Sisters and Spies: Two remarkable sisters who risked everything as WWII Special Agents

Two sisters. Two special agents. One War.

Sisters and Spies is the incredible true story of British special agents Eileen and Jacqueline Nearne, two sisters who risked everything to fight for our freedom during the Second World War.

The death of an eccentric recluse is rarely an event to be given more than a few lines in a local newspaper. But when, in September 2010, police were called to a tiny, cluttered flat in Torquay and discovered the body of local ‘cat lady’ Eileen Nearne, they also found a small bundle of possessions that told an amazing story.

For Eileen Nearne had been an agent for the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War, going undercover in Nazi-occupied France to send wireless messages of crucial importance to the Allies. Astonishingly, Eileen was not the only special agent in the family – her sister Jacqueline had also been an SOE. Rarely had two members of the same family sacrificed so much to such dangerous work.

Sisters and Spies pays tribute to these fiercely patriotic women with hearts of courage, who fought for freedom at much personal cost. While Jacqueline narrowly avoided capture several times, tirelessly couriering secret documents for the resistance, Eileen was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo before being incarcerated at Ravensbrück concentration camp. She was only 23.

This is a true story of triumph and tragedy, of two sisters who sacrificed themselves to defend our freedom, who stood shoulder to shoulder during the darkest of days.

• Sisters and Spies is a story of family, secrets and courage, steeped in the nostalgia of the Second World War. It comes after the recent successes of nostalgic memoirs such as Call the Midwife (combined editions of which have sold over 500k copies TCM) and Below Stairs (TCM 55k copies), and builds on the interest in WWII generated by books such as The Secret Life of Bletchley Park (157k copies), The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz (130k TCM), All Hell Let Loose (114k copies), Forgotten Voices of the Second World War (72k TCM) and Agent Zigzag (56k copies). These have all been huge Sunday Times bestsellers, and Sisters and Spies certainly has the right ingredients to be as successful.

• The story of Eileen Nearne has already received significant media interest around the world, making headlines in The Daily Mail, Guardian, Telegraph and BBC, and articles also appeared as far afield as Australia, India and the United States.

• Although she hardly ever spoke about her role in SOE, Eileen Nearne did speak to a privileged few, Susan Ottaway – the author of this book – being one of them. Eileen told Susan firsthand about her colleagues, her work, the torture at the hands of the Gestapo, the motivation that enabled her to withstand the treatment she received, and her life after the war. This rare firsthand knowledge will bring a fresh approach to telling Eileen’s story.

• Eileen’s next of kin, her niece Odile Nearne, has given her complete support to this project, providing information that could only have been obtained from a family member. Both Susan and Odile will promote extensively on publication.

• This is an extraordinary and rare tale: there were very few families that had more than one member engaged in undercover work during the war, but the Nearne family had three (their brother was also an SOE for a short time). Brilliantly-written and thoroughly -esearched, Sisters and Spies will generate fantastic review coverage.