A Time of Angels

Hannah Gold is a Jewish girl living in Boston with her two younger sisters, an aunt, and an older woman Vashti, who is a traditional healer of the herbs and tonics variety. Her father is off fighting on the Russian front in World War I and her mother is trapped in Russia. When influenza begins

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killing people by the dozens in her neighborhood, including her beloved aunt, Vashti sends Hannah away, so she can take care of the two sick younger girls. She is sent to a relative in Albany, but on the way she gets so sick that she is accidentally sent to a town in Vermont instead, where she ends up in a crowded emergency hospital. When she begins to recover, the hospital needs more beds. Unable to talk, or move around, she goes to live with an elderly German man who lives alone, but hospital patients regularly. The book takes on a sort of Heidi-like tone then; the sweet convalescing girl and the sweet old man caring for her. But in the end, she knows she must return home, and as she gets better, the idea of how exactly to get home begins to consume her.
There is also "the girl with violet eyes" who is the angel of the title, who Hannah sees from time to time at particularly stressful times of her life.
This was a moving and well told tale. Since the angels ended up in the title, they must have been important to Hesse. Personally, I found the angel element unnecessary and somewhat odd, but I loved everything else enough that it didn't bother me.

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