2015

Cantor’s second historical fiction novel is a quiet but impactful story about the only two civilians (the married couple Julius and Ethel Rosenberg) who were executed in the U.S. for conspiring to commit espionage. The story will resonate, particularly I think, with mothers. In fact, in the author’s......more

Goodreads review by Mary on May 20, 2015

I absolutely loved MARGOT, and was so excited to get my hands on an ARC of THE HOURS COUNT. Jillian has a magical ability to tell stories that are hauntingly beautiful and suck me right in, and that's exactly what this book did. I loved the story and the characters (especially the relationship of Mi......more