Hidden in the Shadows (Wartime Holland #2) by Imogen Matthews
Genre: Historical fiction, WW2, Wartime fiction, Fact with fiction
Read: 12th April 2022
Published: 20th April 2022
DESCRIPTION:
The hidden village was meant to keep them safe, but the Nazis have found it… There’s no time to lose. Laura gathers the children and whispers to them to be brave. The smallest cowers in her arms as they hear the crack of gunshots outside. Laura knows they’ll have to run if they are to survive…
Nazi-occupied Holland, 1943: In a makeshift village in the middle of the woods, hiding from Nazi soldiers determined to find them, a beautiful young Jewish woman named Laura thought she was safe. By day she remained silent and out of sight, but as darkness fell, she began to fall in love with a resistance fighter named Wouter. Until everything changed, on the day the village was stormed…
Desperate to protect the six small and terrified children in her care, Laura races towards the church spires of the nearest town in the distance and just manages to escape from the soldiers.
Wouter is stuck on the other side of the village when the German officers start shooting. As he desperately scrambles through the dark, dense woodland, he has no idea whether Laura has made it out alive.
Devastated that he hadn’t tried to save her, Wouter spends his days delivering food and transporting people to safety, determined to help those most in peril. But he never gives up hope of finding the woman he loves.
Even when he hears the rumours about the Nazis cramming Jews onto cattle trains for deportation to brutal work camps, he can’t believe she’s gone forever. How could he live if Laura was amongst them? And if he does find her, will their love have survived the ravages of everything they’ve been through, together and apart?
An utterly heartbreaking tale of love, betrayal and sacrifice, Hidden in the Shadows is perfect for fans of Fiona Valpy, The Nightingale and All the Light We Cannot See.
EXTRACT:
He never imagined it would end like this. Yet here he was, half paralysed with fear as he tried to flee for his life. He knew he should have stayed and behaved like the leader he’d been trained to be, but he hadn’t. Instead, he’d abandoned the woodland village, home to countless innocent people, when he should have been helping them to safety. What could he have been thinking?
Moments earlier, Wouter had noticed three figures at the corner of his vision. They were running into the yard, screaming and firing their pistols into the air. He froze. With a clatter, the wooden bowl he’d been carving dropped to the floor. He bent down quickly to retrieve it, fearful they would have heard the noise, but the three men were too intent on carrying out their deadly mission to notice.
How could he not have heard their approach? A vague sensation that he should be doing something came to him, but his mind refused to tell him what that might be. His only thought was that he was unarmed and wouldn’t stand a chance. As the screams grew louder, instinct took over. He had to save himself.
Peering through the rough door opening to his hut, Wouter saw Karl come rushing forward as if to confront the three Germans, then stop dead as more shots ripped through the air. Had he been hit? Wouter dared not look. Revealing himself would be suicide, so he waited, knowing he should have been leading them all to safety.
A noise behind the attackers must have distracted them, for they turned towards it. Once again, the bowl slipped from his grasp but there was no time to waste. Without a backward glance, Wouter hurled himself out of the hut and fled into the dense wood that bordered the village. Behind him came outraged cries. Bullets spattered off the ground at his feet, hurling leaves and dirt into the air. Breathing hard, he tripped, regained his balance but kept running till he could no longer hear the voices. He knew he had to put as much distance between himself and the hidden village as quickly as possible. It hurt to breathe, but he mustn’t stop, even though he could no longer hear them. This was no reason they wouldn’t ambush him by stealth.
Every sound from the forest drove him on. The flap of wings as a bird rose out of an oak tree. The scuttling feet of darting squirrels. His own feet snapping twigs and snagging at the undergrowth.
He arrived at the edge of the woods, skirting the edge of a large field, and sensed there must be a farmhouse close by. Fear still prevented him from formulating a plan. He, of all people, was running away when he should have been helping others in far greater need. Instead he’d panicked.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Her first novel, The Hidden Village, is set in the Veluwe woods, a beautiful part of Holland that Imogen has visited frequently over the past 30 years. It was in these woods that she discovered the story of the real hidden village which provided shelter in underground huts for Jews during WW2. Imogen retells the story of the hidden village with characters drawn from real life and from her imagination.
Within weeks of publication in 2017, The Hidden Village became an international bestseller, ranking at the top of a number Amazon's most-read book lists.
Following on from The Hidden Village comes Hidden in the Shadows, which has the pace of a thriller yet is also a love story. It tells the story about two young people who are brutally torn apart and must find a way to be together against all odds.
Imogen's third WW2 novel, The Girl Across the Wire Fence, is set in Amersfoort, Netherlands, and is based on the unforgettable tale of two young lovers who risked everything to keep hope alive in the very depths of hell - the little known Dutch concentration camp called Kamp Amersfoort.
Imogen's WW2 novels are published by Bookouture, a digital imprint of Hachette.
Learn more about Imogen's story in this video.
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