Only Breath & Shadow

Only Breath & Shadow is set in the atmospheric and increasingly dangerous world of 1930s Vienna. The story follows Christian Drewe, an English gentleman who was blinded and scarred during the Battle of the Somme in the Great War. Now living in Austria, Christian has spent years navigating his surroundings entirely through sound, smell, and touch, building a quiet existence defined by consistent routines and sensory awareness.

The peace of Christian's world is shattered by the rise of the Nazi regime. As the dehumanisation of minorities becomes the precursor to systemic brutality, Christian's Jewish friends, the Friedmann family, find themselves in immediate peril. When Otto and Anna Friedmann are arrested and sent to concentration camps, Christian finds himself the unlikely protector of their four young children.

Aided by Claire Astor, a spirited American nightclub singer, and his fiercely loyal housekeeper, Frau Agnes Huber, Christian must transform from a passive observer into a man of decisive action. Together, they must navigate a city teeming with spies and informers to orchestrate a desperate escape for the children. Their mission places them directly in the crosshairs of Gestapo Major Ernst Schmidt, a man determined to root out those who would dare to aid "enemies of the state".

Weaving historical fact with fiction, including the true story of Gil and Eleanor Kraus and their mission to rescue fifty Jewish children, the novel highlights the need the moral goodness when the world is plunging into darkness. Only Breath & Shadow is a gripping tale of individual action against global indifference, reminding readers that in an era of encroaching shadows, it is our acts of sacrifice and love that truly define us.