East London, in 1940: Prue Carmichael never dreamed that she’d end up working at a railway yard. But when her reverend father is called up to Stepney, she and her family are uprooted from their country home for a new life in the turbulent city. Determined to help with the war effort, Prue signs up […]
The Paris Notebook by Tessa Harris
It’s January 1939. When Katja Heinz secures a job as a typist at Doctor Viktor’s clinic, she doesn’t expect to be copying top secret medical records from a notebook. At the end of the first world war, Doctor Viktor treated soldiers for psychological disorders. One of the patients was none other than Adolf Hitler. The […]
Operation Moonlight by Louise Morrish
Wartime France, 1944. Trust absolutely no-one. This is the only advice newly recruited SOE agent Elisabeth Shepherd is given when faced with the impossible. Her mission: to enter Nazi-occupied France and monitor the Germans’ deadly long-range missiles. Guildford, 2018, and Betty is celebrating her 100th birthday when she receives an invite from the Century Society […]
The German Messenger by MJ Hollows
Liverpool, 1940. Journalist Ruth Holt is struggling in the terror of the Blitz when her young son is suddenly snatched away in broad daylight. Soon after, the kidnappers’ demands arrive. They are working with the Nazis, and she has no choice but to co-operate, or the authorities will learn that she is harbouring secrets of […]
Collapse by Chrissy Sturt (the 2022 HWA Dorothy Dunnett Short Story winner)
Collapse by Chrissy Sturt won the HWA Dorothy Dunnett Short Story Competition in 2022. In the words of the judges, it’s “an immediately engrossing tale of a family in Southampton in 1940. A great sense of place and character and a full and satisfying story told with economy and grace.” To celebrate the 2023 HWA […]
Stateless by Elizabeth Wein
It is 1937 and tensions are high. A spectacular air race around Europe seeks to promote unity among a group of young pilots, but distrust and animosity are rife. The British and sole female contestant, Stella North, is determined to prove not only her skill, but also her identity as her Nansen passport declares her […]
Hitler’s Aristocrats by Susan Ronald
This book exposes the shadowy world of the aristocrats and business leaders on both sides of the Atlantic who secretly aided Hitler and Nazi Germany. Hitler said: “I am convinced that propaganda is an essential means to achieve one’s aims.” Enlisting Europe’s aristocracy, international industrialists, and the political elite in Britain and America, Hitler spun […]
Extreme research: how far should a writer go?
What lengths will writers go to in order to research their books? For some, it’s quite far. Like drinking buffalo blood, or going to the Amazon jungle or the South Pole. For Louise Morrish, author of Operation Moonlight, it was grabbing her horror of heights in both hands and jumping out of a plane. She […]