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| About the Book |
Book Title: The Enemy’s Wife
Series: Survivors of War Series
Author: Deborah Swift
Publication Date: 6th April 2026
Publisher: HQ Digital
Page Length: 380
Genre: Historical Fiction
Trigger warnings: Murder and violence in keeping with the era.
'A fast-paced, beautifully written, and moving story. Refreshing to read a book set in a different theatre of war. Wartime Shanghai jumped off the page' CLARE FLYNN
A poignant story of the impossible choices we make in the shadow of war, for fans of Daisy Wood and Marius Gabriel.
1941. When Zofia’s beloved husband Haru is conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army, she is left to navigate Japanese-occupied Shanghai alone.
Far from home and surrounded by a country at war, Zofia finds unexpected comfort in a bond with Hilly, a spirited young refugee escaping Nazi-occupied Austria.
As violence tightens its grip on the city, they seek shelter with Theo, Zofia’s American employer. But with every passing day, the horrors of war and Haru’s absence begin to reshape Zofia’s world – and her heart.
Can she still love someone who has become the enemy?
Readers love The Enemy's Wife:
'A gorgeous novel that will truly pull at your heartstrings' CARLY SCHABOWSKI
'I loved The Enemy’s Wife – a gripping, fast-paced and evocative story about the Japanese occupation of Shanghai during WW2 – and really rooted for the brave and selfless central character, Zofia. Highly recommended' ANN BENNETT
'Such an emotional and moving read, grounded in immaculate research that never overshadows the heart of the story' SUZANNE FORTIN
Buy Links:
Universal Buy Link: mybook.to/EnemysWife
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Author Bio:
Deborah used to be a costume designer for the BBC, before becoming a writer. Now she lives in an old English school house in a village full of 17th Century houses, near the glorious Lake District. Deborah has an award-winning historical fiction blog at her website www.deborahswift.com.
Deborah loves to write about how extraordinary events in history have transformed the lives of ordinary people, and how the events of the past can live on in her books and still resonate today.
Her WW2 novel Past Encounters was a BookViral Award winner, and The Poison Keeper was a winner of the Wishing Shelf Book of the Decade.
Author Links:
Website: www.deborahswift.com
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| read an excerpt |
Shanghai, 1941
Haru pinched his nose against the stench of rotting vegetation as he and the rest of the men rattled south through the countryside by train. The vast interior of the country had been flooded by the Chinese to stop the Japanese advance. The water had engulfed Henan, and Jiangsu, changing the course of the Yellow River, shifting it hundreds of miles to the south. Four thousand villages underwater, hundreds of thousands dead, and millions of peasants searching for somewhere to go. Talk about China shooting itself in the foot.
The railway line ran through this desolate land of stinking slurry, and still after all this time, the floating bodies of their Chinese enemies were a common, nauseating sight.
Haru thought of Japan, of its peaceful cherry-blossom lined gardens, of its Zen temples and onsens. He dreamt of those bathhouses, of the scouring of hot springs, of clean sweet-smelling skin, of jasmine soap and clean cotton yukatas. He thought of Zofia too, waiting for him in Kobe, of how they would start a family together once this war was over. If it was ever over. Impossible to imagine his shaking hands on her naked body. He gripped his fists as the train swayed, until the nails cut into his palms.
He'd had no concept of the vastness of China until coming here.
‘How much longer?’ his companion Yoshio asked.
‘Another hour.’
‘Do you know why we’re being deployed in Jinan?’
Haru shrugged. He’d learned never to question orders. ‘No, but I heard Chinese raiders keep trying to take the city back. We’re to be its defence.’
When he got off the troop train at Jinan he saw a city in ruins. The railway station was intact, but almost two thirds of the place was uninhabitable from earlier Japanese bombing. He wasn’t surprised; every city was indistinguishable from the next – each one a grey pile of rubble and dust, with shuttered streets where you had to step carefully, and you didn’t dare look too closely at the piles of rags on the ground, in case they were people.
Their barracks had been newly constructed but looked as if they had been there forever, so ingrained were they with grime blown off the streets.
Haru’s superior officer approached him after only one night in these desolate bunks. Haru shrank back but then found his backbone and stood straight. He’d been kicked until he bled by that same man.
‘Our commanding officer gave his life for the Emperor last night,’ he announced. ‘I am taking command in his place. You are therefore promoted to be my deputy.’
It hit Haru in the guts like a grenade. A shock wave that rippled up his spine. Best not to ask questions. He saluted as was expected, but knew this change in position would mean he’d have to inflict terror on his fellow men. Seasoned recruits were expected to beat new ones harshly, NCOs had to beat privates senseless, and officers were expected to beat NCOs unconscious.
His commanding officer wasn’t done yet. ‘You will get your ration of amphetamines, too, a perk of the promotion.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ It was well known the officers got meth. Haru wondered if it helped, or whether it made everything brighter and more vivid. That he couldn’t bear.
‘Dismissed.’
Haru crumpled as soon as he’d gone. As it was, his body was already divorced from his mind. His former self was closed like a scroll in a cabinet, whilst his body was here in this hell on earth.
At night he would occasionally let his old self loose, to write to his mother.
Last night I went out to a field of Chinese milk vetch and lay down, thinking about home. It smelled like you, Mother. It was the only beautiful thing I have seen in weeks. The delicacy of flowers reminds me of you.
He dared not write to Zofia. That part of him, the part that was in love, would be spoiled if it had to witness the killing machine he’d become. And now he’d have to hurt his own men. He pressed his uniform sleeve hard to his eyes and tried not to weep.
Haru’s days at the checkpoints to the city went slowly, his spine stiff with tension, fearing a Chinese dagger in the ribs every time darkness fell. One day, his friend Yoshio did not return from his patrol.
Broken by losing his only friend, and brimming with rage, Haru found the next Chinese person and disembowelled him alive as a lesson to the others.
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