Dear Goldsboro PREM1ER subscribers,
I am so incredibly thrilled that my debut novel The Shock of the Light has been selected as the PREM1ER pick for February, and with such a gorgeous edition to boot.
The novel is my lockdown project, having never mastered Sourdough bread. Instead, I escaped to my desk and rediscovered a few chapters of something I’d begun years before and abandoned. That something is now The Shock of the Light. Its focus is a period of history which has long held a fascination for me, inspired in part by my own family folklore, in which tales of my grandfather’s involvement with wartime resistance form a crucial part.
The involvement of women in the secretive wartime organisation the Special Operations Executive enthrals me to this day. As a young student I poured over female agents’ personnel files at the National Archives in Kew and read every book I could find on the subject. I came across stories of astounding, almost unfathomable escapes from the enemy which made me wonder, could that have really happened, or could these tales be a cover for something shameful, or worse - traitorous? It occurred to me that even the smallest grain of doubt casts a shadow over a person’s motives, which led me to the question – if you had to do something truly awful to save your life, would you?
At its heart The Shock of the Light is a love story. It’s about an unbreakable bond between twins Tessa and Theo, a love which endures no matter what history might throw their way.
Thank you so much for reading and to Goldsboro books for selecting the novel!
-Lori Inglis Hall
