A review by ashleysilver7
The Ambassador's Daughter by Pam Jenoff

3.0

I have mixed feelings about this book. I read "The Kommandan'ts Girl" several years ago, and finished "The Diplomat's Wife" (I think that's the title) about a week ago. Upon discovering the prequel, I decided to finish the trilogy. In this novel the protagonist is Margot, and her father is a German Ambassador at the end of WWI. Needless to say things did not go well for Germany during the peace negotiations/Treaty of Versailles, but Margot's father and a few other Germans were hoping to make a "new world order" and for things to be better. We have the benefit of hindsight in matters like this, and obviously Jenoff is able to do some foreshadowing about Jews and how they need to be more careful in Germany moving forward. She briefly mentions that the German people, with their tail between their legs in defeat, needed a Scapegoat after their embarrassing loss of the war and for some reason the Jewish people were/are an easy target.

Anyway, I digress. There are many things about this novel which I like. The idea of musicians being spies, and the beginnings of intelligence/counter-intelligence is a great stepping stone into the next book. However as others have mentioned, the characters are not too relatable. It's also frustrating that I do not remember what happens to Margot in the next book...I appreciate that the book talks about the end of WWI and the peace negotiations which I have never read about before. I wish Jenoff wrote less about the love triangle and drama regarding Margot, Stephan, and Georg and focused instead on Krysia's character development.