The gripping novel of an alternative 1944 ... a heartbreaking tale of love, loss and heroism.
1944. After the fall of Russia and the failed D-Day landings, a German counter-attack lands on British soil. Within a month, half of Britain is occupied. Sarah Lewis, a 26-year-old farmer's wife, wakes to find her husband Tom has disappeared. She is not alone, as all the other women in the Welsh border valley of Olchon wake to find their husbands gone. With this sudden and unexplained absence, the women regroup as an isolated, all-female community and wait, hoping for news. A German patrol arrives in the valley, the purpose of their mission a mystery. When a severe winter forces the two groups together, a fragile mutual dependency develops. Sarah begins a faltering acquaintance with the patrol's commanding officer, Albrecht Wolfram, and it is to her that he reveals the purpose of his mission - to claim an extraordinary medieval art treasure that lies hidden in the valley. But as the pressure of the war beyond presses in on this isolated community, this fragile state of harmony is increasingly threatened.
Imbued with immense imaginative breadth and confidence, Owen Sheers' debut novel unfolds with the pace and intensity of a thriller. A hymn to the glorious landscape of the border territories and a portrait of a community under siege, 'Resistance' is a first novel of considerable grace and power.
