THE JERUSALEM SERIES

It is 1933 and two young women from very different worlds face an uncertain future. Both are in love, but both are faced with an impossible choice.

Marie Helder is a butcher’s daughter in a little town in Bavaria, as Germany begins its love affair with Hitler and National Socialism. She has a schoolgirl crush on a boy in her class. His family is rich, well respected - and Jewish.

Far away in Palestine, the centuries-old rhythms of sleepy Rab’allah have been disturbed by the building of a Jewish kibbutz on the swamp in the valley below. The Jews are the future, the twentieth century. The Jews are the enemy.

Sarah Landauer does not think of herself as anyone’s enemy - and neither does the young man she loves, Rishou Hass’an.

But his father is muktar of the Arab village, and he can see the future sweeping towards them, and it fills him with dread.

From the snow-hushed winter streets of Nazi Bavaria, to the burned hills of Palestine, from the Alte Post to the Al-Aqsa, four very different families prepare for the deadly conflicts to come.

Should Marie Helder and Sarah Landauer turn on those they love?

From the holocaust to the bloody creation of the state of Israel in 1948, romance and terror collide in a novel of ancient hatreds and forbidden loves.

1946: Marie Helder has fled war-ravaged Europe, and come to Jerusalem looking for peace and a place to heal. The man she once loved, before the war, has died in one of Hitler’s concentration camps.

Or so she thinks.

But Palestine is not sanctuary. She has fled one holocaust, into the cauldron of another.

As Palestine descends into violence, some still reach out for love; Rishou Hass’an still carries on his affair with a Jewish Haganah agent he met long ago labouring on her father’s kibbutz.

What will they all choose when the war comes?

High on the Hill of Evil Counsel in Jerusalem, one British official holds the key to the future of Palestine. If he cannot be bought then he must be persuaded.

As two nations wrestle with their shared past, Marie and Sarah are torn apart by love and loyalty.

Should they follow their hearts, or do they follow their flag, even if it means killing the people they love the most?

From the holocaust to the bloody creation of the state of Israel in 1948, romance and terror collide in a novel of ancient hatreds and forbidden loves.

1948, and the United Nations votes for partition, giving the Jews their own state for the first time since the time of the Romans. But in reality it just means all out war, with the armies of Egypt And Syria and Jordan massing on the borders waiting for the British to leave.

Two very different women with a very different past face the dilemma: whose side will they choose when the shooting starts?

Even if they choose new love over old hatreds, will their men choose them in return?

For nothing is simple now; Jew turns against Jew and Arab turns against Arab. And so the apocalypse looms, with the fight for the ancient shrines of Jerusalem the final battleground.

Should Marie Helder and Sarah Landauer follow their hearts, or do they follow their flag, even if it means killing the people they love the most?

From the holocaust to the bloody creation of the state of Israel in 1948, romance and terror collide in a novel of ancient hatreds and forbidden loves.