FIC032000 Archives - Duckworth Books

Black Butterflies

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE AUTHORS’ CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILBUR SMITH PRIZE 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NOTA BENE PRIZE 2023

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Sarajevo, spring 1992. Each night, nationalist gangs erect barricades, splitting the diverse city into ethnic enclaves; each morning, the residents – whether Muslim, Croat or Serb – push the makeshift barriers aside.

When violence finally spills over, Zora, an artist and teacher, sends her husband and elderly mother to safety with her daughter in England. Reluctant to believe that hostilities will last more than a handful of weeks, she stays behind while the city falls under siege. As the assault deepens and everything they love is laid to waste, black ashes floating over the rooftops, Zora and her friends are forced to rebuild themselves, over and over. Theirs is a breathtaking story of disintegration, resilience and hope.

The Spirit Engineer

‘A fiendishly clever tale of ambition, deception, and power’ DERREN BROWN

Belfast, 1914. Two years after the sinking of the Titanic, high society has become obsessed with spiritualism, attending séances in the hope they might reach their departed loved ones.

William Jackson Crawford is a man of science and a sceptic, but one night with everyone sitting around the circle, voices come to him – seemingly from beyond the veil – placing doubt in his heart and a seed of obsession in his mind. Could the spirits truly be communicating with him or is this one of Kathleen’s parlour tricks gone too far?

Based on the true story of Professor William Jackson Crawford and famed medium Kathleen Goligher, and with a cast of characters including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini, The Spirit Engineer conjures a haunted, twisted tale of power, paranoia and one ultimate, inescapable truth…

The Young Survivors

What if everyone you loved was suddenly taken away? Five siblings struggle to stay together as the tides of war threaten to tear them apart.

When Germany invades France in the Second World War, the five Laskowski children lose everything: their home, their Jewish community and most devastatingly their parents who are abducted in the night. There is no safe place left for them to evade the Nazis, but they cling together, never certain when the authorities will come for what is left of them.

Inspired by the poignant, true story of the author’s mother, this moving historical novel conveys the hardship, the uncertainty and the impossible choices the Laskowski children were forced to make to survive the horrors of the Holocaust.

Ike and Kay

From the fogbound streets of London reeling from the Blitz, Ike and Kay is a thrilling tale of wartime romance, brimming with love, duty, sacrifice and heartbreak, set against the backdrop of the most tumultuous period of the twentieth century.

It is 1942, and war-battered London plays host to the imposing figure of General ‘Ike’ Eisenhower on a vital mission for the US army. Kay Summersby, an ambulance driver who survived the horrors of the Blitz, is chosen to be his aide, a role that will change her life forever.

Charmed by Ike’s affable and disarming nature – so different from the stiffness of British military convention – she accompanies him during the North African campaign against Rommel and the war in Europe against Nazi Germany. Amid the carnage a secret affair unfolds between the General and Kay but rumours of Ike’s infidelity reach across the ocean to Washington – and worse yet, to his wife.

In a time where scandal and war threaten to break them apart, can Ike and Kay hold on to their love?

Sleep in Peace Tonight

January, 1941. The Blitz is devastating England. Food supplies are low and tube stations have become bomb shelters. As the U.S. maintains its sceptical isolationist position, Winston Churchill knows that Britain is doomed without the aid of its powerful ally.

As bombs rain down over London, a weary Harry Hopkins, President Roosevelt’s most trusted advisor, is sent to London as his emissary and comes face to face with the Prime Minister himself, as well as a determined female driver who may not be what she seems.

A tale of loyalty, love, and the sacrifices made in the name of each, Sleep in Peace Tonight conjures the poignant lives of those who shaped the course of history during Britain’s darkest hour

Midnight in Berlin

Berlin, 1938. Newly-appointed military attaché Noel Macrae and his wife Primrose arrive at the British Embassy. Prime Minister Chamberlain is intent on placating Nazi Germany, but Macrae is less so. Convinced Hitler can be stopped by other means than appeasement, he soon discovers he is not the only dissenting voice in the Embassy and finds that some senior officers in the German military are prepared to turn against the Fuhrer. Gathering vital intelligence, Macrae is drawn to Kitty Schmidt’s Salon (a Nazi bordello) and its enigmatic Jewish hostess Sara Sternschein-a favourite of sadistic Gestapo boss Reinhard Heydrich. Sara is a treasure-trove of knowledge about the Nazi hierarchy in a city of lies, spies and secrets.

Does she hold the key to thwarting Hitler or is Macrae just being manipulated by her whilst his wife romantically pursues his most important German military contact, Florian Koenig? As loyalties are stretched to the limit and Europe slides towards another war, could just one act of great courage and sacrifice change everything?

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