FREE Today: Library Blitz 5—Dropped Stitch

Are you ready for another episode of Library Blitz? I hope you are! I also hope you’re interested in a longer-than-average behind-the-scenes story. Because the background for Library Blitz 5 ended up being a process that surprised even me.

Sometimes when you’re writing fiction, the facts seem to fight you at every step. The poem you wanted to quote wasn’t published at the date you need it. The invention you wanted to spotlight arrives on the scene with a prohibitive price. The iconic personality was travelling the globe at the moment your character wanted to run into them at home. No matter how much you love writing it, the most exasperating part of historical fiction can sometimes be the history.

But then there are the days when the details just fall into place—the times when you’re just innocently writing, and you pull up a search window to answer a question, and presto! The story you wanted—and didn’t even know to ask for—is staring you in the face, perfectly packaged and ready to go.

Sometimes—It Just Works

That was the kind of historical perfection that fell into my lap during the final stages of editing Library Blitz 5. I was running through the manuscript, knowing that it needed to be handed over for typesetting that day, when my mind snagged on a detail in the opening scene. Frank mentioned a train wreck. A bad train wreck. The kind of train wreck he thought Nora might have heard about, at the other end of London, just through word-of-mouth hearsay.

I had made up the train wreck.

Trains were part of the WW2 world. Accidents sometimes happened. I needed a wreck. I wrote one in. Mission accomplished.

But now something nagged at my over-researcher brain. “How cool would it be if you had a real life train wreck to put in right here?”

And right on its heels, a memory. “You’ve got the railway accident database saved in your history folder, somewhere.”

I did. I had used it, in the past, for info on a Victorian wreck in a novel that didn’t end up getting much past the development processes.

Enter the Railway Archive

I hunted it up again, feeling modestly proud of my forethought and organization. After all, how cool is it to have something like that in your back pocket when you need it?

I typed in some search parameters. I pulled up the records for February, 1940 (already locked in as the timeframe for Library Blitz 5). I started doing a little exploration. And then my modest self-satisfaction melted slowly and surely into the awe that comes when you realize that this is going to be one of the incredulous times—one of the times when the details fall into place in ways that you simply can’t take any credit for.

Because there was a train wreck, in February 1940. A train wreck in greater London. A train wreck of proportions that meshed perfectly with the crash Frank had already described in my story. A train wreck with an investigative report that specifically identified the ARP as being involved in the rescue effort.

I was excited to share Library Blitz 5 with all of you before. I’m even more excited to share it with you now: the story of February 10, 1941.

Dropped Stitch—Library Blitz Five

Knitters only drop stitches by accident—right?

Nora has never counted herself a woolwork genius, but this much she knows. Dropped stitches and knotted yarn aren’t supposed to be part of the plan. That’s what makes Frank’s latest request so—completely baffling.

If Frank had had another choice, he wouldn’t have brought Nora into this escapade in the first place.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t got a clue how to turn a pile of tangled yarn into an ordinary-looking garment. And he’s already unravelled the one he used to have.

With an urgent message waiting to be communicated beyond the front lines, will Nora be able to smother her curiosity? Will Frank be able to burry his trauma? And will they both be able to ignore the questions that are burning to be asked? Or is it just possible that a tangled skein of yarn and a handful of knitting needles could actually hold the answers that both of them need?

If you love WWII fiction, heartwarming characters, inspirational lessons, and a tiny thread of squeaky-clean romance, then Library Blitz is the newest series you don’t want to miss!

Library Blitz Research Files

The Wartime Spies Who Used Knitting as an Espionage Tool—An introduction to the almost-too-good-to-be-true reality: spies, codes, and knitting really did collide during the Second World War!

Crafty Wartime Spies Put Codes Right Into Their Knitting—More info on the mechanics and history of knitting espionage.

Phyllis Latour: The Secret Life of a WW2 Heroine Revealed—BBC’s historical spotlight on one of Churchill’s “secret army” operatives who used—you guessed it! Coded knitting!—behind the lines in occupied France.

Working-Class Life in the 1940s: Washday—Admittedly, the only facts from this that actually made it into Dropped Stitch were embodied in a passing reference to yarn that had been boiled in a wash copper and run through a mangle. But in the process of digging up that one line, I came across this enchanting reminiscence of laundry days in the 1940s. I thought you all might enjoy!

What You Need to Know About Celluloid—Or at least, what your author needed to know about celluloid, the camphor-based early plastic, meant to imitate ivory, and used—among other things—to craft vintage knitting needles.

Mrs Gaugain’s Knit Polka Book—Because you all knew I didn’t just make something like that up! If I haven’t answered enough of your questions in the story, here’s your chance to explore this illusive garment—or is it a dance?—firsthand.

Modern Needlecraft—And of course, our knitting library wouldn’t be complete without Nora’s 1934 guide to contemporary knitting, as well!

Accident at Harold Wood—The invaluable Railway Archive comes through for us again! Here you’ll find a summary of the key details of the railway accident that Frank references. Perfect time, perfect scenario—I can’t take the credit for finding it, but I just love this resource!

Railway Accident Report—Here you will find a genuine scanned copy of Lieut. Col. G. R. S. Wilson’s typewritten report on the railway accident. Dated June 1941 this nine-page document offers a comprehensive analysis of the railway accident on a logistical level—as well as containing the golden sentence that identifies the ARP’s involvement in the emergency response.

More than Just Fiction

February 10, 1940, was a real day in real history. It was the day a 10:00 a.m. express train stalled on the Brentwood bank, just beyond Harold Wood Station, on its way from Liverpool Street to Norwich. At 10:46, it was hit from behind when a Southend-bound “stopping train” failed to respond to an emergency warning signal.

I talked earlier about the amazing feeling when historical details fall into place. But at another level, it’s a deeply sobering reminder, too. Because the Brentwood train wreck wasn’t a piece of fiction. It was a tiny sliver of genuine history—a real life tragedy in which seven people lost their lives, and almost one hundred sustained non-fatal injuries of varying types.

Under the glare of the big-stage footlights, stories like the Brentwood crash sometimes get lost in the shadows. It wasn’t an international attack. It wasn’t a bomb raid. It wasn’t, actually, a direct piece of World War Two at all.

But it still happened. It happened to real people. Real people who were already facing one of the most difficult chapters of their lives.

So as I introduce the fifth episode of Library Blitz today, I want to do it with a deeply-held respect for the all but forgotten stories this single tragedy represents: for the men and women whose lives ended before the Blitz was over—the men and women who never got to see the overarching narrative that we see, looking back at their world today. Their stories may have slipped past our ken, but their lives—like our own—are never a dropped stitch in the hands of God.

Download Your Copy of Library Blitz 5—Dropped Stitch

As always, today’s episode of is completely FREE during our three-day launch.

You can click below to grab your copy. I’d love to hear your thoughts, comments, and questions!

And if you’re not already a newsletter subscriber, here’s your chance to make sure you never miss another Library Blitz story. (I also, incidentally, just acquired a beautiful new signup form, so you’ll make my day if you jump over here to check it out!)

You can also grab last month’s chapter of Library Blitz right below:

How could facing her fears leave her feeling so—guilty? Nora’s wartime Christmas has turned out every bit as worthwhile as Frank promised, but there is still a troubling question that she can’t quite escape . . .

• ← FREE Today: Library Blitz 4—All Right