The Dynamite Room
-
-
5.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- £5.99
-
- £5.99
Publisher Description
July 1940. Eleven-year-old Lydia walks through a village in rural Suffolk on a hot day. The shops and houses are empty, windows boarded up and sandbags green with mildew, the village seemingly deserted. She strikes off down a country lane through the salt marshes to a large Edwardian house - the house she grew up in. Lydia finds it empty too, the windows covered in black-out blinds. Her family has gone.
Late that night he comes, a soldier, gun in hand and heralding a full-blown German invasion. There are, he explains to her, certain rules she must now abide by. He won't hurt Lydia, but she cannot leave the house.
Is he telling the truth? What is he looking for? Why is he so familiar? And how does he already know Lydia's name? Eerie, thrilling and heartbreaking,The Dynamite Room evokes the great tradition of war classics yet achieves a strikingly original and contemporary resonance. Hypnotically compelling, it explores, in the most extreme of circumstances, the bonds we share that make us human.
'Superb. Absorbing, suspenseful and with a beautifully poetic touch' Nathan Filer,Costa-winning author of The Shock of the Fall
'Suspenseful and powerful. A novel of great humanity that exposes the absurd contradictions of war' Samantha Harvey
'Clever and unsettling, this most unconventional of war stories had me totally gripped' Shelley Harris, author of Jubilee
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Hewitt's strong debut novel, set in England during WWII, 11-year-old Lydia has run away from her wartime foster family to return home, only to find her seaside town abandoned and Grayfriar, her family home, desolate and empty. Heiden, a German soldier, arrives in the same night to occupy the house, and he imprisons the young girl there. Over five days, Heiden keeps Lydia hostage while turning the house upside down for official documents and other supplies items, he explains, that will be useful for a pending German occupation. Over time, however, it becomes clear that there's more to Heiden's preparations than he is revealing, and more brought him to Grayfriar in particular than just his orders. Hewitt's novel is well-crafted and engrossing. In the confines of a house that can feel at once claustrophobic and expansive, he artfully explores family and identity, and how war changes the lives of both soldiers and civilians.
