Summary of Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale is a historical novel by writer Kristin Hannah. It tells the story of two French sisters, Vianne Mauriac and Isabelle Rossignol, during the German occupation of France in World War II. 

Fifty years after the end of the war, a recently widowed woman in a coastal town in Oregon is preparing to move to a nursing home because her cancer has returned. Her son, a surgeon, comes to help her and finds her in the attic going through a trunk of old things he has never seen. 

In August of 1939, Britain and France, despite having declared war on Germany, have not engaged in any military battles with the German Reich. Tensions are high among the French citizenry as they await the start of the war. The sufferings of the Great War, and the millions of lives lost, are still fresh in their minds...