Join a hunt for lost witch treasure, in an enchanting adventure story of storms, spells, and the magic of the natural world, from bestselling and award-winning Tim Tilley. Will believes in witches and the stories he's grown up with - of mythical storm-lions, disappearing villages, and secret songs. Most of all, he believes the tales of magical treasure hidden in the Fens centuries ago. Treasure that he has to find, to solve the mystery of his Ma's disappearance. Then, in the eye of a storm, a witch arrives. She holds the key to finding the lost treasure - a powerful magical object that can summon storms. But someone else is searching for it too. If it falls into the wrong hands, Will's beloved home could be destroyed, and with it, his chances of ever finding his ma. Join Will on an epic quest filled with riddles, ruined towers, cloud cities and broomstick chases, on a journey to save everything he loves before time runs out.

Never Tell Anyone You're Jewish : My Family, the Holocaust and the Aftermath

Maria Chamberlain

Vallentine Mitchell Publishers

Vallentine Mitchell & Co Ltd

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

Vearsa, London, 2022

This is a story of two assimilated Jewish families in Nazi-occupied Poland in the eye of the Holocaust. The two families were joined by marriage after the war and Maria was born soon after. Not surprisingly her mother initially urged her to hide her Jewishness. Later, in old age, she relented, recognising that testimonies make history, and that the lives of those who perished deserve to be celebrated. The material in the book is compiled from recounted memories of the survivors, unfinished memoirs, letters, photographs, and historical archives. The book tells of Maria's paternal grandfather, whose appointment to the impossibly compromised post of President of the Kraków Judenrat ultimately led to his downfall, of her aunt Lula, who was denounced and shot, of her maternal grandmother, who died in the gas chambers of Belzec, and of Kuba, the gifted pianist, who was told to dig his own grave. There are uplifting stories too: her great uncle's survival on Schindler's List, and her charismatic, heel-clicking maternal grandfather's survival hiding in plain sight in a quasi-Nazi organisation. Maria documents the kindness of strangers, miraculous escapes, courage, guile, strength, and resilience. Her parents adopted different strategies for survival, and afterwards responded very differently to the traumas they had suffered. The last part of the book covers Maria's early life in Stalinist Poland and her family's emigration to Edinburgh, where she and her parents led fulfilled lives as scientists. Despite this, the traumas continue to ripple through her life and following generations.

2023-04-06