The preservation and interpretation of Second World War memorials of the Holocaust, such as concentration camps, varies across Europe, Catherine Hokin tells Historia. Decisions on what – and how – to preserve depended on the politics and beliefs of those in power at the time. I have spent much of the last two years researching […]
The ‘hidden’ Nazis of Argentina
Catherine Hokin’s latest novel, The Fortunate Ones, tells the story of Felix Thalberg, a young printer’s apprentice, whose life is changed forever when he meets a girl in a crowded Berlin dance hall. Despite his efforts to find her, Hannah vanishes that night without trace and it is two years before Felix sees her again, […]
Review: The Museum of Broken Promises by Elizabeth Buchan
Elizabeth Buchan’s new novel, The Museum of Broken Promises, is a keenly observant exploration of secrets and loss set in 1980s Prague and Paris in the present day. Catherine Hokin finds it “complex and both haunting and haunted”.
Review: The Bone Fire by SD Sykes
It’s a nerve-wracking thing, a series, warns Catherine Hokin. The author commits to a character, the reader buys in; everyone steels themselves against the nightmare moment when a shark will appear and be thoroughly jumped. Well, fear not, Oswald de Lacy fans, this is a shark-free zone: SD Sykes’s latest outing for her medieval crime-solver […]
An appearance of serenity: the French fashion industry in WWII
Author Catherine Hokin writes for Historia about a (perhaps conveniently) forgotten period in the history of Paris couture: the city’s occupation during the Second World War.
Review: The Almanack by Martine Bailey
“She thought of time as like a ribbon unspooling; the present moment was the only inch of the stuff you could grasp as it cascaded past you, framed by the diamond buckle of now.” I shall confess to two things from the start of this review: a love of Martine Bailey’s previous books and a […]
Review: Outlaw King
Netflix’s latest foray into original drama shines a spotlight on three crucial years (1304-1307) in the life of Robert the Bruce, the king who would eventually win independence for Scotland at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. We first meet Bruce two years before his 1306 coronation as he surrenders to King Edward I at […]
Review: The Story Keeper by Anna Mazzola
“It was the birds that woke her, their liquid voices trickling into her dreams.” An apt quote from a novel that does precisely that: trickles in and won’t let you go. Anna Mazzola’s second novel The Story Keeper is inspired by the West Ham vanishings: the unexplained disappearance of a number of children and young […]