Using archival records, stories from Maynial's family, and an interview with the last surviving nurse from the Blue Squadron, this book delivers a gripping, affectionate account of these women's heroic work.

Library Journal

Maynial's skills as a screenwriter emerge with his descriptions of postwar Europe. His vivid narration transports the reader to this era and its geographic landscapes. Overall, Band of Sisters sheds light on a group of women who are largely unknown in popular memory.

H-Net Reviews

Madeline Pauliac, the intrepid leader of the Blue Squadron, a task force of nurses who in the final year of WWII crisscrossed newly liberated Europe in search of French citizens freed from Nazi camps, takes center stage in this evocative debut history from her nephew. As a medical doctor, Pauliac had run a refugee orphanage in Paris during the war (the basis for the 2016 film Les Innocentes) while working secretly for the Resistance; she was eventually made a doctor-lieutenant in the French Army. In 1944, de Gaulle commissioned her to find French citizens who had been caught in the Nazi camp system, and she took command of the Blue Squadron-11 young women with a few ambulances. After scouring American-occupied Germany, the group made a more fraught crossing into Soviet-occupied territory and the U.S.S.R. (where some POWs had been relocated). Conditions on the Soviet side were more grueling due to scarce resources and Soviet suspicion of the French, who they viewed as Nazi collaborators. The women faced threats of rape and had to rely on their wits and wiles to reclaim French citizens. Pauliac, who cuts a dashing figure in Maynial's reverent account, returned to Poland in 1946 to found a care home for nuns who had been raped and impregnated by Soviet soldiers. She died in Poland that year, in a car accident during her honeymoon. Readers will be engrossed by this stylishly written and winsome portrait in fortitude.

Publishers Weekly

Philippe Maynial recounts the journeys of these women so magnificently, that he gives hope to those who fight for freedom.

François Hollande, President of France

This book is a passionate account of the life journey of these heroines. It is admirable of the author to have crafted this work of memory, which is an affectionate recognition of the commitment of women.

Marisol Touraine, Former Minister of Social Affairs and Health of France

Beautifully and movingly told by Madeleine Pauliac's nephew, Philippe Maynial, who knows her story better than anyone, this is recounting of an all-too-brief life will break and mend the heart.

Howard A. Rodman, Former President, Writers Guild of America, West