Artifice

Isa's parents ran an art gallery in Amsterdam, but now that the Nazis have taken over and her mother has died, it is all she can do to take care of her father. When a tax bill comes due on the building, she sells a forged piece of art to the Nazis. One of the officers seems suspicious, and she later sees him looking at the fake address she provided. He leaves a note, and eventually contacts her. His name is Michel, and he knew her parents before, but was forced into the Nazi army by his father. He wants out, but needs Isa's help. He thinks she has ties to some resistance members, and she does, but not very useful ones. Her friend Truus is trying to smuggle Jewish babies out of danger, and Willem is helping her, but that itself is such a fraught undertaking that they don't have much to offer. Things get even more complicated after Truus kills a Nazi officer and Isa ends up taking care of a baby. Michel explains himself to Willem, and everyone tries to stay safe in the art gallery. Isa is determined to get more money for Truus' cause by selling more forgeries, and ends up contacting Van Meegeren, an artist who has been selling things to the Nazis. Isa manages to infiltrate his studio and find out a lot about his forgery technique, but she also gets caught up in a dinner party that he is having with some of the Nazi officials. She manages to get some helpful information, and when she returns to the gallery, asks for Michel's help in selling a forgery. Things go very wrong, because there are multiple copies of the same works. Her father has been struggling with a drug addiction, and there is very little time before the German deadline for the Netherlands to be "free from Jews". Will Is be able to juggle all of the people depending on her to provided safety and resources, or will she herself get caught and killed? (Slight spoiler-- there's a rather nice, happyish ending.)

What I liked:
Historical fiction is an opportunity to take a piece of our nightmarish history and shine a line on it through a different lens than just the war itself. This time, Sharon Cameron is looking at the battle and sharing information through the art of forging and the desperate lives of babies and children whom Hiliter wanted to destroy. In Artifice, you learn a lot about what goes into the paintings and how hard it is to recreate them to make them look real enough. Artifice has everything: art forgery, the Dutch resistance, hidden paintings, double-crossing, messy family dynamics, and self-doubt.
Final Verdict:
Worth is not always seen on the surface, and forgery can be challenging to spot. A talented artist takes his talents and forges paintings and can save 600 Jewish children from certain death. Little did the Germans know the money they spent was used to defy them directly. Based on real people. Artifice shows a story of defiance, bravery, and resilience—an exciting, eye-opening look at our history.