Tag: WWII

Codename: Madeleine by Barnaby Jameson

Codenaame: Madeleine by Barnaby Jameseson

Summary:

A Mystic’s daughter flees Moscow on the eve of the Great War.
A French soldier lies wounded on the Western Front.
A German officer veers between loyalty and integrity.
An English courtesan reclines on a sea of books.

Each will make a journey that changes history.

The constellations will force the Mystic’s daughter to make an impossible choice. To remain at her harp as the shadow of war looms again – or join the top-secret Special Operations Executive (SOE). Babouli to her Sufi father, ‘Madeleine’ to the Gestapo, a lone mission to Occupied Paris promises to be the most hazardous of World War Two.

Inspired by real events, CODENAME: MADELEINE is the most unexpected spy story ever told. It teems with tigers, zeppelins, elephants, U-boats, angels, assassins, chessmen, cyanide, beetles, butterflies and Rumi. Revolving between Paris, London, Prague, India and Latin America, CODENAME: MADELEINE is a kaleidoscope of love, war, music, betrayal, poetry and resistance.

My Review:

Throughout my life I have read so many WWII spy stories, both true and also fictional but I have been completely blown away by the debut Codename: Madeleine (Whitefox Publishing) by Barnaby Jameson which is based on the true story of Noor Inayat Khan a remarkable brave woman who became the first woman SOE agent to be dropped into occupied France during WWII.

What Barnaby Jameson has written is a deeply moving and compelling accounts of one of the most celebrated heroines of the last war. She was posthumously awarded both the George Cross and the Croix de Guerre in 1949. The story though begins much further back and her father Inayat Khan who was to become a celebrated concert musician and Inayat travels meets Ora and their own journey begins. On New Years Day 1914, Noor was born in Moscow and so her story begins but first they now must leave Russia and head for London as WWI breaks out as Inayat was a pacifist as his religion dictated.

As time went on Noor would go on to study music and play the harp. But now Europe was to be engulfed by war again as WWII breaks out and the family flees Paris and heads back to London where Noor goes on to join the WAAF and it is here she learns how to become a radio operator. But it is not long that she wants more and in 1941 she is recruited into the Special Operations Executive. (SOE). The story now moves to 1943 and Noor is parachuted into France, and this is where the story really becomes compelling and heartbreaking.

I don’t want to go on from here as it is a story, I would completely recommend to anyone. There are many characters in the story based on Noor’s life here in the book including those she trained with at the SOE as well as her family members. One thing I will say is that the bravery shown by Noor and many more who joined the SOE and sent to France is something that you cannot begin to imagine, the fear as the Gestapo were always watching and listening and you feared the net was about to close at any moment.

In 2019 a blue plaque was announced at her home in Bloomsbury, London, the address she left as she headed for France on her final fatal mission. The plaque was unveiled on 28th August 2020.

At just under 500 pages this is not a short story, but this is 500 pages that goes by so quickly. Codename: Madeleine by Barnaby Jameson is highly recommended.

480 Pages.

My thanks to Sofia Saghir (Midas PR) and Whitefox Publishing for the review Copy of Codename: Madeleine by Barnaby Jameson Published on 28th July    2022 and is now available through Waterstones, Amazon and through your local independent bookshop or through Bookshop.org that supports your local independent bookshop. UK Bookshop.org

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Portrait of the Spy as a Young Man by Edward Wilson

Portrait of the Spy as a Young Man by Edward Wilson

Summary:

1941: a teenage William Catesby decides to leave Cambridge to join the army and support the war effort. Parachuted into Occupied France as an SOE officer, he witnesses tragedies and remarkable feats of bravery during the French Resistance.

2014: now in his nineties, Catesby recounts his life to his granddaughter for the first time. Their interviews weave together the historical, the personal and the emotional, skipping across different decades and continents to reveal a complex and conflicted man.

Catesby’s incredible story recounts a life of spying and the trauma of war, but also lost love, yearning, and hope for the future.

My Review:

Delighted on publication day to share my review of Portrait of the Spy as a Young Man (Arcadia Books) by Edward Wilson. This is a gripping wartime spy novel set in two time zones set in 1941 and 2014.

The career of spy William Catesby has been set out across seven previous novels and what a remarkable career. In Portrait of the Spy as a Young Man we find our hero recounting his wartime role to his granddaughter.
Catesby was only a teenager when he walked away from Cambridge University and join the fight against Nazis that had defeated mainland Europe. But for Catesby his role because of his unique background he joined the Special Operations Executive and following his training was parachuted into the highland region of Southern France, Catesby was there following the massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane as well as supplying weapons to the French underground forces fighting the Nazis and creating mayhem and chaos with the tactics of a highly trained SOE operative.


Now as the years have passed and it is 2014 and Catesby is in his nighties and the memories of his years as a spy are still there like time capsules in his memory and he is spending time with his granddaughter recounting his remarkable life.


I found this to be fantastic read and also one that was also moving as Catesby was a human that cared for the future of the human race. Many will ask about the previous spy novels but you need not worry as this can happily be read as a standalone novel. But like me you may want to seek out the previous seven books involving William Catesby. Highly Recommended.

350 Pages.

Thank you Sophie Ransom (Midas PR) for the review copy of Portrait of the Spy as a Young Man by Edward Wilson

Portrait of the Spy as a Young Man by Edward Wilsonwas published by Arcadia Books and was published on 15th October 2020 and is now available through Waterstones, Amazon and through your local independent bookshop.

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Green Hands by Barbara Whitton #WartimeClassics

Green Hands by Barbara Whitton

Summary:

It is 1943, and a month into their service as Land Girls, Bee, Anne and Pauline are dispatched to a remote farm in rural Scotland. Here they are introduced to the realities of ‘lending a hand on the land’, as back-breaking work and inhospitable weather mean they struggle to keep their spirits high. Soon one of the girls falters, and Bee and Pauline receive a new posting to a Northumberland dairy farm. Detailing their friendship, daily struggles and romantic intrigues with a lightness of touch, Barbara Whitton’s autobiographical novel paints a sometimes funny, sometimes bleak picture of time spent in the Women’s Land Army during the Second World War.

My Review:

The very latest release from the Imperial War Museum as part of their Wartime Classics series is set in 1943 and the men are away fighting and so the women recruited as part of the Women’s Land Army (WLA) in Green Hands (IWM) Barbara Whitton (pseudonym for Margaret Hazel Watson) tells the of the experiences of three young women working the land.

The story is told by Bee and her two friends Anne and Pauline are sent to chilly windswept farm in a remote part of Scotland in Winter, with no training they are expected to learn quickly how to work a farm. It is hard-going, cold and tough for the young women who are expected to work 6 days a week and long hours. The novel is based on the authors own experiences in the WLA.

It is physically hard and soon one of the women gives up and goes home leaving both Bee and Pauline to be relocated to a dairy farm in Northumberland and from the story tells of how they coped during the war years.

It is funny and insightful and the author writes in such a way that she paints a picture of life working on a farm doing the job the men would be normally be doing but with not a hint of a thank you. At a time when the country had to pull together or go hungry, Green Hands tells of a time during the war years when it was the women who worked the land to keep the country fed and important part of our history.

#wartimeclassics     @I_W_M

@angelamarymar     @RandomTTours

224 Pages.

Thank you to Imperial War Museum and Anne Cater (Random Things Tours) for a copy of Green Hands by Barbara Whitton

Green Hands by Barbara Whitton was published by Imperial War Museum and was published on 10th September 2020 and is available through Waterstones, Amazon and through your local independent bookshop.

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