Only by Blood is a novel of search for roots, mother-daughter love and family reconciliation. A Polish woman receives puzzling news from her mother just before she dies. She wants to fulfill her mother's last wishes, but has little idea of where to start. Never does she suspect that her search will take her across Poland, back in time and over the ocean. Spanning over sixty years, this story tells about the lengths to which mothers will go in order to save their daughters and the secrets they will keep to protect them from pain. Set in the broader context of the fraught relationship of Poles and Jews during and after the Second World War, it depicts the circumstances that made some ordinary people behave heroically while others betrayed their friends and neighbours.

Renate Krakauer's career included senior roles in education, and municipal and provincial governments. She retired as president of a Health Sciences educational institution. She has published short stories in literary among them Parchment, The Storyteller, and Foliate Oak; essays in the The Globe and Mail, journals and two anthologies; a memoir But I Had a Happy Childhood; and two plays. Only By Blood is her first novel. Renate lives in Toronto with her husband. She has three adult children, two stepsons, and six grandchildren.

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