London, spring 1939. Eighteen-year-old Ada Vaughan, a beautiful and ambitious seamstress, has just started work for a modiste in Dover Street. A career in couture is hers for the taking - she has the skill and the drive - if only she can break free from the dreariness of family life in Lambeth. A chance meeting with the enigmatic Stanislaus von Lieben catapults Ada into a world of glamour and romance. When he suggests a trip to Paris, Ada is blind to all the warnings of war on the continent: this is her chance for a new start. Anticipation turns to despair when war is declared and the two are trapped in France. After the Nazis invade, Stanislaus abandons her. Ada is taken prisoner and forced to survive the only way she knows how: by being a dressmaker. It is a decision which will haunt her during the war and its devastating aftermath.
'The Dressmaker of Dachau is a thrilling story, brilliantly told. I couldn't put it down. Ada Vaughan is a character to fall in love with: utterly real, flawed and beguiling' Saskia Sarginson, author of R&J pick, The Twins and Without You
Author
About Mary Chamberlain
Mary Chamberlain has lived and worked in England and the Caribbean, and is Emeritus Professor of History at Oxford Brookes University. Her book, Fenwomen, was the first to be published by Virago Press in 1975. Since then she has written many books on women's history, oral history and Caribbean history. She is a graduate of the acclaimed Creative Writing MA at Royal Holloway, University of London and now lives in London with her husband.
