Everyone Brave Is Forgiven

War was declared at 11.15 and Mary North signed up at noon. She did it at lunch, before telegrams came, in case her mother said no… Nineteen hours later she reached St Pancras in clouds of steam, still wearing her alpine sweater. The train’s whistle screamed. London, then. It was a city in love with beginnings.

London, 1939.

Young, bright, and brave, Mary is certain she’d be a marvelous spy. When she is—bewilderingly—made a teacher, she finds herself defying prejudice to protect the children her country would rather forget.

Tom, meanwhile, finds that he will do anything for Mary.

And when Mary and Alistair meet, it is love, as well as war, that will test them in ways they could not have imagined.

Three lives entangled in violence and passion, friendship and deception, all inexorably shaping their hopes, dreams and futures.

Set in London during the years of 1939–1942, when citizens had slim hope of survival, much less victory; and on the strategic island of Malta, which was daily devastated by the Axis barrage, Everyone Brave is Forgiven features little-known history and a perfect wartime love story inspired by the real-life love letters between Chris Cleave’s grandparents. This dazzling novel dares us to understand that, against the great theatre of world events, it is the intimate losses, the small battles, the daily human triumphs that change us most.

An extraordinary story of love and honour in extreme circumstances, from the multi-award-winning author of The Other Hand.

'Ian McEwan did this with Atonement, Sarah Waters did it with The Night Watch, and Chris Cleave does it too with Everyone Brave is Forgiven...A compelling and finely crafted novel.' - FT

'A cracker' - Stylist

'His best book to date' - Esquire