Winter Games - Rachel Johnson

Winter Games is a dazzling tale of secrets and betrayal, and the perfect novel for fans of The Bolter by Frances Osborne, and all those fascinated by the Mitford sisters.

Munich, 1936. She doesn''t know it, but eighteen-year old Daphne Linden has a seat in the front row of history. Along with her best friend, Betsy Barton-Hill, and a whole bevy of other young English upper-class girls, Daphne is in Bavaria to improve her German, to go to the Opera, to be ''finished''. It may be the Third Reich, but another war is unthinkable, and the girls are having the time of their lives. Aren''t they?

London, 2006. Seventy years later and Daphne''s granddaughter, Francie Fitzsimon has all the boxes ticked: large flat, successful husband, cushy job writing up holistic spas . . . The hardest decision she has to make is where to go for brunch - until, that is, the discovery of a photograph of Daphne sends her on a quest to discover what really happened to her grandmother in Germany, all those years ago.

A dazzling tale of secrets and betrayal, Winter Games is powerful novel of innocent lives caught up in the march of history.

''Johnson has a brilliant eye for the telling specifics . . . She is a natural comic writer and has a breezy, Mitfordian tone that makes you laugh at the same time as wincing in recognition . . . To write an entertaining romp set against the backdrop of Nazi Germany is a tricky feat to pull off. Yet Johnson has done it - and done it in style'' Observer

''A rip-roaring read'' Evening Standard

''There''s never a dreary moment in this blast of a book . . . Johnson''s descriptions are irresistibly exuberant . . . As addictively, fizzily invigorating as the Alpine air itself'' Daily Mail

''Johnson delivers a genuine sense of time and place . . . there isn''t a dull sentence in this sure-footed novel'' Jenny Colgan, Telegraph

''An excellent romp. Full of ''tally-ho'' Mitfordian charm . . . a witty, fast read'' Red

''Excellent on period detail, the blundering innocent abroad and young heartbreak'' Sunday Times

''The Jane Austen of W11'' Scotsman

Rachel Johnson is a journalist who has written two previous novels and two volumes of diaries. The Mummy Diaries, Notting Hell, Shire Hell and A Diary of The Lady are all available now from Penguin.