by C.J. Carey

Quercus Books / Sourcebooks Landmark, out now

1953 – preparations are underway for the Coronation. Of King Edward VIII…

“What if the Nazis won the Second World War?” is a common preoccupation among alternate historians, but most tend to deal with the assorted military decisions that could have gone differently. In this fascinating and engrossing novel, CJ Carey (a pen name for historical novelist Jane Thynne) doesn’t deal with that side of things, save as background – she’s far more interested in depicting a world where that’s almost part of the past. As the story opens, we’re in the build up to the Coronation of King Edward VIII and Queen Wallis, well over a decade after Britain became a protectorate of the Nazi Third Reich.

Carey has clearly worked out a lot of the ramifications of the change in history – little details are sprinkled throughout the book with regard to the fate of key people, and the changes that let this happen – but the key focus is on how we would live were this to be the case. Women have been divided into separate classifications, and everything from their calorie intake to their marital prospects are regulated to a greater or lesser level.

Rose Ransom works for the Ministry of Culture, rewriting fiction to fit in with the Nazi creed and viewpoint (leading to some great twists on the classic lines of literature, my favourite being from Jane Eyre) but her eyes are opened to the way others are living when graffiti starts to appear – not of the Kilroy woz ‘ere ilk, but something far more unsettling to the Nazis. What she learns, and how that affects her is at the core of this great novel that blends alternate history, spy fiction and a discussion about the merits and power of literature.

Verdict: The power of words is at the heart of this terrific and sometimes terrifying novel. 9/10

Paul Simpson

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