Books
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From the Publisher
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Book Reviews
When the Nightingale SingsIn 1930s London, by pure chance, Judy Morgan meets Hedwig Kiesler. Judy Morgan has just finished her studies of Physics at Cambridge University. Hedwig Kiesler has just left her beloved home in Austria to escape from her ex-husband. Hedwig dreams of becoming a ...
Shirley Dickson’s latest novel, The Orphan’s Secret, is a beautifully crafted tale about an orphaned baby and a heart-breaking lie. Set in 1940s England, with the war raging on, Lily Armstrong has married John Radley and must quickly say goodbye as he leaves to fight for his country. As the war
December 1941: the tropical warmth of the Honolulu sun beats down on Virginia or ‘Ginny’ Martin. A young, courageous and determined flying instructor posted in Hawaii from her hometown of Tennessee. Ginny is enjoying sipping on Mai Tai’s with her brother Jack and her friend Lilinoe, dancing the
The Hidden Village is set in a small town in Holland during WW2. The story focuses in on a group of likeable and courageous characters that are faced with a seemingly impossible task. The community has gathered their forces together to protect the people in danger. Those descending on this ...
Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger’s collection of short stories, Souvenirs from Ukraine, which are based on true events, shows the turmoil of the Ukrainian people during the Second World War. It is heart-breaking and captivating to read.The first story tells the tale of a seamstress, Larissa, whose ...
When the Nazis entered Prague in 1942, little did Amelia know how her life would change forever. However, she soon discovered that she could not let their hatred bend her, or even her tiniest hope of surviving Nazi cruelty would become a victim of their homicide will.Fast forward to 2017, ...
On the 18th of November 1978, the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project – better known as Jonestown – made headline news around the world through the mass murder-suicide of over 900 of its inhabitants, orchestrated by cult leader Jim Jones. In her latest novel, The Girl from Jonestown, Sharon ...
Lily Graham’s latest novel, The Last Restaurant in Paris, begins in 1980s France, where living memories of World War Two are slowly fading to just the older generations of the population. Yet when a young librarian, Sabine Dupris, inherits a restaurant from her biological grandmother that she ...
Immediately the tone of The Woman Who Risked Everything is introduced as one that is tense and threatening. The Prologue takes the reader to a point in the future, demonstrating how the novel will escalate. The tension in this small section is built effectively as our protagonist, Margot, hears
Suzette D. Harrison uses her fiction to re-write the stories we think we know about history, and My Name is Ona Judge is no exception. This is Suzette D. Harrison’s twelfth book, and is based on the true story of one of George and Martha Washington’s slaves: Ona Judge Staines. Contradicting the
There are many fictional accounts exploring the extreme experiences of the Second World War, but The Woman Outside the Walls brings a unique tale of survival, guilt and regret. With a dual timeline that takes place over almost 90 years, this novel follows the story of Anna, now known as Margie.
Paris at First Light is the second book in Amanda Lees’ ‘World War II Resistance’ series, but can be read as a standalone. The series is dedicated to telling the stories of fearless female secret agents and their experiences of courage, endurance, love and loss.Set in 1944, Paris at First ...
Articles
When the Nightingale Sings is a novel based on the true story of Joan Curran, a Welsh physicist, and Hedy Lamarr, a Hollywood movie star whose scientific contributions changed the course of history and World War Two.Joan Curran (represented in the story as the fictitious character Judy ...
Starting to write a new novel is both an overwhelming and, contrarily, exciting experience for me as I never know which path the book will take me. In my latest novel, The Orphan’s Secret, Lily Armstrong, enlists in the Women’s Timber Corps – something of which I had no knowledge. But I soon ...
Early on the morning of Sunday December 7th 1941, with the first rays of the sun glinting off the wings of her Interstate Cadet monoplane, Cornelia Fort, aviatrix and flight instructor, had the misfortune to be the first person in Pearl Harbor to catch sight of the incoming Japanese planes. The
I clearly remember the time I was cycling through the leafy Veluwe woods, some 50 miles from Amsterdam, when I came across an extraordinary place I never knew existed in all the years I’d been taking family holidays in the area. I never realised it at the time, but this chance discovery set me ...
"Glory to Ukraine!"In 1991, 2004 and 2014, the Maidan in Kyiv was the stage for three major events that etched Ukraine into the European consciousness. These were the fall of the Soviet Union, the Orange Revolution and the Euromaidan respectively, the last of which ended in bloodshed but ...
