Out now in the series

Shadows over the Solent

Kiss and Don’t Tell

Three children born in 1944. Three families marked by war; a time of terror, bombs and absences. 

Three fathers: One only known to his child as the framed picture on the dresser. Another comes home safely but can’t love the new child whose crying competes with his own nightmares. The third is completely unknown – only smelt and felt in the blackout by his victim, the very young woman who can’t love or stay with her unwanted baby.

For the babies of 1944 the stories that were told to them and about them – and the secret thoughts that were kept from them in their earliest years – shape their sense of themselves. These stories continue to grab and cling, leaving each of them with difficult questions and choices. What will they seek, or seek to avoid, as they look for love?

When these three connect in the 60s, the world is a changed place. People speak of peace yet there are running battles and even tanks on some streets in the West and rockets and bombs are again setting the Far East on fire. How will the stories of their beginnings guide them in this new world.

A quietly powerful story probing and exposing issues surrounding the impact of the Second World War on families.

Thelma Howland

In the same series

Bombweed

Vivienne, a naive teenager in 1938, has to grow up in a world at war. Her family is shattered, like the buildings in her town, by the Luftwaffe. Vivienne knows that to recover she must reach into the dark past.

A fantastic window onto life on the “Home Front”, interwoven with love, loss and lies.

Amazon, 5 stars

Kissed to death

Five minutes is all it takes. Five minutes of violence in the wartime blackout. Five minutes that cast a very long shadow. After war ends, little Kenny lives with his granny who can’t find words to explain where he has come from. He knows not to ask.

An intriguing story which is deeply insightful into the impact of early experience of loss and secrets on adult relationships.

Jenny Dover, ‘Reaching and teaching through educational psychotherapy. A case study approach’