The compelling new historical novel by Liz Trenow, Under a Wartime Sky, was launched last night at Red Lion Books in Colchester. The bookshop was filled to the brim with fans of Liz’s captivating writing. Based on true-events the Under a Wartime Sky, published by Pan Macmillan, tells the story of an unlikely friendship set against a backdrop of war and secrecy.

Bawdsey Manor holds a secret.

1936: the threat of war hangs over Europe. Churchill gathers the brightest minds in Britain at a grand house in Suffolk. Bound to complete secrecy, they work together on an invention that could mean victory for the Allies. Among them is Vic, a gifted but shy physicist who, for the first time, feels like he belongs.

Local girl Kathleen wants to do more than serving tea and biscuits to ‘do her bit’. So when the Bawdsey team begin to recruit women to operate their top secret system, she dedicates herself to this life-or-death work. Kath and Vic form an unlikely friendship as the skies over Britain fill with German bombers. Little does Kath know just whose life she will change forever, one fateful night . . .

Based on the real history of Bawdsey Manor, Under a Wartime Sky is a novel about courage, belonging and hope.

Liz Trenow was a late starter in writing fiction – although she has been a journalist for most of her working life, in news and features for local and regional newspapers, as a news journalist for local radio and regional television, and at BBC Broadcasting House and Television Centre.

Liz Trenow combines her new-found writing career with spending time with her family, singing in two chamber choirs (early music, especially) and, of course, reading widely.

The strand running through many of Liz’s novels stems back to her family background: She was born and brought up in a house next to the family silk mill, a company which was founded nearly 300 years ago and is still going strong today. There is more about the silk company at Stephen Walters & Sons Ltd.