Kate Thompson explains how working-class East Enders had access to books, entertainment and culture in an underground library during the Second World War, the background story to her new novel, The Little Wartime Library. June 13, 1944, and Bethnal Green is under fire. The streets are bathed in a choking, acrid smoke as a German […]
The Little Wartime Library by Kate Thompson
London, 1944. Clara Button is no ordinary librarian. While the world remains at war, in East London Clara has created the country’s only underground library, built over the tracks in the disused Bethnal Green tube station. Down here a secret community thrives: with thousands of bunk beds, a nursery, a café and a theatre offering […]
What Only We Know by Catherine Hokin
When Karen Cartwright is unexpectedly called home to nurse her ailing father, she goes with a heavy heart. The house she grew up in feels haunted by the memory of her father’s closely guarded secrets about her beautiful mother Elizabeth’s tragic death years before. As she packs up the house, Karen discovers an old photograph […]
The Dressmaker’s Secret by Lorna Cook
1941, Nazi-occupied Paris: In the glamourous Ritz hotel there is a woman with a dangerous secret. As Coco Chanel’s assistant, Adèle lives side by side with German officers in the splendour of The Ritz hotel. But Adèle has a secret. She is working for the resistance, right under the Germans’ noses. As occupied Paris becomes […]
The Commandant’s Daughter by Catherine Hokin
1933, Berlin. Ten-year-old Hanni Foss stands by her father watching the celebrations marking Adolf Hitler as Germany’s new leader. As the torchlights fade, her safe and happy childhood changes forever as Reiner, the father she adores, is corrupted by his new position as commandant of an infamous concentration camp… As the Nazi regime crumbles, 12 […]
Historia interviews: 2021 Gold Crown Award winner Chris Lloyd
Chris Lloyd won the HWA Gold Crown Award in 2021 for The Unwanted Dead, a tense thriller set in Paris at the start of the Nazi occupation in 1940. Detective Eddie Giral, still traumatised by his experiences during the First World War, is helpless in the face of this menace. There’s one thing he still […]
Christmas reading 2021 – the best historical books
We asked eight authors to each recommend a historical book they’d love to receive for Christmas 2021, and one they would give as a Christmas gift. They include many of the best books published this year. We hope these suggestions inspire you, whether you’re looking for ideas for presents or planning to curl up in […]
How WWI veterans saved Britain’s treasures in WWII
Caroline Shenton, author of National Treasures, tells how veterans of the First World War stepped out of its ‘Long Shadow’ to help save Britain’s art collections during the Second World War. My latest book, National Treasures. Saving the Nation’s Art in World War Two, tells the true story of the adventures of our national collections […]