PROLOGUE
November 1942
There is a moment somewhere between the first warning siren and the first falling bomb when the earth turns silent and stops.
The air tightens. The ground braces. The sky holds its breath.
Only the planes keep moving.
What happens next is anyone’s guess. Perhaps the bomb doors will open, perhaps death will rain down. Perhaps the planes will roar on over Berlin and away. Whatever the outcome, the initial response is the same. Bodies freeze. Brains go blank. Buildings shift on their foundations and become fragile.
People look up, shrink away, crouch down. No one speaks. Words won’t help, words won’t change anything. As the sky darkens and drones, the only thing certain is fear.
Fear of being caught out in the open as the heavens crack apart. Of being caught deep in a cellar when the lights fail and the oxygen runs out and the water starts rising. Of the streets overhead collapsing back into their bricks and the cellar becoming a tomb. Fear of being caught in the wrong place.
On a cold clear night in November 1942 – as wave after wave of British Lancaster bombers thicken the skies to a shroud – Lili Rodenberg is very definitely in the wrong place.
She knows where she should be – there’s no shortage of options for a woman of her social standing when an air raid threatens Berlin. The obvious choice would be tucked inside a shelter with her family, pretending to hold her nerve. Or bustling round her daughter’s bedroom, collecting teddies and coats for the trip downstairs, pretending that the exploding shells are no more frightening than a firework display. Or, as the owner by marriage of the Edel Hotel and – according to the Führer whose opinion is law – its beating heart, where Lili ought to be is centre-stage in the Edel. Standing in its palatial foyer or ballroom. Calming her guests. Promising them that, whatever the planes flying over their heads decide to do or not do, the champagne will remain ice-cold and free-flowing. Wherever she chooses to be, she’s supposed to stay visible.
Visible is the last thing Lili is choosing to be.
Lili isn’t in any of the public spaces she normally commands, she’s in the Edel’s rabbit-warren of a basement. That’s not a crime in itself. She could be checking that the hotel’s luxurious bomb shelter is ready for use, like a careful owner should. Except she isn’t. She’s pressed into the shadows of the basement instead. She’s waiting for a blacked-out van, or a black-clothed figure, to appear at the end of an access road which – or so she tells herself every time she stands there alone in the dark – hasn’t yet come under surveillance. Lili tells herself a lot of things. Not to look up at the sky. Not to think about bombs, not to listen for gunfire. That, because nothing has gone wrong before, nothing will go wrong now. She’s working very hard at not being afraid.
The seconds tick by. Lili tries not to count them and cut down what is already far too little time.
She blinks her straining eyes. She crosses and uncrosses her fingers. She offers silent prayers and promises to anyone who might be left to listen. She’s about to give up and assume that that the chain has failed before it reached her as it’s failed before and tonight’s delivery won’t arrive. Until it does. Until there’s the faintest crunch of tyres over gravel and the van is suddenly there and gone again, in a blink-and-miss-it moment.
Now Lili is at the doorway, leaning out as far as she dares, beckoning a crouching figure forward. Hoping that he – or, rarely, she – has the sense to stay close to the small garden’s side wall and winter-stripped shrubbery. That they won’t sprint through its centre in full view of the wide-windowed suites at the back of the hotel.
Luckily this refugee appears to be less broken than some of the lost souls Lili has previously shepherded. She – because tonight the figure is feminine and the hair slipping from under the dark cap is long – stays low and moves fast. When she reaches the doorway, she doesn’t ask questions. She listens intently to all of Lili’s whispered instructions, even though none of them are welcoming and they all begin with don’t.
Don’t speak. Don’t move around when I get you in there. Don’t put your shoes back on no matter how cold your feet get. Don’t leave until I come for you, don’t put all our lives at risk.
The woman runs along the corridor’s dark twists as quiet as a mouse, as quiet as Lili. There is no more whispering. There is leading and following, and two women trusting to luck because – this far into a war that has turned even more monstrous than the one that went before it – what else is there left to trust to?
For the woman on the run, who has learned to prefer night over day, luck means that this stop won’t be the final one on her journey.
For Lili, luck means that she will get this latest charge safely into a hiding place before the hotel decides to pour its guests downstairs to the shelter. It means that the hotel detective – who, despite his easy manner and ladled-on charm, is a Gestapo man to his bones – won’t notice that Frau Rodenberg isn’t where duty demands she should be. That she will get her charge safely out again tomorrow night and get the woman back on her way. And that this won’t be the moment when Lili’s link in the chain which moves desperate Jews from one cubbyhole to the next is the one that snaps. That one more life will be saved for at least one more night and nobody will be made to pay for Lili’s part in this – or in any other – rescue.
It’s a lot of luck to trust to. It’s not the first time Lili has asked the fates to look kindly on her, and it’s a long way from the last time she’ll call on them. It’s the thinnest of lifelines to put all her faith in.
Excerpt from THE SECRET HOTEL IN BERLIN by Catherine Hokin, Copyright Bookouture, 2024
Berlin, 1944. ‘It is a great honour to have you here, Herr Hitler.’ Lili doesn’t stumble over the lie, her hand steady as she pours champagne. Everything must be perfect, no one can suspect a thing…
Lili Rodenberg and her husband Marius run the Edel, Berlin’s most glamorous hotel. For its wealthy guests, it is an escape from the destruction outside, with its elegant piano bar and fine amber brandy. But Lili is Jewish, a secret she is terrified will end in tragedy for her and their beloved little girl.
Lili’s only choice is to hide in plain sight, her heart racing each time uniformed officers step through the Edel’s grand entrance. As Berlin becomes a more frightening place, Lili pleads with her husband to help shelter those in danger but Marius is adamant: he will not risk the lives of his wife and daughter. Until the day he is called to the front – and goes missing in action.
Left in sole charge of the Edel, a heartbroken Lili fixes her smile as she serves men who would have her killed in an instant if they knew the truth. She decides she must fight back, hiding Jews in the hotel’s wine cellar before moving them to safety. Though she is seized with terror, it gives her the strength to carry on.
But her courage catches the attention of the Resistance. What they ask of her is impossible.
Lili has protected her daughter by living a life full of secrets. Can she risk it all now and put her child in danger for the sake of her country?
An absolutely unforgettable and heartbreaking story of bravery, love and sacrifice that will keep you turning the pages and reaching for the tissues. Fans of The Nightingale and The Book of Lost Names will be swept away by this stunning novel.
Women's Fiction Historical [Bookouture, On Sale: July 12, 2024, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781837900053 / ]
I seem to have followed a rather meandering career, including marketing and teaching and politics (don't try and join the dots), to get where I have always wanted to be, which is writing historical fiction. I am a story lover as well as a story writer and nothing fascinates me more than a strong female protagonist and a quest. Hopefully those are what you will encounter when you pick up my books.
I am from the North of England but now live very happily in Glasgow with my American husband. Both my children have left home (one to London and one to Berlin) which may explain why I am finally writing. If I'm not at my desk you'll most probably find me in the cinema, or just follow the sound of very loud music.
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