The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Barbara Josselsohn’s latest novel Secrets of the Italian Island is an immersive and historically rich novel that transports the reader into a fanciful world of the Castle of Poets on the Isola di Parissi, Italy. The castle is shadowed by the looming threat of the Nazi...
Barbara Josselsohn, congratulations on your latest novel. What influenced you to write about Italy in the Second World War? I have always been a fan of historical novels, particularly those that take place during World War Two. I’m very moved by books that explore...
As Secrets of the Italian Island opens, Mia, a 32-year-old researcher, is grieving the recent death of her grandmother, Lucy, who raised Mia all by herself. As Mia goes through her grandmother’s things in preparation for possibly selling the house, she comes across...
The Children Left Behind is the fourth – and penultimate – instalment in her Shilling Grange Children’s Home series, which centres on the eponymous Suffolk orphanage in the aftermath of World War Two. Like the previous books in the series, The Children Left...
What inspired you to write the Shilling Grange Children’s Home series set in the aftermath and displacement of the Second World War? For me, writing a book is like a glorious throwing together of things that interest you – and hopefully creating a perfect storm...
Post-War Orphans The Shilling Grange Series is about one woman’s struggle to run a children’s home in post-war Britain. I’ve long been interested in the changes brought in by Attlee’s reforming Labour government and writing a series set in an orphanage was a chance to...
Catherine Hokin explores the shadows of World War II throughout the Hanni Winter series, and the third novel, The Girl in the Photo, continues this trend. Here Hanni's story continues when her husband, Freddy, recognises the face of his sister, lost to the Nazis, in...
Catherine Hokin, many congrats on the new book, the third in your Hanni Winter series. How hard was it to find inspiration for the plot of The Girl in Photo amid the horrors and misery of the holocaust? First of all, thank you! Writing a series with all the extended...
The concept of history as a mirror is a familiar one, but it can be a dangerous adage to follow. For novelists dealing with the Third Reich, a period which can feel as soaked in fake news as our own, it is particularly troublesome. Most of us are aware of Goebbels and...
In All the Courage We Have Found, Carly Schabowski brings us a tale of adventure, bravery and fear that celebrates those trying to survive across Europe during The Second World War. Written through three perspectives, our main character, Kasia, travels to France to...
