A seamless blend of history and fiction, David R. Gillham’s captivating debut novel, “City of Women” (Berkley Trade Paperback; May 7, 2013; $16) takes readers to wartime Berlin and a world of deprivation, deceit and defiance. This richly-wrought novel casts a new light on a well-documented war and deeply explores the transformation of a seemingly obedient German soldier’s wife with a will of her own. Fans can enjoy an event with author David Gillham at Page & Palette in Fairhope today.

Combining incredible historical detail with page-turning suspense, Gillham has written a novel with women at its core — and one woman in particular: a seemingly model war wife who finds herself enmeshed in activities she never could have imagined, activities that skew her moral compass and endanger her life.

It is 1943, and with the men taken by the army, Berlin has become a city of women. And while her husband fights on the Eastern Front, Sigrid Schröder goes to work every day, does as much with her rations as she can, and dutifully cares for her meddling mother-in-law, all the while ignoring the horrific immoralities of the regime. But behind this façade is an entirely different Sigrid, a woman who dreams of her former, Jewish lover, who is now lost in the chaos of the war.

Sigrid’s tedious existence is turned upside down when she finds herself hiding a mother and her two young daughters and she must make terrifying choices that could cost her everything.

Gillham writes, “The overarching question — the question I continually asked myself as I was writing City of Women — was and is: What would you do? If you were Sigrid, and a young woman seized you by the arm as you sat in a cinema, and begged,' Please say I came in here with you,' what would you do? What would any of us do?”

With a brilliant eye for distinct details, Gillham paints an indelible portrait of wartime Berlin, and crafts a suspenseful literary thriller, which as a hardcover, was selected as an Indie Pick and part of the Ingram Premier Program, and received a three out of four star review on USAToday.com.

“Powerful and piercingly real,” say Paula McLain, New York Times bestselling author of “The Paris Wife.” “You won’t soon forget these characters.”