Sometimes in life when realization hits, making us aware that we don’t know exactly who we are or how we got there. For some, a life-changing event is the only window to a view of our world in a different light. This is where my story began.A person who had been a part of my life from the ...
On the morning of the 19th November 1978 I entered my classroom at the Alliance Française in Paris, where I was attending a course in advanced French. A few minutes later our teacher, M. Beaulieu, strode in. Instead of his usual jovial ‘Bonjour, bonjour tout le monde’ he looked straight at me, ...
When I first read about the Rosenstraße protests, the only successful event that lasted for several days and resulted in the protesters’ victory, I just knew I had to write the story of these incredible women. Yes, it was mostly women who gathered in front of the Rosenstraße holding center ...
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
For many, these are perhaps the most famous, easily recognizable words of the ...
As much as any of the characters in the book, Paris has her own story to tell. During WW2, her citizens suffered enormously under German occupation, with food being severely restricted and even the leather for their shoes reserved for German troops so they had to make do with wooden clogs. In ...
The past cannot be told in just one narrative any more than the entire world can be viewed through just one lens pointed at just one angle. In my novels, I seek to present a reality constructed not only of what is remembered of the past, but of what is forgotten – I want to bridge the gap ...
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 Leni Riefenstahl but the ...
Interviews
Suzanne Kelman, what first of all drew you to write about Hedy Lamarr?I've always been captivated by the golden age of Hollywood, and the '30s and '40s are my favourite period in film history. So, it has been fascinating to connect the timeline of World War II with what was happening in ...
Shirley Dickson, your story has its main protagonist, Lily Armstrong, join the Lumberjills, what were they?Lumberjills (known as the forgotten army) were women who ‘did their bit’ during WW2 by recruiting to The Women’s Timber Corps and working in Forestry. With men called away to fight in ...
How did you find the research for A Letter from Pearl Harbor in comparison to your other novels: The Berlin Zookeeper or The Secret Diary? Following on from that, do you have a set research and writing approach to a novel in general?Perhaps the big feature of my research for A Letter from ...
Imogen Matthews, I understand that you wrote The Hidden Village based on Aart Visser’s book, Het Verscholen Dorp as well as some stories from your mother and your own background. Could you tell us a bit more about how your background, family stories and Visser came together to translate into ...
Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger, you grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota in a Ukrainian community that you’ve stated had many factions within. Do you know how those factions would view the Russian invasion?I don’t know a single Ukrainian in America, or Ukrainian-American, who views the invasion as a ...
Shari J Ryan, many congrats on the new book. How hard was it to find inspiration for the plot of The Girl with the Diary amid the horrors and misery of the holocaust?Thank you so much! It wasn’t hard for me to find inspiration for the plot of The Girl with the Diary. My grandmother and ...
Sharon Maas, congratulations on the new novel, which deals with an incredibly tragic event, that is the Jonestown mass-suicide. What impact did it have on you?I was living in France at the time, so the initial reports trickled through only slowly – this was before the Internet age, so I ...
Lily, congratulations on your new novel, The Last Restaurant in Paris. It’s set in Occupied Paris during WW2. Why did you want to write about it?Thank you so much. I love Paris, it’s architecture, food, history and joie de vivre and I’ve always been fascinated by its past, particularly ...
Ellie Midwood, many congratulations on the new novel. What inspired you to write about the Second World War?Thank you so much, and as for the inspiration, it was family history mostly. As a child, I preferred my grandfather’s war stories to normal kiddie fairy tales and I guess you can say ...
Suzette D Harrison, many congratulations on your new novel, My Name Is Ona Judge. It’s based on the experience of Ona Judge, enslaved to the Washington family. How did you find out about her?I’ve a passion for African American History, so much so that my undergraduate degree is in Black ...
Suzanne Goldring, congratulations on your new book! How much research do you tend to carry out for your novels, and was The Woman Outside the Walls different?All my books require research which I carry out either by visiting the locations involved or by reading non-fiction books on the ...
Amanda Lees, congratulations on Paris at First Light. This is the 2nd part, coming hot on the heels of The Silence Before Dawn. The French Resistance during the Nazi occupation is an extraordinary story – why did you want to write about it?I wanted to write in particular about the ...