Hidden in the Shadows, the Sequel, is now Available on Amazon!
It’s been a long time coming, two and a half years in fact, but finally I can announce the launch of my new novel, Hidden in the Shadows, the sequel to The Hidden Village!
When The Hidden Village came out in May 2017, I was taken by surprise by the massive response, especially from American readers. Within weeks, it was riding high in the Amazon book charts and I started receiving emails and reviews from people across the world, thanking me for bringing this little known story from World War 2 Holland to light. Some asked if there was to be a sequel as they wanted to know what happened to certain characters they’d invested in once they’d finished the book.
After finishing writing The Hidden Village, I hadn’t thought about a sequel, but came to realise that no story every really has an ending. There are always characters the reader is keen to know more about.
With the help of my readers’ comments, I discovered a new narrative emerging and soon became obsessed with the stories of characters who had played a secondary role in the original book.
I thought long and hard about what would happen to Wouter, the young Dutch man in hiding rather than work for the Nazis, and Laura, the young Jewish girl who has no choice but to go into hiding. The reader of The Hidden Village never discovers whether their tentative relationship that begins when both arrive at the secret woodland village ever comes to anything. As the author, it was my chance to find out for myself and before long I was invested in their heartbreaking journey: not even I knew how it would end!
So this is where the sequel begins after the end of The Hidden Village. It has the pace of a thriller and never relents. Yet it is also a love story between two young people who are brutally torn apart and must find a way to be together against all odds.
Naturally, I was conscious that readers of Hidden in the Shadows may not have read The Hidden Village. I don’t think it’s a good idea for an author to spell out the plot of an earlier book in order to satisfy new readers, but it is important to ensure that when previous characters are introduced that reference is made to the part they played in the first book. Perhaps I made things harder for myself by switching the focus away from key characters who had shaped the narrative first time around, but, rest assured, some, if not all, put in an appearance in Hidden in the Shadows, some to devastating effects!
In short, I’ve written Hidden in the Shadows as a sequel to The Hidden Village, but people can read it who haven’t read the original story.
The arrival of the first copies of Hidden in the Shadows!
You can discover this second story in the Untold Stories from WW2 Holland series on Amazon:
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