The ovens glow at sunrise. The rail-yards burn at [...] 1943 Nazi-occupied Bordeaux, German officers drink wine in riverside cafes. Nearby, French produce is loaded on to German ships. Enemy submarines glide up the Garonne to the submarine base.
SOE agents Marie-Louise and Emilie work undercover in a modest bakery close to the river docks. Marie-Louise is quiet, observant and invisible. Emilie is bold, quick tongued and impossible to intimidate.
They are trained to sabotage, kill, and endure Gestapo interrogation for as long as possible. By day, Marie-Louise bikes across the Pont de Pierre and delivers coded messages hidden in the handle-bars of her delivery bicycle to Jack, the wireless operator. By night she helps cripple supply lines feeding the German war machine.
Meanwhile, Jewish refugee Eve Abelmann faces impossible choices in Bordeaux: submit, flee, or starve.
And when the network's explosive success comes to the attention of the Gestapo, and Marie-Louise and Emilie take secret personal risks that could destroy the network and local resistance, Gestapo officer, Fischer, suspects that the scent of fresh bread is hiding something much more dangerous...One careless word. One suspicious glance. And everything burns.
From the streets of Bordeaux to the farms and villages of the Dordogne; from safe houses and abbeys to the forests where Maquis fighters wage their secret war, The Bordeaux Bakery sweeps readers into a world of espionage, moral compromise, and constant peril, where arrest, torture, and death are never far away.
Perfect for readers who love The Nightingale, Charlotte Gray, and the After Dunkirk series, The Bordeaux Bakery is a gripping WWII thriller inspired by true events. Meticulously researched and emotionally powerful, it is a story of loyalty and betrayal, resistance and sacrifice-and the extraordinary courage of women at war.
The Bordeaux Bakery is the second novel by Kate Duprez. Its sequel, The Bordeaux Betrayals, continues this enthralling WW2 story.