David Boyle, author of a recent biography of Robert Oppenheimer, reviews Oppenheimer the film. No movie in recent history can have been quite so hyped like Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer, released in the UK on 21 July. But I don’t believe any of the other contenders can have lived up to the hype as this one […]
The German Mother by Debbie Rix
Before the war began, Minki had everything – an attentive husband, three adorable children, and a successful career as journalist. But all that changed in an instant. Her sweet Clara, with her blue eyes and porcelain features, started having fits. Since then, Minki hasn’t been able to sleep properly because she knows children with illnesses […]
The Silk Code by Deborah Swift
England in 1943: deciding to throw herself into war work, Nancy Callaghan joins the Special Operations Executive in Baker Street. There, she begins solving ‘indecipherables’ – scrambled messages from agents in the field. Then Nancy meets Tom Lockwood, a quiet genius when it comes to coding. Together they come up with the idea of printing […]
The Last Lifeboat by Hazel Gaynor
Liverpool, 1940, and Alice King stands on the deck of SS Carlisle, waiting to escort a group of children to Canada as overseas evacuees. She is finally doing her bit for the war. In London, as the Blitz bombs rain down and the threat of German invasion looms, Lily Nicholls anxiously counts the days for […]
Sent away by sea: the forgotten history of WWII’s ‘seaevacuees’
Hazel Gaynor remembers the World War Two ‘seaevacuees’, the children sent away from Britain by sea to escape the bombings at home. This is an often-forgotten part of the history of the war, overshadowed by more familiar events, and it inspired Hazel to write her new novel, The Last Lifeboat. Operation Pied Piper, the British […]
Her Last Promise by Catherine Hokin
Berlin, 1938.When Hanni’s beloved sister suddenly vanishes in the middle of the night, Hanni knows her high-ranking Nazi father, Reiner, is not telling her the whole truth and may hold the key to her disappearance. Years later, after finally learning how to live with her troubled past, Hanni dedicates herself to raising her teenage son, […]
Language and the Nazi propaganda machine
Catherine Hokin examines how the Nazi propaganda machine twisted language to hide mass murder, including their Aktion T4 euthanasia programme. Language and how it is used is particularly important to a writer. That might sound very obvious but it is a truism I have come back to again and again while writing fiction based around […]
The Silk Code by Deborah Swift
England in 1943: deciding to throw herself into war work, Nancy Callaghan joins the Special Operations Executive in Baker Street. There, she begins solving ‘indecipherables’ – scrambled messages from agents in the field. Then Nancy meets Tom Lockwood, a quiet genius when it comes to coding. Together they come up with the idea of printing […]