When World War Two breaks out, the courage of two women will be tested to the limit. In Occupied France, Marie-Louise, a headstrong, single woman with two young children, is recruited into a secret intelligence network. She must collect privileged information about German military activities to help the Allies liberate her country. Her skill and […]
Under cover for Britain: two female WWII agents, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade and Barbara Bertram
Marie-Madeleine Fourcade led a French intelligence network supplying information to MI6. Barbara Bertram ran a secret safe house for agents in Surrey. They met several times. Here, Rachel Hore writes about how the two women sparked the idea for her new novel, and the challenges of writing fiction about real people. My new novel, The […]
The Lost Orphans of Lyon by Helen Parusel
Lyon, Occupied France, 1942, and when Yvette Dubois’s husband inherits a remote chateau, she reluctantly leaves Lyon behind – only for Armand to abandon her there to manage the vineyard alone. Isolated among unfamiliar staff, Yvette feels trapped in a life she never wanted. Everything changes the day she hears a mysterious knocking in the […]
Résistance: The Corps Franc Pommiès by Paul StJohn Mackintosh
The Corps Franc Pommiès (CFP) was founded on 17 November 1942 by its namesake, André Pommiès. It operated in south-western France, becoming one of the largest and most important Resistance units in the south. After initial work in the sabotage of rail and road networks, factories and power plants, on 15 April 1944 it sabotaged […]
Treaty of Blood by Michael Jecks
1359, Northern France. With the ink still drying on the Treaty of Bretigny, an agreement most believed to be nothing more than a stalemate between King Edward III of England and John II of France, the country is left riddled with both English and France armies – exhausted, adrift and directionless. An atmosphere ripe for […]
Philip of France, medieval England’s greatest enemy
England’s greatest enemy during the medieval period was (of course!) French: King Philip II, also called Philip Augustus. Astute and cunning, he played his Plantagenet rivals against one another and, as the historian Catherine Hanley says, became Europe’s most powerful monarch. France was one of the great power-houses of medieval Europe, and much of the […]
Nemesis: Medieval England’s Greatest Enemy by Catherine Hanley
Philip II, also called Philip Augustus, ruled France with an iron fist for over 40 years, expanding its borders and increasing its power. For his entire reign his counterpart on the English throne was a member of the Plantagenet dynasty, and Philip took them all on: Henry II, Richard the Lionheart, John and Henry III. […]
Blood of the Innocents by Michael Jecks
France, 1356; 10 years have passed since the battle of Crécy, and the English fighters are still abroad, laying siege to cities, towns and villages. Meanwhile the Prince of Wales raids across the continent to draw the French King John into a battle for sovereignty over all France. Berenger Fripper, having lost everything during the […]