The Dynamite Room
July 1940, the suffolk coast
England is under the threat of invasion. In the dead of night, a German Nazi officer swims to the shore and breaks into a boarded-up house, only to find a young girl, an escaped evacuee, hiding in the attic. Her family is gone.
He tells her he won't hurt her, but she cannot leave the house. Over the next five days, eleven-year old Lydia is held hostage in her own home. There are certain rules she must follow. But what is he doing there? And how does he know so much about Lydia's family.
Eerie, thrilling and piercingly sad, The Dynamite Room evokes the great tradition of war classics yet achieves a strikingly original and contemporary resonance. Hypnotically compelling, it explores, in the most extreme of circumstances, the bonds we share that make us human.
LONGLISTED for the DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE FOR NEW WRITING 2014
LONGLISTED for the AUTHORS' CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2015
SHORTLISTED for the NEW ANGLE PRIZE FOR LITERATURE 2015
A BARNES AND NOBLE's Discover Great New Writers pick of 2015
An option for a film adaptation of The Dynamite Room was purchased by Ivana MacKinnon of Stray Bear Productions (BAFTA-winning Beast), with Jamie Bell (Rocketman, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, Billy Elliot) to star. This is still in pre-production with Olly Blackburn attached as director (Donkey Punch, and TV dramas including Victoria, The Widow, and Jane Austen’s Sanditon), a script written by E V Crowe, and co-produced by Oliver Roskill of Record Player Films (BAFTA-winning Under the Shadow).