«The Dynamite Room» by Jason Hewitt

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