On my blog today, I am delighted to welcome ELISABETH STORRS, to tell you about her new novel Fables & Lies, a heartbreaking love story, set in Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Based on a true story, it is written from the perspective of a young German woman caught up in the machinations of the Third Reich.
Learn more about this intriguing book and read an excerpt from it here.
What is the book about?
Under a brutal regime, what price must be paid to preserve truth, treasure and love in a world built on lies?
WWII Berlin. Freyja Bremer, a patriotic museum assistant, marries Kaspar Voigt, an ambitious SS scholar, to protect her father. Yet she is unaware her husband is instrumental in Himmler’s twisted quest for Aryan supremacy.
As she strives to safeguard the priceless Priam’s Treasure from air raids, Freyja falls in love with Darien Lessing, an archaeologist who exposes the moral decay beneath the Regime’s myths. Her awakening drives her into perilous resistance — aiding a Jewish doctor and his wife, Darien’s sister — while uncovering Kaspar’s role in the SS’s darkest programs, which subvert history to justify invasion, abduction and murder.
As Berlin collapses into chaos and bloodshed, Freyja, caught between duty, deception and desire, must risk everything to preserve truth in a world built on lies.
A heartbreaking yet triumphant love story, Fables & Lies shines light on lesser-known aspects of the Nazi Regime. It gives voice to the complex moral struggles of German women, the forgotten resistance of Gentiles married to Jews, the dangers of contested history, the evils of Himmler’s racial studies program and the unsung bravery of German museum curators who saved their nation’s treasures.
Perfect for readers of Kelly Rimmer, Anthony Doer and Laura Morelli.
Trigger warnings: The book contains offensive Nazi ideology together with graphic war imagery (including rape) still birth and bereavement.
Praise for Fables & Lies:
“A heartrending story of a young woman caught in the machinations of the Third Reich and in the web of a regime-compliant family. The novel is meticulously researched and emotionally resonant, sure to delight readers who love a hearty feast of history in their fiction.”~ Olivia Hawker, bestselling author of The Ragged Edge of Night
“A powerful and heartbreaking story set in war-torn Berlin, FABLES & LIES charts the slow dawning horror of a young woman as she realises all she has been taught about Hitler and the Third Reich is a lie. Impeccably researched and sensitively rendered, Elisabeth Storrs has shone a light on little-known aspects of life in Germany under the Nazi regime.” ~ Kate Forsyth, bestselling author of Bitter Greens
“Written from the little explored German viewpoint, FABLES & LIES is a gripping account of the quest to save the world’s great antiquities during WW2 and an ode to those women and men who risked all for freedom. A beautifully written novel. I’ve never read anything like it.” ~ Nicole Alexander, author of The Limestone Road
“Elisabeth Storrs has indeed broken the mould by writing ‘from the other side’. Evocative, detailed and heart-rending as the heroine journeys through disillusion and danger in the Third Reich.” ~ Alison Morton, author of the Roma Nova series
“A chilling and meticulously researched journey into the shadow world of the Ahnenerbe. Blending historical rigor with gripping fiction, FABLES & LIES reminds us of the devastating consequences when history is twisted to serve power.” ~ Leah Kaminsky, author of The Hollow Bones
Read an excerpt
From Chapter One
Berlin, Thursday, 24 August 1939
Another day of perfect Führer weather was fading. The Spree River was bathed in golden twilight. Freyja cycled home beneath scarlet Swastika banners hanging slack in the sultry air.
Around her, Berliners enjoyed their evening entertainment. Lovers waltzed on open-air dance floors. Streetside cafés buzzed with chatter and laughter. Well-dressed couples strolled towards the theatre district, ready for an operetta or revue.
Pedalling past Artillerie Strasse’s tapered buildings, she spied the New Synagogue’s ribbed gilded domes towering above the streetscape. She loved its exotic Moorish architecture. It was fortunate it had been saved from destruction in last November’s violent pogrom. Many temples across the city weren’t spared.
Her family’s Linienstrasse apartment block had seen better days. Formerly a fashionable townhouse at the turn of the century, the building had been converted into flats. The pale blue paint on the stonework was peeling, the white scrolled pediments above the window frames sooty, the ornamental pilasters chipped.
