The Secret of the Blue Trunk

by Liedewy Hawke and Lise Dion

Liedewij Hawke (Translator)

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Book cover for The Secret of the Blue Trunk

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2014 Forest of Reading, White Pine Award — Winner, Nonfiction


The true story of how a young Québécois nun ended up a prisoner of war in Buchenwald and how her daughter discovered her secrets.


In this true story, Armande Martel, a young nun from Quebec, is arrested by the Germans in 1940 during a stay at her religious order’s mother house in Brittany. She spends the war years in a German concentration camp. After her return to Canada, she leaves the Church, finds the love of her life in Montreal, and adopts Lise Dion.

Growing up, Lise is familiar with only a few facts of her mother’s past. It’s when she clears her mother’s small apartment after her death that Lise Dion discovers the key to the blue trunk, which was always locked. This key unlocks the mystery of Armande’s early life, and Lise decides to write The Secret of the Blue Trunk.
  • ISBN10 1459704517
  • ISBN13 9781459704510
  • Publish Date 12 April 2012
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country CA
  • Imprint Dundurn Group Ltd