The Only Light in London

She took him in when no one else would. She didn’t expect to fall in love…

London, 1939. When Finley offers her spare room to refugee Sebastien, she sees relief in his haunted eyes. Forced to flee the hatred in Germany, Sebastien has been desperately lonely in his adopted country. Finley lost her father in the last war and feels a stab of empathy for the pain of this thin stranger, separated from his loved ones, far away from home. At first, Finley and Sebastien are like ships in the night, exchanging bashful goodnights in the corridor. But Finley quickly realizes that Sebastien is too terrified to sleep, plagued by thoughts of his smiling little sister being snatched by soldiers. 

As the London sky darkens with enemy planes, he slowly opens up to her over cups of cocoa in the kitchen. Every time Sebastien speaks to Finley, she finds herself inching closer to him, and soon love begins to grow. But when he tells her he wants to join the English army to fight the people who have forced his family to face such horror, she must silence her devastation in her heart. As the bombs rain down and the London streets empty, she knows she faces grave dangers. But she can’t hide away while the man she loves risks his life. She needs to do anything she can to defeat the enemy they all share. But the last war cost Finley so much. What will this one take?

Lily Graham is the author of the bestselling, The Child of Auschwitz, The Paris Secret, and The Island Villa, among others. Her books have been translated into numerous languages, including French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Turkish.

She grew up in South Africa, and was a journalist for a decade before giving it up to write fiction full time. Her first three novels were lighter, women's fiction, but when she wrote The Island Villa, a story about a secret Jewish community living on the tiny island of Formentera during the Spanish Inquisition, she switched to historical fiction and hasn't quite looked back since.

She lives now in the Suffolk coast with her husband and English bulldog, Fudge.