In WWII Berlin Freyja Bremer, a patriotic museum assistant, marries Kaspar Voigt, an ambitious SS scholar, to protect her father. Yet she is unaware her husband is instrumental in Himmler’s twisted quest for Aryan supremacy. As she strives to safeguard the priceless Priam’s Treasure from air raids, Freyja falls in love with Darien Lessing, an […]
Operation Berlin by Michael Ridpath
in 1930 historian Archie Laverick, scarred mentally and physically by the Great War, travels to Berlin to research a famed Prussian general. His quiet study is shattered when he crosses paths with Esme Carmichael, a spirited young American intent on making her name as a foreign correspondent. When a shooting at a Saxon castle leaves […]
Travelling to Weimar Berlin – in 1930 and the 2020s
Fiona Veitch Smith travels to Weimar Berlin in 1930, using her antique Baedeker guidebook, and finds that the nearly 100-year-old book can still help her find the places she’s researching in the 2020s. In previous articles for Historia I outlined how I use vintage fashion and vintage guide books as research for my neo-Golden Age […]
The Berlin Murders by Fiona Veitch Smith
In September, 1930, fearless detective Miss Clara Vale is bound for Berlin, but this trip is all about la mode, not murder. Clara is set to walk the runway at Berlin Fashion Week, as a favour to her designer friend Juju, with her assistant Bella in tow. Elections loom in Germany, and among Juju’s friends, […]
Annie’s Day by Apple Gidley
As a young Australian Army nurse, Annie endures the brutalities of World War II in Singapore and New Guinea. Later, seeking peace, she takes refuge in Berlin — only to find herself caught in the upheaval of the Blockade. Through it all, the death of a man she barely knew leaves a wound that refuses […]
Circus of Mirrors by Julie Owen Moylan
It’s Berlin in 1926. After the death of their parents, sisters Leni and Annette only have each other. Desperate, but dreaming of better days, Leni finds work at a notorious cabaret: the Babylon Circus. From the dancer’s barely-there costumes, to the glimmering mirrors that cover the walls, the Babylon Circus is where reality and fantasy […]
The lost cities of Berlin
Berlin is a city Catherine Hokin knows well. It’s the setting for many of her novels. But it’s a city that’s always changing, even though it’s soaked through with history, and there have been many Berlins, some only imagined. Here, Catherine goes in search of the lost cities of Berlin. When I first developed the […]
The Secret Hotel in Berlin by Catherine Hokin
In Berlin in 1944, Lili Rodenberg and her husband Marius run the Edel, Berlin’s most glamorous hotel. For its wealthy guests, it is an escape from the destruction outside, with its elegant piano bar and fine amber brandy. But Lili is Jewish, a secret she is terrified will end in tragedy for her and their […]