She inwardly groaned to see Gisela Vogelsang ensconced on the window seat of her ground-floor apartment. With her hair dyed brassy red and eyebrows pencilled in high arcs, the buxom woman was a nasty carbuncle. Her watery blue eyes observed all comings and goings. Ever since she and her husband moved into the Horowitz residence, the number of denunciations in the neighbourhood had increased.
‘Heil Hitler, Frau Vogelsang,’ Freyja said, hurrying by.
The woman raised her hefty arm in a perfect rigid diagonal. ‘Heil Hitler! You’ve missed the excitement. Blockleiter Steiger ensured the Swing Kid got his comeuppance today. Gestapo officers left a few minutes ago.’
Freyja gasped. ‘Dieter arrested? He’s only seventeen.’
Gisela sneered. ‘They just roughed him up. Warned him to stop visiting secret jazz clubs to listen to dirty Negro music.’
‘I must get on,’ said Freyja. She wheeled her bike through the street door, anxious to check on poor Dieter. The interior was stifling, the heat of the day yet to dissipate. In the dim vestibule, the youth was curled in a ball at the bottom of the stairs. His hulking grandfather, Ernst Weber, hovered over him. Jagged shards of jazz records lay scattered around them. Dieter’s eyes were puffy slits, his cheek bruised. His hair was shorn roughly, the scalp bleeding.
Freyja hastened to Herr Weber as he tenderly lifted his dazed grandson in his immense arms.
‘We’ll be fine, Fräulein,’ said the porter when he saw her, his face as grey as his hair.
‘I’ll help you.’
He whispered, an edge to his tone. ‘Go. Steiger may still be watching.’
She resisted the urge to glance up to the next landing where Steiger, the officious Party Block Warden, lived. The fact he was responsible for Dieter’s punishment was no surprise. Other than the Vogelsangs, most were wary of him. He kept files on dozens of households in apartment blocks in the area. He’d revelled in persecuting the poor Horowitz family; triumphant he’d hounded them to emigrate to Amsterdam after Kristallnacht. Vati was scathing of him – a bully strutting around in a Storm Trooper’s uniform who’d been too young to see action in the war. Mutti was careful to keep on his good side, often baking an extra batch of gingerbread cakes for him.
Freyja reluctantly headed up the winding staircase; unnerved such harsh punishment was exacted for a taste in music. Why was jazz forbidden? Swing music was appealing, with its lively notes and infectious beat. And the orphaned Dieter was innocuous, with his scruffy hair and open-necked shirts. His widowed grandfather doted on him, prepared to turn a blind eye to the harmless rebellion of the boy’s music. She liked Dieter’s pep, amused by him using American slang. ‘Okay. Okay,’ he’d chirp, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Today, nothing was okay. Today, Dieter and his music had been silenced; the minims, crotchets and quavers splintered within the black shellac. Tomorrow, she would tell him not to let the Gestapo steal a tune from his head. Rob the melody from his heart.
Book details
Fables & Lies was published on 28th April 2026 by The Book Guild and is available from various outlets as an eBook and in paperback.
It is also available as an audiobook, published by Bolinda Audio and narrated by Lucy Tregear.
Universal Buy Link
*** Goodreads Giveaway ***
Check out this link for the chance to receive a free copy of Fables & Lies:
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/442105-fables-lies-a-wwii-novel-based-on-a-true-story
About the author
Elisabeth Storrs
Elisabeth Storrs has a great love for history and myths. She is the award-winning author of A Tale of Ancient Rome trilogy which was endorsed by Ursula Le Guin, Kate Quinn and Ben Kane.
Now her obsession lies with Trojan treasure and twisted Germanic prehistory in her new release, Fables & Lies: A World War II Novel.
Elisabeth is also the founder of the Historical Novel Society Australasia and the $155,000 ARA Historical Novel Prize. She lives in Sydney with her husband in a house surrounded by jacarandas.
You can connect with Elisabeth on social media:
Instagram • Pinterest • TikTok
Amazon Author Page • Book Bub • Goodreads
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Thank you so much for hosting Elisabeth Storrs today, and for sharing an enticing excerpt from her moving new novel, Fables & Lies.
Take care,
Cathie xx
The Coffee Pot Book Club