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Occupied Norway, 1944. While the war rages on, Anni is surviving as best she can, contributing to the resistance whenever possible and standing firm without her sailor husband Lars, who she hasn’t heard from in three years. Her daughter Ingrid is the bright spot in her life and Anni is determined to keep her safe and happy. However, when a German official is billeted at their house, the situation for them both becomes far more dangerous, and Anni faces an impossible choice.
London, 1952. In the years since she moved to live with her father, young Ingrid has been trying to make sense of the disappearance of her mother just as peace in Norway was declared. She desperately holds on to the fact that Anni promised she would always come back for her and, undaunted, Ingrid sets out to discover what happened to her mother all those years ago.
‘I loved it. It broke me! Beautiful, heartbreaking and hopeful’ Liz Fenwick
Publisher : Allison & Busby
Format : Ebook, Audiobook, Hardback (5 December 2024) | Paperback (19 June 2025)
352 pages
My thanks to Rachel’s Random Resources for the tour invitation. I’m delighted to be one of the bloggers starting off the blog tour for The Silent Resistance. For my turn today I have an extract to share.
EXTRACT
The Silent Resistance is as much about the relationship between Anni and her daughter Ingrid as it is about Norway during WW2. The story starts with Ingrid not knowing where her mother is or what happened. All she knows is that everyone hates her for what she has done. For years Ingrid tries to find out.
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Runar was the worst. And it hurt so much more when Runar picked on her than when any of the other children did. He had been her friend, her best friend. Then the war ended, and everything changed.
‘Nazi spawn like you shouldn’t be allowed to go to school,’ he continued. ‘My father says you should all have been drowned at birth, and then… and then hung like those Nazi fathers of yours. You’re worse than that bastard Quisling, and he’ll be executed any day now, father says.’
He spoke so angrily, he was spitting in her face. Ingrid squirmed to get loose, but he only held her harder.
‘My pappa is in England, and he’s not a Nazi!’ she said.
‘As if anyone believes that. Why isn’t he here then?’ Runar was fuming. ‘Your real pappa is one of those Nazi officers. Admit it!’ He took a firmer grip on her collar.
The dress would tear, Ingrid knew that, and then she would have to lie to her grandmother about how it had happened. She didn’t want Famo to know what they were calling her pappa.
Ingrid made fists with her hands and tried to hit him. That only made him laugh. He shook her so hard she could barely breathe.
While he was holding her with one hand, he put the other in his pocket and pulled out a piece of charcoal. He looked at her, then drew something on her forehead with hard, angry strokes. Then he threw the charcoal away. Ingrid could hear it shatter when it hit the ground.
‘What did you do?’ she yelled. She tried to pull away again.
The collar of her dress tore, and she fell to the ground again. In the corner of her eye, she spotted other children gathering against the fence, cheering him on. Laughing and screaming at them.
‘Nazi bastard! Nazi bastard!’
Ingrid looked around for a way out, but there was another car coming, and she couldn’t run into the road. She didn’t know what to do. There was no place to run or hide.
Runar stood over her, feet apart, hands raised and a pained expression on his face. For a second she thought he was going to kick her. She tried to crawl backwards, away from him, but he followed her.
Ingrid swallowed. He wasn’t going to let her go this time. He would keep on beating her. Something inside her shifted. It felt as if she was burning.
‘I’m not a Nazi!’ she yelled, and managed to get up on her feet. ‘You’re the bastard!’
‘My father says your mamma is a Nazi slut, and that makes you a Nazi bastard! Everyone knows that!’ he shouted at the top of his lungs.
Ingrid lost it when he berated her mamma. She hurled herself forward and hit him with both hands in the chest, so hard he lost his breath and almost fell over.
‘My mamma is not a Nazi slut! Take that back, you … you ugly shit,’ she said, remembering a bad word her grandmother used. ‘And your father is a big, fat liar and bastard!’
Her tiny fists hammered at him, but he was a year older, and heavier and taller. Runar tried to hit her back, but by now she was so furious her hands kept hammering at him. The best he could do was to protect his face.
‘What’s going on here?’ One of the teachers came out from the schoolyard and pulled Runar away from Ingrid. ‘Stop that!’
While the teacher was holding Runar by the ear, forcing the boy to stand on his toes, she turned to the gawping children on the other side of the fence. ‘Anyone standing here in the next minute, will have detention for the rest of the month.’
In a flurry, the children scampered off and disappeared.
Ingrid barely noticed. She held her fists high, ready to defend herself from Runar again.
‘She started it,’ Runar muttered, not looking at her.
‘Liar!’ Ingrid yelled, trying to get to him.
The teacher pulled Runar further back. Ignoring Ingrid, she looked at the boy. ‘Did you do that to her face?’
Ingrid remembered the charcoal and touched her forehead. When she looked at her hand, her fingertips were smudged.
She scowled at Runar. ‘What did you do?’
The teacher still ignored her. ‘You know better, Runar. That’s detention for you for a week for fighting.’
‘But my father …’ Runar said, his lower lip quivering.
‘Yes, I know your father, but there’s no excuse for fighting. Especially not with a girl younger than you. One week,’ the teacher said, grim faced and clearly angry.
She finally looked at Ingrid.
‘And you. This is the second time you’re fighting. I don’t understand why you’re not like the other little girls. Run along home to your grandmother now,’ she said.
Ingrid caught her breath. She looked at her, determined to have her say. She pointed a shaking finger at Runar. ‘My mamma is not a Nazi slut, and my pappa lives in England,’ she said. ‘You’re a liar!’
The teacher looked at her, her eyes cold, and Ingrid knew. Her teacher believed the lies, same as Runar and everyone else.
Anna Normann is the pseudonym of authors Anan Singh and Natalie Normann, and it all happened because of a bet. Sometime in the nineteen eighties, while watching a movie with a so-so plot, they started arguing about improving the plot and how they could write a better story than that mess. And then Anan’s wife said ‘I bet you can’t’ …
Since then, they have published seven books together in Norwegian, exploring different genres. Their first novel, set in WW2, won a competition in 1995 for ‘Norway’s best entertainment novel’.
Author Social Media Links – https://linktr.ee/NatalieNormann
Purchase Link – http://tinyurl.com/2n6sr5b6
