“You’ll only be forty minutes away,” he says stiffly. “I expect to see you once a week. If not more. You too, Theo. My door is open anytime.”
“Yes, sir,” Theo says. Dad extends his hand as if to shake Theo’s, but Theo throws his arms around Dad anyway, and Dad chuckles as he returns the embrace. “And we’ll see you Saturday, of course.”
I’ll drive back to Liverpool Friday night so that I can dress for the wedding at home. Theo will get ready with some of his friends here at our flat. It won’t be a big wedding—just our closest friends and family gathered in Dad’s beautiful garden while a celebrant officiates.
Dad nods curtly and whistles. This sound tells the dogs he means business and they both run to his side, and Theo and I follow them all to the front door. As Dad steps over the threshold, he turns back to look at us one last time.
“I’m proud of you,” he says unevenly, then he glances at Theo. “I’m proud of you both. It means something to me that I’ve been able to watch you both blossom together over these past few years.” He pauses, then adds gruffly, “Actually, it means everything.”
“I love you, Dad,” I say.
“I love you too, Lottie,” he murmurs.
Theo slides his arm around my shoulders. Dad helps the dogs up into the body of the truck he borrowed to help us move. He reverses from our driveway, and we watch until the taillights disappear around a corner. Theo turns me gently to face him. We stare at one another in the fading purple-pink light of dusk.
“Time to start our new life together,” he whispers, smiling softly.
Our future stretches out before us, full of unknowns, but also full of promise, built on a foundation of freedom we will never take for granted. We can thank people like my dad for that, and Eloise and Giles Watkins, and Jocelyn Miller.
And whatever we do with the freedom we have been gifted, whether our achievements and our struggles are big or small, we will do it in honor of those who gave so much so that we could live in a better world.
A C K N O W L E D G ME N T S
Firstly, thanks to Susan Swinwood and the team at Graydon House for publishing this book in North America. Thanks to Rebecca Saunders and the team at Hachette Australia, and to Kate Byrne, Anna Boatman, and the team at Piatkus Fiction UK. Thanks to Amy Tannenbaum and the team at Jane Rotrosen Agency. It is a pleasure and an honor to have my books in the hands of such remarkable teams.
Thanks to Mindy Hollamby and Demelza Pringle for the “sanity read” when I finished a round of edits, and to Lisa Ireland, for helping me make sense of tricky plot problems. And as always, thanks to my family and friends for support and love as I worked on this book.
I found the following resources useful in the writing of this story:
Her Finest Hour, The Heroic Life of Diana Rowden, Wartime Secret Agent by Gabrielle McDonald-Rothwell
Violette, The Missions of SOE Agent Violette Szabo GC by Tania Szabo
Carve Her Name with Pride by RJ Minney
Violette Szabo, The Life That I Have by Susan Ottaway
How to Become a Spy, The World War II SOE Training Manual published by Skyhorse Publishing
SOE In France 1941-1945 by Major Robert Bourne-Patterson
Mission France, The True History of the Women of SOE by Kate Vigurs
I Heard My Country Calling: Elaine Madden, SOE Agent by Sue Elliott
The Women Who Lived for Danger: The Agents of the Special Operations Executive by Marcus Binney
The Heroines of SOE: F Section: Britain’s Secret Women in France by Squadron Leader Beryl E. Escott
SOE in France, An Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France 1940-1944 by M. R. D. Foot
It should be noted that any errors are entirely my own.
A U T H O R L E T T E R
This novel is set around historical events, but some changes have been made to timelines and details to simplify the narrative. So, what’s true, and what’s fiction?
Eloise and Josie could both be considered composite characters. I have drawn small aspects of their stories from many of the 39 female agents who served in the SOE’s French Section during the war, but much of Eloise’s story, particularly the early parts of the book, are inspired by true events from the life of Violette Szabo, and much of Josie’s story, particularly her final days, has been drawn from what we know of the life of Dianna Rowden.
Violette Szabo was a young widow and mother who had some limited military experience with the Auxiliary Territorial Service when she was recruited by the SOE. She was sent into occupied France after just a few months of training and traveled alone to a restricted zone around Rouen to investigate the potential compromise of an SOE circuit there. She was arrested several times （including for failing to procure a permis de sejour） and talked her way out of trouble each time. She gathered crucial data about the compromised resistance circuits in the Normandy region, as well as the German V1/V2 rocket launch sites. Just as Eloise does in my story, Violette went shopping while in Paris and, using forged currency provided to her by the SOE, purchased a brooch for an official （in reality, an intelligence officer named Vera Atkins）。
Violette returned to France for a second mission just after D-Day, and she and other agents drew the attention of German forces outside of Salon-La-Tour. Some accounts have Violette single-handedly holding off German troops with a sten gun, just as Eloise does in my story. Other accounts say this is the stuff of legend and that it did not actually happen. What is certain is that Violette was captured that day at Salon-La-Tour and subsequently imprisoned and interrogated. As the Allies advanced and prisoners of war were taken back into Germany, she briefly escaped a box car to fetch water for critically dehydrated POWs in an adjoining carriage.
Ultimately, Violette was taken to Ravensbrück and was executed there at just 23 years old on or before 5 February 1945. She was survived by a young daughter, Tania, who was raised by her grandparents. The story of Hugh/Theo in my book is entirely fictional.
The character of Jocelyn was inspired by SOE agent Dianna Rowden, a British woman who had lived in France at various points throughout her life. Separated from her beloved mother and stuck in France as the occupation began, Dianna became involved with the Red Cross and ultimately escaped to England via Spain and Portugal. As with Violette, Dianna had just a few months’ training with the SOE before she was sent into France on her first mission.
Dianna was involved in the SOE operation to destroy the Peugeot factory near Sochaux （she was particularly active in retrieving air drops of explosives to fields around Montbéliard）。 The RAF had attempted the destruction of this factory by air and misjudged the location, causing hundreds of civilian deaths. An SOE agent named Harry Rée liaised with the factory director and facilitated the safe destruction operation from the ground.
As a courier, Dianna Rowden courageously ferried messages all over France—travelling as far afield as Lyon, Besançon, and of course Montbéliard and Paris. She was ultimately betrayed by a double agent and captured, and after enduring interrogation and torture at the notorious Avenue Foch Sicherheitsdienst headquarters, was moved to the civilian prison at Karlsruhe. She was then transported by passenger train with 3 other young SOE agents （Andree Borrell, Vera Leigh, and Sonya Olschanezky） to the Natzweiler-Struthof camp.