Waiting On Wednesday (The Dynamite Room by Jason Hewitt)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme, hosted by Breaking The Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases we can't wait to be published.

 

This week my choice is The Dynamite Room by Jason Hewitt

 

 

July 1940. 11 year-old Lydia Pendell walks through a village in rural Suffolk on a baking hot day. She is wearing a gas mask. The shops and houses are empty, windows boarded up and sandbags green with mildew, the village seemingly deserted. Leaving it behind, 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 are gone. Inside, a man sits beneath a window, in the dark, waiting calmly for her, a gun in his hand. He is part of a reconnaissance mission 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? 

Publication date: 27th March 2014